Monday, January 19, 2009

Charger & Me

"Oh No"
"Um, you don't want to come in here"

Those are the words I was greeted with after a very long day on Saturday.
The thing is, I had been in that same situation before. I knew exactly what to expect even before I stepped through the door. I could see the image in my mind and there was no way I was waiting outside.

You see, several years ago, I was visiting my parents in Nacogodches for the weekend. We decided to take a trip to Houston to go shopping and locked up the three dogs- the chocolate lab, the mini dachshund, and the pit bull puppy, and headed to Houston. Upon our return, we walked in the house to me saying the words "Oh No", "Um, you don't want to come in here". So yes, I'm familiar with what this sounds like. We refer to that day as the great stuffed animal massacre of 2003. It wasn't pretty. Stuffed animals we had since we were little were pulled apart by their limbs and their stuffing covered the floor. You couldn't walk without stepping on stuffing. My koala bear was missing an ear and an eye, bears were missing arms and legs, some had just been torn open from the middle. We have no idea how long after we left they had gotten inside and made this mess, but we are quite certain they had the run of the place for awhile.

Back to our kitchen on Sat. night. I stepped in to find what you see in the picture below (although i think it looked worse in person). The remains of a bed, a hat, a book, and some carpet squares. Given more time we probably would have found the remains of our kitchen table or worse.
We had been at a class all day and the dogs had been locked up for over 8 hours. When we were done with the class we ran back to let them out, Charger stays in his crate and Champ stays in the kitchen. We had to leave immediately to go to dinner so my heart hurt for my precious Charger who would be locked up again for hours. I suggested we try putting both of them in the kitchen so they can keep each other company and play while we were gone. We have had very little success with this in the past because Charger is a chewer. His bed had some holes in it so we figured it couldn't look much worse and we put everything else out of reach and ran off to dinner.
Fast forward 4 hours later when we returned to the aforementioned scene. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Champ stays in the kitchen by himself all day every day. As far as we know, he doesn't leave his bed, he's there when we leave and when we return. So, logic would say that Champ was not the cause of the destruction below. The question I have, is why didn't he stop it? Why didn't he mention to Charger that he was chewing up his bed too and when mommy and daddy got back they would be mad and take the bed away. Why didn't they have that conversation? Did champ just sit around and watch? Where did Champ sit because the bed was clearly being torn apart as well as the carpet squares below the bed and the dogs don't like sitting on the cold tile so where did Champ go? He's the bigger dog, and older. He's probably got 2-3 pounds on Charger (that's a lot for the little ones) so why didn't he just plant himself on the bed and not moved. But obviously... that didn't happen.

So, the dogs got their big comfortable bed taken away and now have to sleep on the small pad that is left. They will not be getting a new bed for a long time and Charger will not be left alone in any area except his crate for a long time. I can only imagine what he could do with Cason's toys, since many of them look a lot like dog toys. What if he get's a hold of the infant carrier....











4 comments:

Lexi said...

This is the exact reason why my dog stays in his crate when we are gone. He cannot be trusted! Spencer once chewed a hole in our wall!!! WHY would he do that??? I am still wondering to this day on that one. I am glad they or he didn't get a hold of anything too valuable!

Kim said...

I feel your frustration! During our 18 years of marriage we had had 2 full-blood labs and 2 lab mixes (3 are still with us). I can't begin to tell you the things that have been chewed up. Let's just say our 1st black lab could have been in the Marley and Me movie. Just last night, Ranger got hold of a memory stick on the desk and chewed it up. Now I'm trying to re-copy pictures of our family reunion to send to Don's cousin in Michigan.

Linda said...

Perhaps Charger is part lab - a little bitty lab. He certainly chews like one. Maybe he didn't like the story line of the book and took it out on the bed? Hmmm

Anonymous said...

I think I gave you that Koala?

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