I. Love. Chair

I'm a dog.  After months of convincing (read: me hopping up when Matt or Alicia would go upstairs and positioning myself to look really cute when they came back downstairs), I was finally given permission to be up on the furniture.  Or at least the armchair in the living room, which Alicia got for $5 back in college.  It has a fairly hideous large floral print which was only recently covered over with a bland also fairly hideous slipcover.

Permission was granted last week after I slept there soundly while Matt and Alicia were out at a cocktail party and Auntie Sarah "puppysat" me while snoozing on the couch.  They thought it was just too cute to continue denying me this simple pleasure.

My first "legal" chair sit. Still not sure if I'm about to be told "No!"

Since then, I've become quite comfortable on my chair, choosing to sleep on it most of the day.  At first, I didn't even want to play or eat.  I just wanted to lay on my chair.  Now that I'm sure they won't take it away, I've gotten back to playing, and also to really making it my own.  They took away the pillow and covered the chair with a free fleece blanket Matt got at a baseball game.  I've covered that blanket with fur.

This was taken yesterday afternoon.  See how comfortable
I've become in such a short time?

I can tell you were laughing at me in that last picture.

As you can see, I was getting quite comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that I decided I would make a few of my own changes to the chair last night while Alicia and Matt went out to dinner.

That cushion was just too cushiony. 

So I unzipped the slipcover and chewed off some stuffing.

Matt and Alicia seem disappointed in my changes.  They came in, gasped, and just started cleaning up.  I was laying on the floor, showing them my belly, but they were too focused on the cushion to notice.  I went over to lick their faces while they cleaned up, but they didn't seem to like that either.  Oh well.  I was just trying to make some positive change and embrace my new-found freedom of chair and no crate when they leave for short stretches.

They managed to put everything back together, so to the outside observer, everything looks the same, but I heard them mention something about me needing to be in the crate when they go out from now on.  Oops!  At least I'm still allowed on the chair.

The Salty Dog

I'm a dog.  It seems I started to write this post a while ago and never got around to hitting "Publish."  Oops.  The good news is that the delay has enabled my head to heal and thus enabled Alicia to take some salty photos of yours truly, which are included at the end...

At the end of August, Matt and Alicia went on vacation to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.  They didn't invite me to join them.  That wasn't very nice.  I love car rides, and they were in the car for 9 hours! Unfair.  In the end though, it was a good thing they didn't bring me.  It seems they don't welcome my kind in South Beach (the neighborhood of the Sea Pines Plantation where they stayed).

That second to last rule just would not work for me.

Oh, but look, a dog cafe!

What's this? No dogs? At the dog cafe?

Hmm...maybe I could bill myself as providing the service of cuteness?

While they were away, I went on my own playcation to Gerri's house.  While I can only imagine they spent the entire time missing me and wishing they'd brought me with them, I just played and played and played all day.  And I play rough.

When I got home after 10 straight days of playing I was a happy dog, but it looked like I'd been through a war.  You see, I like to chew and jump on other dogs, and I like it when they do that to me.  And I let them bite as hard as they want, because I want them to like me.  Gerri didn't know this and after the first day, the damage was done.  Thus, my head and neck were a bit chewed up.

Before you look at these pictures and feel bad for me, just know I wasn't hurt and that I had so much fun and was so happy with my chewed head.  I've gone back to Gerri's for play group and now that Gerri knows how hard I play, she makes me take breaks so that this doesn't happen anymore.

On a related note, Matt and Alicia were kind enough to bring me back a souvenir from their trip.  They didn't take any photos of me wearing it when I first got back though, because my head looked a bit, well, chewed.  But now I'm all fixed up (and have been for a while), so it's time to get salty...

Look at me! I'm a Salty Dog!

Still cute.

Getting bored of this photo shoot.

I'm done.  I'm going to sleep.

I Made Ate My Bed and Now I Have to Lie in It

I'm a dog.  I ate my bed.

Matthew and Alicia left Saturday morning to go to the beach and they forgot to bring me with them.  They put me in the kitchen while they went to run some things to the car and didn't come back.  I can only assume it was an honest mistake and that they meant to take me with them.  Once they realized what they'd done, they sent Ben over to take me out and play with me while they were gone.  I like Ben.  But when he came over in the afternoon that told me one thing: Matt and Alicia were not coming back until tomorrow.

They'd left me in the kitchen with some food, water, my toys, and my bed.  I wasn't hungry or thirsty, and I wasn't really in the mood to play, so I decided that I might as well make some adjustments to my bed.  So, while Ben was doing his own thing, I very carefully opened the zipper.  I didn't want to hurt my bed, just take out some stuffing.  It seemed just a bit too fluffy.  Alicia's always doing projects around the house, so why shouldn't I?

Once I had the zipper open, I proceeded to pull out the inside.  I ate some of it.  The rest I just pulled out and/or tossed around.

Ben found me. He took the next two pictures.

That's me in the forefront; Bed stuffing in the rear.

See all that white wrapped around me? That's the inner mesh
case that holds (held!) the stuffing. Outside is fully intact!

