My Own "World's Worst Dog"

We have a dog.  Two, actually.  We were already looking forward to when our 12-year old dog would be spending her days in heaven (is that bad??), when Roundabout Geek saw our neighbors with a year-old dog.  A beagle.  The one dog that he loves.  This, he declared, would be the only type of dog he would ever get, after, of course, Macee died.

 

That lasted a little less than a week.  By the next weekend we were (and still are) the proud owners of a 10 week old beagle PUPPY! 

Never owned a puppy...well let me give you the highlights:

• Potty training - both the liquid and the solid kind
• Crate training
• Constant whining and barking
• No fence - leash walking at 3am
• Early morning wake up calls (at 1, then 5, sometimes more, sometimes less)
• Walking in the pouring rain (and snow)
• Chew toys everywhere
• Chewing on everything in site, and I mean everything

So our old maid, Macee, and our new puppy, Reese, are not exactly the best of friends.  In fact, Macee can't stand this little runt of a dog that keeps wanting her to play.  And when puppy wants to play, old maid decides to bark - a high, screechy type of bark that rattles the ears and drives me crazy.

Well, puppy is now 10 months old, and still a puppy. 

She is potty trained now and is doing so much better crate training. But she is a flea magnet.  She still bothers the old maid.  Digs up our yard.  Barks at every person or thing that dares cross her while she's outside.  (Oh, did I forget to mention that we have a cat too?  They sometimes play well together and then there are those times Tigger escapes to the roof of the house.)  And at 5am, we're not exactly the most favored neighbors in the neighborhood!

What makes her the "world's worst dog" though, isn't any of those things.  It is the constant chewing.  She has chewed both of our Wii nunchucks, countless shoes, countless pairs of my underwear (clean or dirty, she doesn't care), socks, any cardboard box, wrapping paper, my futon cover, my couch, my couch pillows, my bed pillows, my rugs, my clothes rack, books, my Creole Bible, my NIV Bible, pencils, homework (yes, my kids actually had to use the excuse that the dog ate their homework), jackets, gloves...pretty much anything that can be chewed, gets chewed.  We buy her chew toys - she chews them to smithereens, or buries them only to uncover them to bring them back in the house to chew some more.  We have tried the "indestructible" chew toys - yup, our little pup demolishes those too.

What got me today - she climbed under our bed and chewed a hole big enough in the "platform" (we don't have a boxspring and mattress...we have a tempurpedic mattress and it just sets on a platform) for her to stand up under our bed.  Well, that sent me into a fury.  I yanked our comforter and sheets off the bed and pulled the mattress off the platform (OK, the thing weighs like a 100 pounds and its no small feat for me to move this thing around), and pulled the platform straight up.  And to what did my wandering eye see?  Oh, that would be my puppy with a piece of the backing in her mouth looking at me with those adorable puppy eyes.  Too bad I didn't get a picture.  I was too stinking mad to think about doing something like that.  For the next 10 minutes, Princess N and Quarterback held up the platform while I strategically placed plastic tubs and other storage containers around he perimeter of our bed so she could not get under our bed anymore.

Oh, then she jumped up on my bed with muddy paws.  Just perfect!

And of course, I had to remake the bed.

So, maybe its not as bad as Marley in Marley and Me, but she drives me crazy.  At least when she is in what I call her manic mode.  Then there are those times that she's all snuggly and wonderful to be around.  Then, and only then, shes's not so bad.