Death by Chewing

I’ve determined our dog’s fate today… My husband is going to slaughter her, with his bare hands, because of her terrible, terrible chewing habit. And I can’t say I blame him…

Dasha loves to chew, and she knows very well what’s okay and what’s not okay to chew. Our first chewing disaster happened when we was only a few months old. She discovered the rough, resistant texture of bark on our small little backyard trees. The first and smallest of the trees is stripped away to nothing but a few rather short branches.

We'll obviously be planting a new tree here.

The second tree is much taller, but she’s stripped away every bottom branch she can reach, as well as removed the entire bark covering around the base of the tree.  Don’t even get me started on the pesky digging she did, all the way down to the roots.

Appropriately, she has a stick from the tree in her mouth...

Our third tree has been almost untouched. Except for a few rebellious leaps into the air at the branches, resulting in not much more than a mouthfuls of buds.

Then came the day that mama, me, wanted to let her stay out of her crate all day. John, my husband, just doesn’t understand. He's not the one that has to go home at lunch to let her out, only to put her back in and deal with those pathetic, pitiful eyes. She can barely enjoy her 45 minutes of free time as she walks around dreading that terrible moment when I grab her collar to direct her upstairs. It's just not right for a pup full of energy and curiosity. No succulent bone you can buy can convince her that her crate is where she wants to be. So John gave in, as any loving husband would.

All went surprisingly well in the morning. She slept a lot (on the couches I might add), but then afternoon hit. She searched the counter tops and table for anything she could get her teeth on. It resulted in a chewed up wooden spoon, slightly damaged Wii remote, and a gnawed on corner of the couch pillow. (Note: We have a “puppy cam” set up that we watch her on from work. That’s how we know all of this…) We blamed ourselves for leaving such tempting items in her reach and put everything away for the next day. Yes, we put away every single thing… oh, except for the lamps. But what dog in her right mind would chew a LAMP?

Dasha would. And did. And now my cute IKEA lamp is no more. (I wished I had gotten a picture of this, but during the moment, taking a photo was the last thing going through my mind.)

A few weeks passed. She was spayed, and I figured that a good spaying had surely matured her. What seven month old dog would chew something she wasn’t supposed to after being spayed?

It was my coffee table. My cute, long sought after, craigslist coffee table that John and I were planning on restoring and finally completing our living room set with (minus a lamp). She didn’t chew on the knob of the coffee table drawer, or any of the contents in the drawer, but instead gnawed the entire corner of the drawer completely off!

You can now guess that this was the instance that just about cost her her life. My beloved coffee table ruined in just a few short minutes. Well, it’s been proclaimed that she will never be left out of her crate for the day again, and that bad behavior results in a firm beating of the butt. Give us a few weeks… we’ll once again be convinced by those loving, miserable eyes that we just need to give her another chance; just one more chance.

Idea: Next time put all of the furniture in the garage, remove the rug, and the entertainment center with everything on it. What a solution! Leave her a completely empty house. Too bad we can't put away any of the walls...