Hey, dog owners!
This really doesn't apply to owners whose pets can go to the bathroom indoors, like cats.
Poll
The reason why I'm asking is because it seems totally evident to ME that before you feed an animal, you'd give it a chance to do its bathroom business first! But when my husband is up first, he always just feeds and then ignores them unless they specifically ask to be let out. (And one of the dogs doesn't ask; she'll get restless and pace around a bit, but that's about the closest she gets to making pointed dog-at-door motions like the other one does. On the other hand, I always let her out in the yard at the slightest sign of restlessness because she's old, so it's possible that she's simply never bothered to ask because she's never needed to. I'm the primary dog caretaker and it's my signals they mostly respond to.)
So now I'm curious if there is actually a fair amount of variation in dog owners on this matter, and I'm just being unreasonably dogmatic about it, so to speak. *g*
Poll
The reason why I'm asking is because it seems totally evident to ME that before you feed an animal, you'd give it a chance to do its bathroom business first! But when my husband is up first, he always just feeds and then ignores them unless they specifically ask to be let out. (And one of the dogs doesn't ask; she'll get restless and pace around a bit, but that's about the closest she gets to making pointed dog-at-door motions like the other one does. On the other hand, I always let her out in the yard at the slightest sign of restlessness because she's old, so it's possible that she's simply never bothered to ask because she's never needed to. I'm the primary dog caretaker and it's my signals they mostly respond to.)
So now I'm curious if there is actually a fair amount of variation in dog owners on this matter, and I'm just being unreasonably dogmatic about it, so to speak. *g*