I am positive that I shouldn’t have laughed. But when I saw Jackie (small, white puppy) leap into the air and onto the back of my dog Junee (medium-sized black dog), I covered my mouth to stop the giggling. It was nowhere near as graceful as Regina King in “The Harder They Fall” or Idris Elba in “Concrete Cowboy.” Still, she made it onto Junee’s back and was immediately bucked off. June was not having it. I knew seeing J&J (my nickname for me and my mother’s dogs) would be eventful, but this was straight-up comedy.
That is, until Jackie decided to poop and pee on my laminate floors, bypassing the pads and refusing to release herself on three walks. This puppy patiently waited until she returned to my home to Christian my floors again and again. When I adopted four-month-old Junee, she did the same thing. After a couple of months of crate-training techniques, Junee was good to go. (I was very worried about this initially because Dachshunds are documented by pet sites to be harder and more stubborn to train. But Junee bypassed the weight and height of a Dachshund, further proving she is a crossbreed of some sort.)
Minus one diarrhea weekend, I cannot recall Junee relieving herself on my floor in more than a year. So I was left with one question: Would my fully crate-trained dog revert to her younger habits while being around a rambunctious, untrained puppy?