Life with a little dog is always more than little entertaining.
Trust me.
First, an update. Boot camp was a huge success. Boss is (generally) reliable and has earned his stripes – in other words, he can have free range of lower level without supervision and can also be trusted to sneak upstairs without dropping steaming log in the hallway.
This is a big step.
This being the first Saturday Boss has been permitted to run free around the house, he went at it full tilt. Around the house I think I even heard the lyrics of Born Free playing in the air. For such a little dog, this freedom was BIG. So big, there was fear he might just pee himself.
Or get into trouble with something other than himself. You see, Chris decided to paint the dining room wall today. Just one wall to test the color out. He was busy taping and washing the walls while Boss ran around the living room with his new toys – fuzzy lamb, stringy thing, big bone, and floppy octopus.
Soon Chris begins painting the walls. Boss is playing in the secret Narnia behind the curtains which these days means he is getting twisted in the curtain and sits there like he can’t find a way out. They are sheer curtains. He can totally see his way out. But to feign helplessness is so Boss’ style. This from the dog that lays in his crate each morning waiting to be extracted. I would like such service from my own bed.
Anyways, I am sitting at the dining room table working when I hear Chris yell……..
YOU STUPID FURRY ANIMAL!
There goes Chris running after Boss, literally runs under the table while Boss…..well…..Boss – has decided to paint his paws. Literally ran right through the tray of paint and is now tracking beige (actually Lennox Tan) paw prints all over the white carpet. I am laughing. HARD. As I watch Chris try to catch Boss I laugh harder. Grown man with paint all over his hands trying to catch small painted dog.
Finally, he catches Boss and takes him to the kitchen sink. There are Lennox Tan footprints all over the white carpet. Part of me is horrified but the other part of me – it’s like a slippery slope. I’m ready to throw peanut butter, jelly, ketchup all over the floor because at this point – why not? And wouldn’t that be fun anyways?
I look up from the floor wondering which condiment I will throw first and I see Chris washing Boss’ paws giving him his second bath for the week. Boss has that look on his face like oh crap I know I did something wrong really wrong but I have no idea what. Chris is talking to Boss, apologizing for yelling because after all – he is just a little dog.
Of course you think we would have learned. Crated him for the day. But we did not. He still had free range. So he went downstairs. Downstairs is like Boss’ best dream ever. There are so many random plastic things on the floor, pencils and socks. He always runs upstairs toting some new treasure from below. I was getting ready for my ride when I noticed Boss running upstairs. But then I realized something on his fur – something black.
Boss has grease from someone’s big chain ring all over his head. But it gets worse. Not just his head his entire right side. Chain rings like tattoos on his fur. Chris grabs hold of him and tells me he did the same thing last weekend while I was away. Chris said it would be easy to wipe off. But it was not. It required another bath. Bath #3 in a week.
It’s time to contain Boss. So Chris plays video games while Boss sits in his lap. Meanwhile, I go downstairs to do my bike ride. About an hour later, Chris comes downstairs with a pile of green squiggly strings and a bunch of white stuffing. He dumps it on the floor.
“Look at what Boss did.”
Floppy octopus was gone. Ravaged into a hundred little squiggles of green fabric and tufts of stuffing. And that is why we only paid $1.29 for floppy octopus. Because we knew it wouldn’t be long before his innards were pulled out and his squeaker was extracted. Kind of like Boss from the crate in the morning. Plucked right out.
A little while later, I was in the middle of a serious place of pain on the bike when I looked down at the piece of paper that I had written my workout on – it was sitting on the floor. On top of it was this strange little white ball that looked like an eye. For a moment I wondered if this was my coach’s idea of spyware planted there by my husband linked directly to her to keep an eye on me to make sure I was working STUPID HARD (her words).
But wait a minute, it actually was one of floppy octopus’ eyes. Looking right up at me.
It made me laugh. Floppy octopus still sat in a mangled pile on the floor nearby and there watching me was his eye. And I was not only going stupid hard but laughing stupid hard (and doing both at once are very hard things to do).
Life is always entertaining with a little dog. We tried to tell Eric that when he came over tonight to play video games with Chris and Boss peed all over him. It’s just his thing. It’s what he does. And if you are a little dog – puddle jumping in paint, running under big rings, finding the squeaker in floppy octopus PLUS meeting a new friend…..well, that’s a pretty damn good day for a little dog. So good you might just pee yourself.
