Bad Doggy

Chandler is coming up on eight months of age, and I am constantly amazed at how smart he is. I hate to say it but he is much smarter at this age than Molly was. For one thing he has a very definite and vocal way of telling me he has to go out and do poopies, and he doesn't stop until I let him out. Unfortunately, he also knows that if he fakes it, daddy will open the door and let him out, allowing him to run around outside and play. There is a slight difference in his "I want to go out and poop" bark, and his "I want to go out and play" bark. The real one has a sense of urgency that he just can't reproduce if he is just screwing with me.

As for chewing on furniture, Chandler has only damaged one table leg and one chair leg, and after a reprimand from Mark, I think he knows not to do that again. The chewing thing went just a little too far last Wednesday. Mark had me bring in a rug from the shed that we removed because Molly had puked on it. For an hour I got down on my knees and scrubbed that carpet with upholstery cleaner until all evidence of Molly's sickness was gone and it looked like new.

The next day I left the house before Mark got home from shopping. Fifteen minutes after I left, Mark returned home to find the newly cleaned rug shredded. Apparently Chandler had been waiting for just such an opportunity to destroy the rug. He had determined that all he needed was a ten minute window, and when we presented him with it, he went to work on the rug. I am not sure what his motivation was for destroying the rug. It might have still smelled like Molly, and he resented that, or maybe he knew it would really drive Mark crazy and around here we always enjoy seeing Mark blow his top. It's sort of entertaining. Whatever it was, Mark did go crazy and screamed so loud and long, that neighbors up and down the block were asking me, "what did Chandler do now?".