I guess, the owner's. Since that was you who wanted THIS. When the baby (don't matter, whose baby) is very young his hygiene is under his mother's control. As the creature grows it begins as far as it can do this important ceremonial on its own, i.e. creep away from the den to move the tail out of the house. How lucky is a wolf and a jackal cub - nobody prevent them from doing the hygiene ritual - and what a bad luck is for your pup: he was born in a human pack, in between four walls and moves on the floor covering that doesn't soak up the liquid vital products. His den is a play-pen or a corner, fenced in by the material at hand. At the dawn of his life his mother-bitch dealt well with the dirt, but then her genetically programmed period of hygienic help is over and the kids are supposed to "take off the pants" by themselves.
And you know, they'd be glad to! And therefore they begin to conquer the den's walls, but they don't suspect these are the walls of their prison. Some succeed with the assault and the signs of victory appear on the carpet and the parquet. But then the man attack. He fixes the walls. And wins: puppies despair of fighting and keep the patience and make their business right before the cashier's desk. At first they feel disgust but they put up with this feeling quickly. Thus, the man comes off his second-best.
So, the den is the play-pen or a assigned corner, and the room is everything that is around the den, namely the meadow, yard, garden, i.e. the place where, as they say, the busyness not only should be done, but must be done. And so it goes on for a month (ideally), usually two, or even three. And so when the new person gets the pup from the breeder he gets not a mere confidence but the holy firm belief how IT is to be made, adopted with the mother's milk. So what do you wait the pup should do, then?
But that was the first point. The second is that this was you who purchased him. And along with him you purchased the fear for distemper, hepatitis and enteritis. And therefore another two or three months the puppy sits inside your house waiting for the next vaccination. And it seems to you that you won a healthy cub. But, as I explained lately, you can't win this game. Consider the fact, that I haven't yet mentioned, that hypodynamia (insufficient physical activity) results into poor exterior and the, so-called, constitutional immunity (natural immunity) as well as very many, if not all, body systems. And as a result of neonatal sensorial deprivation (lack of outward stimuli in the childhood) you get a mental defective. I mean that during this period you successfully perfect and fix that very habit which you will be struggle against later on. During the time the puppy is in he studies the things that he repeats again and again. And in actually he memorize this firmly and for long. This is just because he is in the stage of IMPRINTING.
Alas, there is the third point. Imagine you are the puppy. You clearly remember that yesterday, as well as over last months, your owner was pleased with your behavior, but today morning he suddenly decides that a pile and puddles on the floor is something terrible. It is not surprising that in this situation the puppy will think you gone nuts.
So, you get only what you thoroughly created. Now tell me, whose nose to be pushed in?
Do you still doubt? Once they brought me a four-months-old Central Asia Shepherd Dog. He was wild, "from the burrow". And right after the puppy was delivered from the airport, I had to leave him alone in the flat (but with the balcony door opened) and rush to the work. Imagine my surprise when in the evening I went home and saw the markings of his vital functions not within the flat but at the balcony. I remembered the lesson and my next puppy, a Deutscher Schaferhund I took to the cottage straight off. And in the autumn I returned to my town residence with a young well-bred dog. Till now he does all his business (today he is almost three years old) only on the grass (in the way he is used to).
by Vladimir Gritsenko, Translated by Tatiana Karpova (Moscow)
(MSU, Biology faculture, Dep. zoology and ecology).