The Little Pack

Yesterday I came home to a broken lamp. It was, after all, just a matter of time. The finish on the end table is scratched off from Cheyenne standing on it and leaping off it. She stands up there because she can see out the window better from the table. Often the lamp will get knocked off the table in the process. Yesterday the lamp finally endured one leap too many. So in light of this incident, I thought it might be fun to provide a list of all the things that Cheyenne has destroyed. Highlights below:

• The aforementioned lamp.
• The aforementioned end table that now requires a well placed doily.
• She has scratched the paint off of the backdoor and our bedroom door too, and chewed the door frame around both these doors.
• She tore up the carpet in the bedroom.
• Pens.
• Eaten countless, countless pairs of shoes (how many times did it take for me to realize I needed to pick them up?)
• Dug hole after hole.
• Ate a hole in the ottoman and pulled the stuffing out.
• Ate pyoben gel.
• 2 pairs of sunglasses and 1 pair of glasses.
• She stole my purse off the counter and pulled the medicine bottles out—thankfully the child proof caps were also Cheyenne-proof, although not completely chew-proof.
• Ate an entire loaf of banana bread.
• Pulled the entire comforter from the bed into her crate and shredded it.
• Shrews, many shrews.
• Books.
• The latte I accidentally left on the coffee table-which she promptly carried around the house and spilled all over–before eating the cup.
• A bluetooth headset.
• A tube of caulk. (Don’t think this didn’t leave permanent damage).
• Box of Dots.
• An entire bag of cough drops. This occurred one day after the pyoben gel incident and required back-to-back phone calls to the vet.

As I write this list, I realize how severe her seperation anxiety was and much confidence she has gained over the years.  She has healed alot. I have decided to think of these things as tangible reminders of her progress and how far we have come since that first day we brought her home.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Cheyenne is something else. Once Cheyenne is wound up, she is almost in a trance. It can be nearly impossible to break the spell she is in. Tonight she was in one of these altered states, obsessively pawing at my husband. I finally put her on the leash–yes, inside. I do this often and with the most amazing results. She immediately calms down, relaxes, and lays down at my feet. I can’t believe how effective this method is. I don’t understand why this works, I just know that it does.

Tonight, two dogs are so exhausted that they can barely move. Cheyenne is so tired that she could not bring herself to stand up and lick the leftover plate of chips and cheese. She chose instead to lay down next to it. Jackson is so tired that he has sprawled out on the couch on his back, and even more telling, he has not brought me a single toy tonight. Because we did not do anything out of the ordinary tonight, and because the other two dogs have a normal level of alertness, this has led us to speculate that perhaps these two dogs played together all day long, and therefore wore each other out. Jackson will occasionally play with Cheyenne when he thinks we aren’t looking or if they are oustide together by themselves. Every once in awhile he forgets and plays with her in front of us. My husband caught them playing together in the bedroom the other day. Most of the time Jack growls at her whenever she comes within a two-foot radius of him. I have to say I am impressed with his resolve to continue to hate her. It has, after all, been close to 3 years and he is barely beginning to show signs of cracking. I am sure he thought that today while we were at work was the perfect time to play with her all he wanted and not get caught. He is probably congratulating himself on getting away with it. He may be smart, but little does know we are smarter.

Dixie finally got a haircut this past weekend! Although, I am not huge into putting clothes on my dogs, even my little dog, she was freezing, just shivering without all that fur and I had no choice but to put a sweatshirt on her. She has needed a bath and a haircut for awhile now, but her multiple surgeries prevented this from happening. Finally all her incisions healed and we took her to the groomer. I cannot believe how little she actually is. The nice thing is that since her bath she has been very snuggly. Yes, I know she really just needs my body warmth, but a girl can pretend, right?

Jack has a unique way of begging… by not begging. What is that you ask? Let me explain. Jackson is basically a good dog (although his hearing has become a little selective over the past few years) who can not knowingly disobey. When he first came to me, he had a terrible begging habit (amoung other issues) and I worked very hard to break him of the habit. In his previous home, he had no structure, and it seemed as though he was only fed scraps. At 6 months old he didn’t even have a name for crying out loud. So he would beg, and drool over everything, one time even forming huge spit bubbles at the sides of his mouth for pepperoni pizza and another time just about taking my hand off when I offered him a piece of steak. Putting a stop to this habit was very easy because he wanted to please me so badly. I would eat right in front of him and make a point of refusing to look at him or acknowledge him or make eye contact. He got the hint, but in the year’s that have followed, I can always tell when he really, really wants something because he will sit by me, and turn his head away, making a point not to look at me, as though he is punishing himself for wanting what I have. I laugh every time–and in case you are concerned, of course, I always share with him when he does this. After all, he isn’t begging.