Love her or leave her?

Not Amanda - the dog is who I am talking about. Why on earth did I ever pad train my dog? I thought it would be so much simpler to do it this way rather than have to take her out in the weather, or leave her kenneled all day when we are gone, but I am really, really second guessing this decision. Case in point, last night we forgot to lock Daisy up in her bed so when Ben came downstairs this morning he looked around to see if she had got into anything while we slept. He saw nothing immediately. He leaves for work and thinks nothing more of it. Well when I came down an hour later after my shower she has left some really disgusting, questionable remains on her pad. It is obvious that she has eaten a diaper from somewhere- - it is sad that I can tell this just by looking at her little poopies. So I go on my quest through the house to find what I know I will find. Sure enough, upstairs in the kids bathroom is the remnants of a diaper all shredded and eaten on the floor. So I get to clean up this disgusting mess. I then proceed downstairs to clean up her pad and mop the floor where she is. I fold the pad all up and ask William to carry it carefully to the garbage can. As my luck would have it one of the corners slips from his fingers and he spills the contents all over the kitchen floor. My patience is all but gone now. Don't worry, I did not blow up at him - - it was not his fault- - I just counted to ten, finished laying out a new pad, went to the kitchen to clean up yet ANOTHER mess from this lovely dog of ours. What stinks (no pun intended) is that this is a daily occurrence here at my house. Cleaning up her pad that it is. I love our dog. The kids love her. She is fun and energetic and it really is not her fault that she has to defecate and void and we just so happened to train her how to do it on those stupid puppy pads for our convenience. I just don't know what to do to save my sanity.

She is really quite amusing at times. In fact, at this precise moment while I type she is attacking the window with her little paws because there are bees flying around just outside of it and she is desperately trying to get at them. Kind of cute.

Perhaps when we move we will just have to install a doggie door and re-train her on where she needs to do her business and my nerves will then get a break. My kids make enough messes for me to deal with without having to add a dog to the mix.