the slippery slope that is my life (quite literally in a gross way)

does anybody know how to get blood out of a clown suit?

oh, wait – i was supposed to post that question somewhere else. you probably should ignore that.

scratch “probably” – for plausible deniability purposes we’ll say you DEFINITELY should ignore that. moving on – what i MEANT to ask is if you know how to get dog pee smell off concrete floors. not to where WE can’t smell it – i have something that will do that (fabuloso! – not be going bilingual on you; that’s what the cleaning product is called). but for them? and i can’t go with some expensive as hell shit from petsmart – i need a cheapo remedy here.

not to put my girl on blast here, but miss copper’s been going through a bit of a regression period lately. in her defense, i’ve been regressing in how i treat her, all be it in ways she really likes. see, when she first got here in summer of 2002 she was allowed to wander the house; but a nasty “tear shit up” habit coupled with an even nastier “use the whole house as my toilet” habit necessitated crating the little girl when i was asleep or away. but then in the last few months she started getting in this nasty habit of barking in the middle of the night and waking me up; and after several WEEKS of sleeping in (quite literally) ninety minute spurts i noticed that when she was out, and able to sleep on one of her comfy dog pillows, she would be silent…and before you go with the obvious call, putting a pillow in her crate did NOT fix the problem. so one night i simply left her out with run of half the house – so that way if she DID pee or tear anything up i could spot it in a heartbeat.

and i got my first good night’s sleep in what seemed like FOREVER.

now, i’d already started leaving her out with run of the house whenever i was running errands or doing something around town where i’d only be gone for an hour or two and that had been successful – with her sleeping out of the crate it was only a natural progression that she start just staying out full time when i was away at work, too. surprisingly budnik’s actually been pretty cool with this so far, i should add. but this is where the problems started, because like the miss copper of old, after a couple of weeks she started getting a little TOO comfortable with things, and while there hasn’t been any destruction yet (that happens and this INSTANTLY ends for good) she has started using my dining room as her toilet.

after it happened a couple times i crated her when i was away from the house – only for her to mess her crate. used to not be a problem, but NOW it’s a problem? and the peeing (and such) in the dining room always happens in the same spot, so i think she’s just smelling it and thinking it’s “her spot”. as much as i hate her doing it, it is a hell of a lot easier to throw down some paper towels and swiffer rather than fully scrub out a crate when i get home from work – but will she get back where she was or is this a permanent senior trait for my girl? lord, i hope it’s not the latter…