Clearly the vision of the Puppyopticon is the sort of philosophical/technological vision that keeps mankind marching forward, but today's events have outlined a number of shortcomings in what is otherwise a perfect machine of behavioral correction.
It begins around 7:00am, when Clyde began making his patented “pitiful crate yowl” which he does anytime he thinks it's necessary he be let out of his crate. Generally he's fairly honest about this, and has a valid reason, such as a need to spray ass, or a need to get out of a crate he has already sprayed ass in. Since he's been spraying ass lately (including a nice pattern on the stairs down to the basement), I decided to let him out.
In this case, he didn't seem to have any more diarrhea, but because I failed to correctly latch the dog enclosure yesterday, and Clyde knocked over the food bucket and helped himself, he apparently had a whole lot of material stored up in his pooper. He took a pretty serious dump, I'd say it was about three full “normal” dumps worth, and seemed satisfied with himself. However, in the process of observing Clyde, I noted that Cappy was now on diarrhea duty, and was spraying a nice stream of his own.
The dogs don't like to go too long without at least one of them having some sort of stomach distress which leads to shitting or puking in the house.
In any case, I brought the dogs back inside, and noticed that Cappy might be developing the start of dingleberry ass, but since it was 7:00 am, I just put them in their crates and went back to bed.
When I finally got up and let them out for their breakfast, I noted a poop stink in their bedroom, but found nothing in the crates. After breakfast I let them in, and noticed that Cappy was now sporting a serious case of dingleberry ass. Not just dingleberries, in fact, but his entire ass fur region was soaked and matted with shit. Needless to say, I was filled with joy. I gave him a 45 minute bath, complete with anus scrubbing, which I'm sure filled both of us with pride. Then I took a shower myself, to cleanse the shit residue off, and found that I had used the hot water on the dog. So that was cold and wonderful.
Once Cappy was mostly dry, I took him into the kitchen and attempted to use some scissors to trim down his ass fur, so it wouldn't get shit laden quite so readily. His brother helped this along by attacking him, and fairly rapidly Cappy became completely unwilling to stand still for any length of time. I was forced to lock Clyde in a bathroom, then wrap a leash around my waist, hook it to Cappy so couldn't escape, and then work on his butt. With his brother shrieking pitifully from the bathroom, and fumbling with the door handle, Cappy seemed to feel secure enough to let me trim his butt hair. Again, a nice period of bonding for both of us, and a moment we'll no doubt remember fondly.
As I finally began my work day, Cappy and Clyde began performing some sort of bizzare ritual in which Cappy would walk around the basement looking sheepish, and flatulating in a loud, human-like fashion, and Clyde would try to inhale as much of the fart gas as he could possibly manage. This continued for some time, and was alarming enough that I let them both outside, but all Cappy did was piss out the 5 gallons of bathwater he drank while I was washing his anus earlier in the day.
So, back downstairs we went, and the dogs went into their normal routine of jabbering like wookies and chasing each other around. I'm not sure what tipped me off, perhps it was the sudden lull in the action, or perhaps it was the bubbling, squirting sound, but I turned around just in time to see Cappy in a full on squat, spraying ass at the base of the basement stairs. Both dogs understand that they need to go outside to pee and poop, but both also seem to feel that when they have diarrhea, all bets are off. I yelled at Cappy at this point, and smacked him on the butt, but he seemed very happy, and ran gleefully upstairs to be let outside.
As I have done countless times before, I used a spatula to scoop the poop sludge into a cup, disposed of it, and then went to work with the ol' Bissel wet vaccum thing. The entire house smells like sick belly dogshit mixed with citrus spray, it's really a treat.
Now, the point of all this re: Puppyopticon is simple. Just seeing the dogs and being able to shock them isn't sufficient. When they want to shit or puke, they're going to, and all shocking them would do is cause them to run about frantically while shitting and/or puking. Not a solution, really. I think what might be worth looking into would be some sort of bomb disposal robot, capable of handling carpet stains via remote control and camera.