Ben called Matt and Alicia to tell them what happened.  They shook their heads and laughed.  I heard them through the phone.  I thought they would rush right home and apologize for abandoning me, but they did not.  Then, when they got home all they did was look at the bed and laugh some more before putting the bed back in my crate.

Originally, Matt and Alicia were going to make me continue to sleep on my now 2/3 full bed.  But, they were worried that seeing my destruction (Ben has nicknamed me Molly Mayhem!), I'd decide to pick up where I left off.  And I can't blame them.  I was planning to do just that.  

Anyway, they bought me a new bed.  A blue bed! 

Snuggled in my new bed.

I may even eat my new bed.  Only time will tell.

This Is Why We Don't Have Nice Things...

I'm a dog.  I like to chew things to make my world a better place.  I am a very adept chewer. I use my paws and teeth to do such things as...

1. ...open the cat door to escape the kitchen:

The secret here is that the latch to the cat door
is spring loaded.  Grab it in your mouth and pull
 to the side while pushing against the door. Et viola!

2. ...open the zipper on the throw pillow:

I'd like to point out that though I did pull apart some of the trim,
that was an accident.  I was trying to open the zipper.  And I did.
It's just that I had to grip with my paws and teeth, and sometimes,
that makes things fall apart. Oops.

3. ...tear my new toy to shreds in under 24 hours:

Chewing happily yesterday evening...

Tearing away the pink felt earlier this morning...

Shredding the tennis ball into little bite size pieces as this posts...

In my defense, I don't typically go out and seek human possessions to destroy.  I chewed the golf umbrellas a few weeks ago because they were left out.  I took the takeout menus off the fridge and tore them to shreds because they were hanging on the bottom half of the fridge, which just wasn't smart.  I chewed up the bag of supplies from Hunger Games camp because Matthew took it and put it right on the kitchen counter (even though NOTHING belonged in the kitchen, which I knew, and is why I rooted around in it and chewed some stuff up!).  And until Alicia stops putting the dishtowel on the front of the oven, I am going to make it my business to grab it and run into the living room with it every chance I get!

Yup.  I even grabbed it while she was typing this post for me.

So, in conclusion, THIS is why we don't have nice things:

One tennis ball down.  One to go.

Seriously, Don't Fence Me In

I'm a dog.  A couple of weeks ago, Matt and Alicia bought some pretty tall dog gates to keep me in the kitchen. I'm happy to report that though it took me a few weeks, I've escaped their evil clutches.

While Alicia was away during the day leading her Hunger Games camp (ask her more about this) and Matt went into the District for work, I was trapped in the kitchen.  I wasn't yet ready to escape, but I used this time to plot and plan.  It was after camp that Alicia made her fatal mistake: coming home to shower before going out to Target.

It was during this quick trip home that I was able to analyze the gates from both sides and finalize my plan.  Here's what Alicia saw when she arrived home...

I greeted her at the door.
This clued her in that something was amiss.

She quickly noticed I'd pushed out the bottom
of the pressurized gate from the doorway.

She then turned her attention to the living room.

I'd attacked the box of plastic bags they use to pick up my poop.
The shredded box lay around the room.  Bags strewn every which
way. I also took (but didn't chew) a pillow off the chair.

I also chewed the sticky papers off the lint roller and nibbled
on the plastic handle/holder. Note one of the many piles of
plastic baggies and shredded cardboard box.

Finally, I removed Alicia's backpack from the chair and also
took my little travel backpack (holds my orange ball, extra
baggies, house keys, etc. when I go for walks) off its hook.

And that's all she wrote.  I left the furniture alone.  I didn't bother eating the magazines on the coffee table.  The handwoven basket, woven placemats and remote controls were left in their places undisturbed.  This wasn't about destroying Matt and Alicia's things.  This was about escape...and exacting revenge on the box of poop baggies, which have always had it out for me.

Mission: Accomplished*.

*Matt has since extra-tightened the pressure on the gates, and I haven't been able to escape a second time. Yet.

Chew On This! (I Know I Will!)

I'm a dog.  I've taken a few day break from blogging because Alicia was away at a conference in New Orleans. While I am the author of this blog, Alicia is the one who does all of the typing (what with me lacking fingers and opposable thumbs).  I tried to get Matt to type up a post, but he refused. Rude.

That's okay though, I showed him who was boss.  While he went out on Monday, I took the liberty of taking a little tasting tour of his golf umbrellas.  Sure, I have a bunch of "dog" toys, but sometimes a dog just wants to chew on something else.  Especially when she's a puppy.

Surveying the damage I caused.

Needless to say, while I thought I was sticking it to Matt, he was plotting revenge.  Sure, he purchased me a bunch of new toys, including the Nylabone Puppy Starter Kit (my favorite is the Healthy Edibles Chicken Bone), and I thanked him by chowing down on the handles of his golf umbrellas, but I figured he would let it slide.  Instead, he took this as an opportunity to go back to crate training.

The Chicken Bone, which is not edible,
and looked like this in thirty minutes.

I'll write more about the crate training later.  Right now I need to go and do some more chewing.

Surrounded by chew toys.

But I choose to chew toes.