My dogs wear diapers.

Yes, you read that correctly. I have diaper-wearing dogs, otherwise known as Skip and Nellie. Only Callie sleeps au-naturel. So I ask you….

No question I’m an animal lover. In fact, I have a slew of them. But recently I’ve been forced to admit I may not be the greatest guardian. I mean, really. Who else do you know that diapers her dogs before bed? Nobody, right? I knew it. There’s something wrong with me.

All my animals use a dog door to come and go into the backyard. Well, maybe not ALL of them. There’s Skip, my incredibly adorable Corgi mix who sucks on a blanket like a baby with a pacifier. He hit a home run in the too-cute-for-words department but struck out when it came to having smarts. I call him my special child.

Skip and his ever-present blankie

Skip still struggles to figure out the dog door, if you can believe that. He sits in front of it, willing it to open like an elevator. Consequently, I can only assume he thinks it’s a door. If I tell him it’s open, he will go through it, otherwise he’ll wait there until he falls asleep. Believe me, I’ve tried everything to remedy this.

Now that coyotes are in my neighborhood at night, I lock the dog door before dark so my cats don’t galavant around the neighborhood, becoming coyote bait. But because Nellie is old and has urinary issues, she can’t make it through the night without needing to pee. Not just once but twice a night. So yours truly is sporting some rather hefty bags under her eyes. Not a flattering look on me.

Wrong kind of hefty bags

To remedy this, I put a diaper on Nellie and a belly band on Skip so they don’t continue to pee on the family room carpet now that the dog door is locked. Yes! I’ve outsmarted them. Uh, not so fast…

Nellie looks ridiculous (and a little embarrassed ) in her black diaper lined with a Kotex maxi pad. And as it turns out, she doesn’t fancy sleeping with a wet diaper. So she wakes me up to change it. Make that twice a night. I feel like the mother of an infant.

Skip, to his credit, couldn’t care less if he’s wet. What he cares about is sleeping next to me and if he isn’t, I hear about it. You see, he’s too short to jump up on the bed so when he jumps off, yours truly must lift him back on. And yes, about twice a night.

I tell ya, something’s gotta give. I may have to close the cats in another room at night to leave the dog door open. But I’ll be hearing about it from them as well. My cats are not shy at vocally expressing their dissatisfaction.

Oliver

Tippi

Savannah

Let’s just say I don’t see a full night’s sleep in my near future. Or ever. Now don’t get me wrong; I still adore my pets but they make me believe I would have made a lousy mother.

Lastly, to top it off, I found pee on the carpet last night. I know it wasn’t the cats, as they’re faithful litter box users. So that leaves Callie as the culprit. And here I thought she had the bladder of a camel. But here’s the topper: Callie has only 3 legs and the missing one happens to be a hind leg.

Now here’s my dilemma. How do I diaper a 3-legged dog?