Why having a dog changes your life: Loving them even when they poop on the carpet

He's getting old now our Luey and recently he seems to not know when he's going to need to go for a number two. One minute he's lying there the next minute he's rushing towards the doors and its a race between you and his butt muscles. His age is something we're still coming to terms with and he changes day to day, sometimes he's Mr Grumpy and sometimes he's a puppy bounding all over the place. 

The toilet thing started off in the night. We'd let him out like usual before bed, but at some point in the night he'd wake up needing to go and instead of crying to wake my mum up he stares at her for a bit and then gets too desperate. He's never really developed a bark or a cry. He only does these things around other dogs, therefore he's never really used them with us and unfortunately therefore all he does is stare at you if he wants something. Once you're awake he'll talk to you in low noises, but otherwise you'll need to develop spidey senses! Knowing it wasn't his fault we did our best to prevent this from happening, giving him his tea earlier, taking him for short walks round the block before bed. This seemed to solve the problem of pooping in the night (touches wood). 

However the recent problem of having accidents during the day seem to be harder to prevent. He tends to get so distracted by going around the kitchen licking crumbs off the floor that he forgets that he needs to go out and therefore it end up as a race to the back door with a trail nuggets a long the way. We now put him out as soon as he's eaten (we've always done this but now we do it even if he doesn't want to) and this on the whole works as long as we're on it. 
Yesterday was a different thing though. I'd just made lunch of brown pasta with tuna and sat down to eat it with the dog lying next to me. He stood up to sniff at my food, and then lifted his tail. I knew what was about to happen, he knew what was a bout to happen, but neither of us could move fast enough. Now as much as I love and adore Luey, nobody wants to clean up poo when their about to eat. I let him out the back door and I cleaned up the mess whilst he sniffed at the conifers in the garden. I scratched his ears and told him it was ok, and went back to eating my lunch, because loving a dog is loving them even when they poop on the carpet.