A Determined Dog vs. a Simple Human

I can't believe it has come to this. It's absurd, really. After years of fighting the good fight, doing everything we could think of short of this and thousands of dollars in vet bills, we realized that there is just something so deeply-rooted in my dog's psyche that he simply cannot control himself when it comes to the kitchen garbage (well, really any garbage, but kitchen most of all).

No amount of swatting his rear with a newspaper or hand has deterred him, no amount of positive reinforcement training has worked, he goes back for the rush every time. After the recent trips to the Pet Hospital (see the Weekend Grosses post), you might think he'd put 1 and 1 together and figure that his recent illness may have had something to do with his raiding the trash can. Oh, no. After we got him home and healthy again, he waited. He waited for the first opportunity when we weren't paying attention. Then, sure as the sun rises, we heard the garbage can hitting the deck. So, we give. He won. We'll never be able to break his habit.

But we have found a way to defend the garbage (and in turn, the dog's stomach). It's ludicrous. This is the kind of thing you see and think "Boy, how do you spend $XX on THAT?" What is it? Our new Simple Human 38 liter garbage can. $99 at Lowes. You read that right, $99 for a freakin' trash can. My grandchildren better be passing this can down to their grandchildren.


So far it has worked. What makes it special? The liner isn't exposed, first of all. He would pull on that sometimes to knock it over. But probably most importantly, he can't push the lid up on this to gain access to the garbage. The lid sits inside the lip of the can, so there's nothing he can get his nose under to push up. And lastly, this is heavier. It's not heavy per se, but compared to the plastic Wal-Mart standard issue model we had before, it's hefty, so the dog has a much harder time knocking it over. It's really nice as garbage cans go, but I still can't believe we spent 100 bucks on the thing. But we exercised restrain in that we could have gotten the 50 liter size for a paltry $179. If there is such a thing as loving your pet too much, I think we are definitely treading close to the line. It may be in the distance compared to other people and their pets, but I think I can see it from here.

Dave