a dog learns to toilet in a new place...maybe

I've always thought that, at a pinch, I would move heaven and earth to help Penny. Well, yesterday I started on the earth-moving. We have a set of stairs to reach the backyard and Penny's supposed to rest, so we thought we'd set up a toileting area on the back patio. Some phone calls to 'instant turf' companies ended in success, so off I went to collect one roll of turf, and we set up a nice little miniature garden for Penny's use.

But the patio is out of bounds for toileting, as she well knows. So nothing happened. I collected a little pile of poo and put it on the new grass. Nothing happened and it was back to lugging 17 kilos of dog up and down the steps. (I'm NOT young!)



'What do you mean, have a wee?' her body language said.



A wiser friend suggested we collect a patch of grass where Penny had already peed. So I carried her down once again and, of course, now that we were in the correct place, she urinated on command. (Good girl!)

Next job was to lug her back up the steps, close the gate to the patio and go down to do some digging.




'What are you doing down there and why can't I come and help? I'm a good digger.'



Okay... so carry the little patch of planet earth to the patio and insert it into the patch of turf.



And Bob's your uncle!

Oh, as to moving Heaven AND Earth? We're petitioning Heaven that Penny won't need surgery!