Still Chewing But Not Barking

3/29/2017

Just when I think the "girls" are beginning to go around the corner and be adult dogs, they go and do something stupid.  This morning stupid was the tearing up of one of Jeff's belts.  It was an old belt to be sure, but it was (emphasis on was) still being used.  Alas, it has been reduced to bits of leather and a chewed up buckle for me to clean up today.

After being good most of the night in the bedroom, they get bored at some point and that's when everything goes to hell in a hand basket. Interestingly, my slippers are on the floor and all they do with them, is move them around, but they don't chew on them.  And from a human perspective, I would think my slippers would have more smell on them than Jeff's belt.  Go figure.

While I'm having my morning coffee, I do allow the girls to have run of the living room.  But once my coffee is finished, they are ushered out into the hallway.  Earlier in their puppy days, they had attacked the skirt on the living room sofa, and while the actually sofa is fine and in good shape, the skirt at the bottom - not so much.  And yet when I think they'll never grow up, I am seeing larger amounts of time resting/sleeping than before.  We are getting closer to their one year birthday.  I believe one of them was perhaps born in May and the other in June.  Something like that.  When we rescued them, I/we were dealing with the loss of our Westie, Sam who was 15 and had to be put to sleep.  And, we also knew that our yellow Lab, Maggie, was approaching her 12th birthday, and we wanted a "back up" dog.  Labs suffer from hip displasya (however you spell it) and a few weeks ago, she was beginning to fall down the stairs and had a very large mass/tumor growing on her side.  It was infinitely harder to put Maggie to sleep.  She was a good and loyal dog, and was a good mother to the girls, who during their early days, thought it great fun to climb on her.  Maggie also tolerated this behavior, when Benjamin was a toddler and he also liked to climb on her and sometimes he had to be reminded that he was to be gentle when he petted her.  Maggie was, as most Labs are, very patient and good-natured.

I think of the girls much like I do when I think about Scott and Andy when they were young.  They are only 18 months apart and between the two of them, there wasn't much that they didn't get into.  But we survived those years and as they got older, some of the nonsense was gone and they got along well and looked out for each other.

If I was still working, we would never have rescued two puppies.  I'm home 99.9% of the time and when I leave the house, I still put them in the basement where they find all manner of things to pull out and "recycle".  I can only imagine the amount of destruction they could do if left on their own in the house!

As the weather begins to warm up, I will start going out to the backyard, or what was once our backyard, and sit in the sun while they play and do their business.  Since there is no yard left in the back, no bushes still standing upright, except for the holly bush, I've told the lawn care people to just work on the front yard and forget for the moment the back.

The very inexpensive vibration/shock collar we bought for Daisy is doing it's job.  Now Daisy only barks once or twice and then because dogs aren't stupid, she knows (because she tested) that the collar will ultimately give her a shock.  We really hated having to do that, but once Daisy was outside on a rant of barking, she wouldn't come inside for anything.  This behavior didn't endear her to us, much less our neighbors.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Perhaps I can sit out in the sun today and soak up some vitamin E.

P