The demise of "Ian's Tree"

When I moved to this house, it had a cute little ornamental evergreen in the back yard. It didn't take long for Ian to find it and use it as his own personal toilet. He's the only one of the boys who lifts his leg, and you can see by the first photo that after the first year it was pretty dead.

Once the needles came off, Connor started snapping the lower limbs off of it. He's always loved to play with sticks, and he's been quite disappointed in my selection of tree-less backyards in the last two houses. Only a few limbs remained at the very top where Connor couldn't reach. At this point, Ian's Tree was also called Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree because it looked so bad.

So for four years, this poor stick has been called Ian's Tree. Unfortunately, Ian's Tree is no more. At 6:15 a.m. this morning, Devon and Page were having a grand game of chase in the backyard in the dark. Devon is used to avoiding Ian's Tree, but Page wasn't so fortunate. Page ran smack into the tree, breaking its base and probably seeing stars herself. After giving herself a shake, she adjusted very quickly -- she started chewing on her new toy and trying to pull it out of the ground.

I'm not sure how Ian will adjust without his personal toilet tree. He used the back fence today. If I can get him trained to go all the way around the fence, I won't have to worry about weeds growing up under it. Hummm, do you suppose I can clicker train that behavior?