Wednesday, December 3, 2008

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?".

7 comments:

  1. Look at it this way:
    For every piece of furniture or rug or anythig that Chandler damages or destroys opens up a wonderful "shopping to replace it" opportunity for Mark. Mark should be estatic at Chandlers destructive chewing phase.

    Of course Mark isn't going to let you know that. He is going to pretend it really bothers him and through a screaming fit, then start looking at the sale ads in the newspaper and planning his next shopping excursion.
    hehe

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  2. Get out the bitter apple spray or tabasco sauce. Try applying that to the things he like to "taste". Also, he probably still needs to be crated when you leave...he's not trustworthy yet. So funny to hear that he does many of the same things that ZOE(!) does related to "going out"....Rick has yet to decipher the different sounds between needing to do her "business" and just wanting to run in the snow!

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  3. Peggy, we got a bottle of the anti-doggy chew spray, and he chewed that up. He didn't care that it was bitter and he got it on everything. Now I keep touching things that got sprayed with it and it ends up in my mouth.

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  4. Boy, Garet hit the nail on the head...

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  5. I must say, I too agree with Garet. Sorry, Mark.

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  6. they know...like Mulder and Scully on the Xfiles...they can sense what will take you over the edge

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