Wet dog

It's really raining today. Rained all morning. Forecast says it is going to rain all afternoon.

Anyone in the mid-Hudson Valley knows that. It's not exactly news.

But anyone with a dog knows that days like this are when we earn the big karma bucks.

The other day it was raining and I told a colleague that I was running home during lunch to let Kate out. He said, "In this weather?"

When you have a dog you don't get to decide "oh, it's drippy out so we'll just stay inside all day."

Luckily Kate is usually focused when it's raining; she doesn't exactly like being out in the cold and wind and wet either. One of the neat tricks we learned from our trainer was to condition the dog to "go" on command. It's not 100 percent, but the word will usually bring her back around to the task at hand if she's spending too much time checking her "pee-mail."

For the record, with us, it's "hurry up" for peeing and "do your business" for, uh, the other. (You start by saying the word or phrase every time the dog does whatever it is the word or phrase is going to be associated with. Every time. Every single time. Until the dog links it with whatever.)

The first time it really worked I was beside myself. It was one of those cold, slushy post-snowstorm Manhattan mornings. I said "hurry up" and Kate peed immediately. Lots of praise was heaped on Kate then.

This morning I was hoping she would shake her wet self on the front porch. I waited; she almost shook; I waited; she almost shook. Nothing, so we go inside.

Kate held off for about two minutes — until she got right beside the bookcase in the living room. No first editions, so no big deal.

We'll have to go out again before I leave for work.

It's still raining.