The Little Pack

This week I am taking a look back some of the most memorable and hilarious stories with each of the animals. Tonight is Cheyenne’s turn and I find myself curious as to why all of our Cheyenne memories end in the word “incident”.

One day I came home thinking today was like any other day. Ha. I should have known better. I came across a cough drop—regular flavor and trust me, this becomes important—on the floor and assumed (incorrectly, of course) that Archie had found one somewhere and been playing little games with it all day. I walked a little further and found a second cough drop, again, regular flavored. Odd, I thought. But I still chalked it up to Archie. And then. I walked past the couch into the living area, and could not believe my eyes. I stood there staring for…ever… trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Tiny pieces of cherry cough drops everywhere. Partially eaten, sticky. Stuck in the carpet, and on the couch. Empty wrappers strewn about in piles. I followed the pieces of cough drops down the hallway and into the bedroom where I now found pieces of cough drops stuck to the bed, on the bedroom floor and in my dirty laundry.

I began gathering the items that would need to be washed into a pile, where I found a treasure trove of cough drops in a little pile underneath some clothes as though she was saving them for later. I picked up the pile of cough drops and Cheyenne, who up until now has been following my every move, steals several out of my hand and takes off running. So now I am chasing her, yelling at her to drop them and still in absolute disbelief and more than a little overwhelmed at the destruction in my house. Once we are back in the living room, I see the empty bag of cherry cough drops. It has been chewed open and I wonder how I missed this in the first walk through. My husband calls and I inform him what his dog did today.

I call the vet, who I just had to call the day before, because she ate half a bottle of Pyoben gel (don’t ask). I am, by the way, on a first name with all the vets at the practice. He laughs as I explain what happened, and I tell him the # of cough drops in the bag, and the amount of menthol in each cough drop. He tells me that although menthol can be lethal to dogs, she is in no danger for her body weight and the dosage she has consumed.

I realize that both a half eaten bag of regular flavored cough drops (found in tact with about the same amount of drops in it as before) and an entire, unopened, bag of cherry cough drops had been left on the dining table. Clearly, she sampled both and preferred the cherry to the regular. At the time, I blame Archie for knocking the bags off the table and assumed Cheyenne took over from there. This is, however, before we learned that she knew how to climb on top of the table. My husband comes home and we laugh and laugh, picturing the gleeful heyday she must have had when she found that bag of cough drops.  To this day, I can only imagine the play session that ensued when she realized the treasure was there, and I still laugh when I think about it.

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 thought that I knew everything about having a dog, that there was no dog I couldn’t train, nothing I couldn’t conquer. I trusted my instincts would see me through. Indeed, a lot of my identity was tied up in being great with dogs. Truth be told, I fancied myself a Dog Whisperer. And then, along came Cheyenne. Two and a half years later, Cheyenne’s only 2 “tricks” are “Sit” and “High Five”. “High Five” occurs without fail, because there is a treat. “Sit” occurs 98% of the time, and of the successful attempts, most of those occur with additional prompting, such as “What do you need to do?” and/or gentle tapping on her flank. Often “Sit” is successful because there is something that she wants involved, such as treat, her dinner, or to go outside. Other inconvenient commands such as “lay” and “come” have about a 50% success rate. It is not that she doesn’t know what they mean. She just absolutely cannot figure out why she should lay down when she is doing something else, like, say, pawing at my face, or chasing the kitty, or sitting. The best part is that my 2 perfect angel dogs have learned by her example instead of the other way around and frequently ignore my increasingly frantic pleas to listen. I have learned the truth and that is that the serene pack leader I once imagined myself to be was all an illusion, fostered only by the sweetness of my other 2 dogs placating my fantasy.  In retrospect, I suppose I had it, and by it, I mean Cheyenne, coming to me.

Let me start by explaining that I understand, or more accurately thought I understood, dogs with issues. Jackson, my Border collie, was an emotional wreck when I adopted him. He was terrified of everything, most notably stairs and riding in the car. I worked tirelessly to get him over both fears. I learned what motivated him, I encouraged him, supported, pushed and comforted him. We sat in the car without it running, I treated his motion sickness and I was patient and encouraging, and he not only conquered these fears but worshipped me in the process. I let his adoration go to my head. Looking back, I was probably quite smug; I thought I knew it all. I expected Cheyenne to react the same way, grateful, hanging on to my every wish, existing only for me. I had no idea what was in store for me or the ways that my life would change. The thing is that somewhere in between the many, and I do mean many, eaten shoes, chewed up couches, shredded blankets, books, pens, holes in the backyard, chases through the neighborhood, small rodent kills, and rolling and eating decaying creatures and feces, this little brown spotted dog has run away with my heart.

Apparently Dixie is mad at me. Very mad at me. Last night she ate, not 1, but 2 of my shoes. Different pairs of course. Sadly, one of the shoes she chewed up was my black patent leather Nine West heels. Easily the nicest pair of shoes I have ever owned, my all-time favorites and my go-to shoes anytime I dress up. Not to mention they were my only pair of black dress shoes.  They were timeless and I would have had them forever. The best part is that they were in my closet with the door closed (or so I thought)–I didn’t live through Cheyenne without learning a thing or two.  Evidently, I left the door cracked open just enough for Dixie’s tiny little 10 pound body to squeeze in and destroy whatever suited her fancy. At least she has good taste.

As a 6 year old dog, it has literally been years since she chewed up a pair of shoes. Clearly, she was mad at me. And not just a little. She was devastated when we discovered her. She slunk around and cowered and wouldn’t look us in the eye. Her tail, which curls over her back, went down straight. Today she is a completely different dog, playing with me and curling up in my lap, intent on making up with me.

Meanwhile, Cheyenne has found a new way to embarrass us. The neighbor’s house fascinates Cheyenne. They have 2 golden retrievers and a cat. She sits as close to the underground fenceline as she possibly can without getting shocked (my thoughts on electric fences still to come), and stares at their house. The other morning she had been outside for quite some time and ignored my every request to come inside. I tried opening the garage door because sometimes I can trick her into coming to me that way, to no avail. Eventually I had to go outside to get her. She was intently gazing across the street and did not move even when I walked up to her. Judging by the amount of snow that had accumulated on her body, she had been sitting in the same spot the entire time she was outside. I literally had to pick her up, and carry her inside after wiping off the snow. Once inside, she  held up her paws, and licked at them. Her poor little paws were frozen from sitting in the snow so long.