A few weeks ago, you may recall reading about an epic battle that my parents’ dog waged against me and Deserae. Well that was such a great experience, that we decided to do it full-time! On Monday, we brought home a puppy.

The puppy is a cavapoo named Nugget. What is a cavapoo, you may be wondering. Actually, I know you are wondering, because every time I’ve told someone (including the vet) that our dog is a cavapoo, they scrunch up their nose and say “WHAT IS A CAVAPOO?!” A cavapoo, according to the dictionary, is a small, poofy ball of adorable.

Nugget McChicken Brady

Since coming into our house, Nugget has focused all his energy on being as adorable as possible. He constantly carries things far too big for his head. He somehow manages to stay within two inches of your foot at all times without getting crushed. Just now while I’m writing this, he’s begun squeaking in his sleep. How adorable is that?

Unfortunately, I have not been able to fully enjoy these acts of adorableness since I’ve focused all of my energy on not accidentally killing the dog.

I am, for example, not known for my ability to hold live things. When someone hands me a baby, I cradle it in my arms like one might cradle a squirming porcupine. “Just hold it like a normal person!” Deserae says. “You’re not going to kill it!” I then adjust the baby in my arms so all of its limbs stick straight out.

When it came time to hold the dog for the first time, I took a deep breath, held out my arms and received him like one would receive a flopping marlin. Nugget played the part perfectly by flopping for his life. “JUST HOLD HIM LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!” Deserae yelled while trying to keep Nugget from plummeting to his death.

He flopped and flopped, but – this is important to note – did not plummet.

The next crisis was the water. Nugget was having none of it. The first night – nothing. Then the morning – nothing. I started to panic. What if he has some weird thing about drinking from bowls? What if he never drank again? What if the vet found out our dog died of dehydration and blacklisted us from ever getting another puppy?

I swirled the water in his bowl enticingly. Nope. I reminded him that we’d bought special distilled water just because his supply sheet said, even though we had perfectly good free water at home. No dice. I got down and all fours, put my face millimeters from the bowl, made slurping sounds and said “yum!” repeatedly. Not even that worked.

In despair, I turned to Google. I was knee-deep in crazy schemes involving ice cubes, Gatorade and stews when I heard slurping sounds. I looked up to find Nugget drinking water on his own. Crisis averted.

The biggest crisis, of course, has been potty.

As of this writing, Nugget has been in our home for 18 hours. I have spent 16 of those hours staring at his butt. Every time Nugget so much as begins to squat, I swoop in and carry him floppy marlin style to the backyard. And every time, Nugget sits in the grass and looks at me like, “I don’t know what you’re staring at, but maybe you should try putting these leaves in your mouth because it’s really fun.”

Not only was Nugget not going to the bathroom outside, he wasn’t going to the bathroom period. It quickly became clear that it could take months for the dog to happen to pee at the same time he was outside, and an act of God for him to associate the two.

“I think we should take him out in the middle of the night,” Deserae said.

“Really?” I asked as I watched Nugget try his best to tear a piece of grass from the ground.

“Yeah.”

So at 2 a.m., my alarm went off, and I walked to the side of the bed to let Nugget out of his cage. When I opened his door, he squinted at me like, “Are you kidding?” I picked him up and he flopped like a floppy fish all the way downstairs. I plopped him in the cold, wet grass and stared at him. He stared back. For five minutes, we stared and shivered in the dark before I finally agreed with him that this was a dumb idea and brought him back inside.

The next morning, we did the same thing with the same result. Three more times that morning. Nothing. Then at 11:30, he squatted in the grass. I held my breath. His tail went up. I got closer. He then produced the most beautiful nugget I’ve ever seen.

I threw the party of a lifetime. I jumped up and down, ran around and gave Nugget a treat so big that he kind of choked. “POTTY!!!!!!!” I yelled to Nugget and all of Bagley Road.

The potty party scared Nugget. He may never poo outside again.

LIFE LESSON #92

Dogs are harder to kill than you’d think.