Why they start out small and cute...

Zoey "Sluggett Sill Muncher" Blake

Ah, while daddy is away the puppy will play. No matter that I am there, this is apparently of no concern to Zoey. Brad is gone for the week and although she began her boundary testing last week, she seems to have accelerated it as of Monday morning when she realized he wasn't coming back for a while.

Monday morning started normally, up at 6:30 have breakfast, come up and get ready, go outside before I leave. Once outside she decided that running in circles around the back yard, back and forth to the fence(and dogs next door) and away from me was the best course of action. Needless to say my commands had no effect and it took me a while to catch her especially since I refused to run after her. Mass spankings were in order.

Being the kind mother I am I left her in the dining room and kitchen area, even though she had started to chew the window sill and molding. I figured she'd already done the damage. Well, she did more, finding a whole new piece of unchewed molding and completely destroying a corner of the window sill,(See exhibit A) and then she tried to eat the door mat. Also, a leaf fell off the rubber tree and little tiny pieces of it ended up everywhere. ( I am now quite relieved I thought to place the rubber tree up where she couldn't reach it)


Monday after the whole coming home to everything chewed on was going well. Zoey and I went out to play. Felicia came to visit and Zoey ran back and forth between our laps. And even when we went to dinner and left her in the kitchen by herself, nothing was destroyed. We watched some TV, she barked at some pedestrians, the normal nightly routine. Then we went up to bed. I went to take my shower. I came back, greeted the puppy at the bedroom door and noticed she had something like foam in her fur? and then I noticed my flip flop, oddly in the middle of the room. When turned over I noted it was full of teeth marks and covered in slobber.(See exhibit B) Not only that, but she had tried to pull laundry out of the laundry basket.(resulting in more slobber covered items, well the parts she managed to pull out through the holes.) The flip flop incident(as it will be known) was especially upsetting because everyone I know has dogs who have chewed on their shoes(excepting Angie because Schautze has never done anything wrong ever, ever ever))(Sadie even ate all of Laura's left shoes(yes, all of them)), but not my puppy, she was never interested in chewing on shoes. Now, my bragging rights are forfeited and they all get to shake their heads and say "I told you it was only a matter of time."

Tuesday she got to stay in the kitchen alone. The dining room sills and molding no longer able to handle her attentions (or my sanity, whatever.) Not one to be deterred my mere obstacles to her true aims, she decided to concentrate on the refrigerator. Like most, our refrigerator is covered with magnets, papers, postcards, doodads, etc. Now only the top 2/3rds of it is covered in anything. Most of the magnets escaped unscathed, but some large cheapy ones fell to the puppy teeth. I recognized parts of those, the rest of the slobber cover mass is still a mystery to me. Luckily for me, even though I attended bookclub, we had no more incidences that evening. This may be due to my stop by PetCo on the way home where, at my sister's suggestion, I bought Apple Bitters. Which I sprayed on everything, including the puppy.

In retaliation for the Apple Bitters, Zoey stayed up late and woke up at 6am on Wednesday, again. Bleah, I'm going to be dragging by the end of the week. This kind of effort and level of tiredness is suppose to be reserved for new infants and children, isn't it?