The next day, I packed up Chewie into the car, and set off to the office. Everyone loved him. He was so cute! One of our engineers got right down on the floor and started talking baby talk to the dog: "Does he like the tummy scratchies? Yes, he likes the tummy scratchies!" All in all, Chewie was a big hit, and he reveled in the attention as dogs so often do.
Now, there's one small problem with taking a dog somewhere that is not your home, and that is the whole "house breaking" thing. House breaking (or house training) a dog has a lot to do with smell. The dog basically learns that this particular collection of smells is "den" and other particular collections of smells are "outside." Dogs mostly understand "den" and "not-den" and while they can learn that this other collection of smells is also "den," well, you do have to sort of let them know that.
I found out about this problem when I took Chewie into the boss's office. While I was talking about something or other in the new software, Chewie placidly turned around a few times, snuffled around the floor, and took a very matter of fact dump in the middle of the room.
My boss and I just looked at the dog. Then the dump. Then back to each other.
My boss cleared his throat as I stood there, caught between utter horror and the almost-irresistable desire to laugh.
"You know," he said, "A lot of people have given me a lot of shit over the years." He paused for a moment before continuing, "But never quite this literally."
The laughter won.
