Man v. Puppy - Round 1

There seems to be but one living thing on this planet that can manipulate my understanding of what it is to be a man. Some would say women do this to men, or rather, that men do it to themselves based on what Johnny Radar needs, but, no, women and sex drives are catalysts for self manipulation. I'm talking about third party manipulation. Puppies, it seems, have a way with getting their way when they are being cute - and our new puppy, Walter, has mastered his temporary art.

Round 1: Teaching Walter How To Pee

Well, I figured the best way to teach Walter how to pee was to actually go outside and urinate on the grass. You know, lead by example, visually stimulating the wee pup. I punned it. I don't care. I'd been doing this nightly, for discretionary purposes, about 5 days and it became clear to me that two awkward and embarrassing things would probably happen at some point in the future: 1) I'd get caught by one of my neighbors or 2) he'd eventually get curious and I'd accidentally pee on him.

As I was contemplating the scene of the nice elderly woman next door actually catching me mid-lesson, for a second, I lost sight of the black-and-tan long hair dachshund against the black ink of a 10 o'clock winter night, and wouldn't have found him save for his desire to find out what exactly I was doing. I noticed, first, the sound of urine flowing over fallen leaves had diminished considerably from a cymbal-like clash of kidney-filtered sweet tea attacking the crispness of vintage oven baked Valentine's Day cards (I do this every once in a while, to capture the warm memories) to the sound of gutter rain, saturating the soaked straw of our back door welcome mat.

Although, the more I think on it, having a welcome mat on the back door seems too hip.

Sure enough, I was peeing directly on his head. But before I moved my stream, there was a split of the splittest of seconds, which I can only analyze as thus: he couldn't figure out where the stream was coming from, and was fascinated with the fact he changed the course of what I consider my natural flow.

There were many lessons learned, but ultimately, be wise and keep your eyes on your puppy at all times. Especially when genitals are involved.