Last week, I wrote about our new puppy, Nugget. At that time, Nugget had been in our home for less than 24 hours. When I wrote that post, I was young and silly and naïve. Way back then, I was worried about holding the dog wrong and getting him to drink and training him to go to the bathroom outside. If Nov. 11 Dustin could step back in time and give Nov. 4 Dustin some advice, he’d tell him to settle down. You’ll figure out how to hold him, Nov. 11 Dustin would say. The dog will drink eventually. And potty training…

…Well, maybe worry about potty training a little.

Don’t get me wrong, potty training is actually going pretty well. I just didn’t realize when we started that potty training is like a game of chess. As long as you can outsmart an 8-week-old animal, you win. The thing is, I’m really bad at chess.

Last Tuesday when Nugget laid his first nugget outside, I made my first wrong move. I threw the world’s biggest potty party for Nugget. In last week’s post, I worried that my party was so loud that I’d scared Nugget into never going to the bathroom outside again.

That was foolish.

It turns out that Nugget enjoys parties very, very much. He enjoyed that first potty party so much that he decided to do whatever it would take to get another one. So when we went out again, he pooed again. Another party. Then another trip outside. Another poo. Another party. The problem is that there are only so many nuggets inside Nugget.

So on the fourth trip, Nugget worked very, very hard to produce another party. Unfortunately, the magic was gone. The result was a not-quite fully baked nugget that did not quite make it to the ground. There may be a scenario more humiliating than sitting on one’s porch, wiping a dog’s behind, but I can’t think of one right now.

The solution, I determined, was to throw just as big of a party for number 1 as number 2. Unfortunately Nugget does not lift his leg like a man when he pees. He does not even really squat. He just stands there. Because of this, I kept missing the moment and missing my opportunity throw a party. To tell the difference between a sniff and a pee, I started following the dog around the yard with my head bent all the way to the ground. If it was dark, I’d shine a flashlight at his undercarriage. Any time he stopped, I’d get real quiet and lean in real close.

Come to think of it, that’s probably more humiliating than wiping his butt.

This tactic worked well for encouraging the dog to go to the bathroom outside, but it didn’t do much to discourage him from going inside. The vet had a solution.

“You’ve got to catch him in the act,” she said. “When you do, pick him up and run like a demon outside.”

The next day, I got my chance to run like a demon. I was working on my computer at the kitchen table when I realized that the dog had stopped biting my pant leg. I looked over and sure enough, he was pacing around the other side of the kitchen.

I silently stood. Nugget paced some more. I bent over to get a better view. Nugget squatted. I took off like a demon.

I’m not entirely sure what happened next, but it involved sliding halfway across the kitchen and grasping for anything that could keep me from falling on my head.

Unbeknownst to me, Nugget had already delivered a pre-emptive strike on the hardwood floor. When I was two feet from him, my bare foot landed in a giant yellow puddle and I slid like I’d just run over a Mario Kart banana. Nugget bounded across the room with glee.

Mastermind.

Over the next few days, Nugget got better and better about going outside. Then he discovered the chicken grease.

Over the weekend, I smoked some delicious chicken and dumped the grease behind our sun porch. On Monday, Nugget found the grease. He’d never smelled anything so glorious in all his days.

After that, Nugget could think of nothing besides sweet, sweet chicken grease. He scratched the door. He tried to squeeze his body under the deck railing. He almost jumped to his death. None of that worked, so he came up with a different plan.

While playing in the living room, he peed under the desk. Deserae picked him up and ran like a demon outside. Nugget immediately sprinted to the grease and dug his nose into it. Deserae brought him back into the house, and a few minutes later, he peed again. This time, when Deserae ran to him, he jumped up and wagged his tail, ready for his free helicopter ride to Greasetown. Deserae stopped and stared at him.

Suddenly, it became clear. The whole time, we’d been playing checkers while the dog was playing chess.

LIFE LESSON #93

It’s hard to win chess when you’re not even good at checkers.