5 November 2011

Bad dogs or bad owner?

Hubs is away and so I decided to give the dogs a little more freedom in the house so instead of being crated at night, they have been sleeping in my office on Bowser Beds.  And occasionally while I run errands or go to work out at the gym, I have left them loose in the house instead of crating them.  I am rethinking the latter part of the strategy now!

After our long walk in the woods with Bodi earlier today, my 3 Vizslas were plenty tired out (or so I thought).  I left them loose late this aft while I went to exercise at the gym but made sure all the freshly baked dog cookies I'd made in the morning were set well back out of their reach.  After about 2.5 hr, I returned home to find this:




Shredded plastic bags and flour were everywhere and the dog cookie recipe book was found on the floor.  Obviously I had left this stuff, neatly packed away in another bag on the counter, waaayy too close to the edge.  The dog cookies hadn't been touched because none of the dogs is able to jump right up onto the counters and none is able to reach that far back where the cookies were cooling but one Vizsla DID reach the bag containing some whole wheat flour, wheatgerm, oatmeal and garlic powder used for baking their cookies.

By the time I returned home from the gym and shopping, it was almost 7 pm and I was cold and hungry and the LAST thing I wanted to do was clean up this big mess.  So I kinda lost it.  I did what I am NOT supposed to do - I yelled at the dogs for making the mess - long after it was done.  I yelled at everyone even though I know it wasn't Tyro who was responsible and I am 95% certain it wasn't Diva who pulled the stuff off the counter.  Well, that leaves only MISKA.  And I am 99.9% sure it was she because I do catch her cruising counters and she hasn't had the same intense 'It's Yer Choice" [Susan Garrett] training as the other 2 have.

Miska trying to look innocent with "evidence" (shredded plastic) on the Bowser Bed
And what exactly is that hanging out of your mouth Diva?
I suspect  know Miska was the culprit and Diva joined in because they were doing a lot of lip licking after I returned home.  Tyro was trying to stay right out of the picture.  So I 'punished' them ALL by making them wait a LONG time for their dinner although I threatened them by saying they would go completely hungry tonight. (That was just to make me feel better.)   I made my dinner first and lingered over it, cleaned up the kitchen, and only then did I get around to getting theirs ready.  By then, Miska had disappeared to the family room - probably with an upset tummy from eating the raw oatmeal, wheatgerm and flour,  So in fact Miska didn't have any supper but Diva and Tyro did get theirs.

OF COURSE IT'S MY FAULT!!  I KNOW THAT!!!  I left out something that I didn't think would tempt an 8-year-old Vizsla and being a dog, she took advantage of the situation as she was hungry and couldn't reach the cheese biscuits I'd made her!!  BUT I'M HUMAN! I MAKE MISTAKES TOO!   So I will punish myself by admitting on this Blog that I was a BAD, BAD OWNER.

PS - what I was really more upset about was that I was going to make more homemade dog cookies tonight for the Varazs Vizsla  meet-up tomorrow and so that's obviously out of the picture because that was all the flour and oats I had.  Oh well, the dogs will have to make do with what I made Friday night and Saturday morning.  They won't know the difference but I will.




5 comments:

  1. I'm sure Miska was framed by some dastardly squirrel that snuck in while you were away and knocked everything off the counter. She was just trying to help clean up everything before you got home :).

    I know that feeling when you react out of frustration even when we know it's our fault. It's lucky dogs are so forgiving which of course just makes me feel even worse for yelling in the first place.

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  2. Every parent "loses it" now and again. I'd be super pissed if I came home and saw that mess on the floor.

    Until Dexter, I have never had a dog that has counter surfed. Right now, I'm attributing it to him being a "busy" puppy. So we'll see what happens when he gets older.

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  3. Oops. That looks like a conspiracy thing. We had that with the recycling bin from time to time, now it's behind doors. Just the faintest smell of food particle on wrapping would send Blaze on a search trip. Other than that everything is safe up on tables and counters. He is free in the house since he's 7 months old,we don't have any crate for him anymore in the house, just in the van. He is sleeping on a round bed, an old human pillow and I tuck him in with the blue blanket occasionally he was "shipped" with. One thing I learned: before I head to the door in the morning I serve him a nice treat. That will keep him nice and quiet.

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  4. Hahahaha, this story reminds me of when we came home and there was garbage spread all over the kitchen. The garbage was locked, but sneaky Wager-roo was somehow able to pry open the door just enough to pull the bag out and its contents. How did we know it was her?? EVIDENCE on her! She had garbage bag stuck in between her teeth and banana all over her paws. Ahhh, that gave us all a good laugh, I smile thinking about this memory of her :-)

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  5. that's a riot - love the pictures Sylvia :). We had a similar surprize one day - after Cyn baked 12 bran muffins she put the baking sheet with the muffins 'tipped' up on the stove top covered with a tea towel to cool - we went out for a while and returned to find only ONE muffin left. The dog ate 11 freshly baked bran muffins - we knew it was her because she was laying on her pad and couldn't move. At first we could not believe it but the look on Piper's face was - 'yep - did that'. Good grief. Another time Cyn left some baked cakes on the kitchen table to cool - covered up with a tea towel and when we lifted the towel 1/3 of one of the 3 cakes were GONE. Piper had not disturbed the towel at all - she carefully snuck her snout under the towel and not even seeing what she was eating - ate the damn cake. After the initial shock we could only laugh. Our bad. Needless to say all baking now goes way up high!

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