We can't take you anywhere!

One thing to know about Dante, my 5 year old black lab/border collie mix -- he squats to pee. It's the funniest thing to see a male dog squat, but he does. Not as much as his sister, but he never lifts his leg when he has to urinate. When he was younger, we really thought this was strange, but our trainer assured us that there was nothing wrong, so we didn't worry about.

One day two years ago we were walking the dogs and suddenly Dante lifted his leg and urinated on a mailbox. We were so excited that he finally grew up and at age three learned to pee properly. Then we noticed that he only did it when we were out walking. If he was in the backyard he still squatted. We realized that he only leg lifted if he was marking his territory -- he was still a squatter when it came to peeing. Luckily he kept his marking to a minimum and it wasn't too annoying.

Until recently. Saturday we went to buy fresh strawberries at the farmer's market and took the dogs with us. On our way home we stopped at Bark 'n Purr to pick up food for the dogs. Doug had Dante and I had Allegra and we looked at buffalo bones, all sorts of goodies, and other dogs. Doug and Dante were walking down the aisle with the collars when suddenly Dante lifted his leg and started peeing all over the leather collars. I was mortified! He hasn't urinated indoors since he was a pup. Dante just decided this was the time to start showing his manliness. Doug got napkins and cleaned up the mess, but got out of there as quickly as possible. No treats, no goodies, just pay for the food and leave. We were both embarrassed.

We just figured this was a one-time thing, after all, he had never done that before. And the collars were leather. Dante has a thing for leather, given the number of Doug's wallets he's destroyed. We weren't worried that there would be a repeat performance.

The next day Doug was running errands and took the dogs with them. One of the stops was Petco, to buy a storage container for their food. Doug has both dogs by the leash, walking down the dog food aisle, when suddenly he feels a tug. He looks back and there's Dante, hiking his leg and urinating on a bag of Iams. Doug starts pulling on the collar, dragging Dante, who is in mid-stream and peeing all over the floor. Doug is ready to find a large rock and crawl under it. Instead he quickly makes his way to the register, checks out, and hopes no one is the wiser. Maybe the employees will blame the puddle on the cocker spaniel.

So now our sissy-boy squatter is finding the need to mark his territory all over town, much to our chagrin. Needless to say, it will be awhile before Dante goes back to a pet store.