Well, I haven’t really been a bad boy- I just couldn’t help myself.  You see, I had a couple of accidents in the house in the middle of the night.  The house was all locked up and no one heard me pawing at the door.  I felt bad, but when you gotta go- you gotta go!

For a day or two afterwards, Mom kept looking at me with a funny look.  I’ve seen it before.  You think she’s looking at you and paying attention to you, but really she’s far, far away.  Then she announced “I can solve this problem.”

And solve it she did.

She went to the local craft store and bought some cord and some big jingle bells and knotted the bells on the cord.  Then she made it long enough to almost reach the floor from the door handle- about where I usually paw at the door.  Then she hung it on the door.  The next time I pawed at the door to be let out, she came over next to me, took my paw and hit the bells with it.  They made a nice happy sound.  For a couple of days, she did that with me.

Now, whenever I need to go out and the door is closed, I just ring the bells and someone lets me out. No more accidents!