More Dog

So. Kristin’s dog.
He has settled in a little, and has started playing with the girls. He is absolutely fabulous with them - going down on his elbows and waving his butt in the air, then racing around and back to get them to play with them. He's quite gentle, though one of their shirts has teeth marks in it now. They think he's amazing.
When we play music and dance in the living room, he gets up on his back legs and cuts in. It's really funny. But that's only the good part.

The problem is what to do with him when we’re not home. My sister didn’t bring his kennel. It’s freezing outside… So I’ve mostly taken him with me and left him in the car when I run errands, or with me to walk the kids to school, wherever I go, he’s with us. Until this morning. I had to go to the church at 8:00 am to set up for a breakfast we did for the Primary. Hubby brought the girls at 9:00, and then went to a coffee shop to get some work done. We put a couple of our dining room chairs against a swinging door we have between the kitchen and the dining room to keep the dog out of the front of the house, and shut all the doors in the back, hopefully corralling him in the kitchen, on the tile floor.

Well.
The dog scratched up the swinging door until he got it open enough that he could reach the back of the dining room chair braced against the door. He scratched along the top of that until he moved it out of the way enough to get by it.

Chair and Nice 100 year old solid wood door 0
Dog + 2

I found poop on the floor of the office, the door of which opens onto the front entryway, and pee all over a painting smock that the girls had left on the floor of the office, urine was tracked all through the front entryway. All of this is wood floors, though the dining room and living room rugs are kind of right there….


Office Hardwood Floor 0
Dog + 1

There was a small bamboo plant on the windowsill behind the front couch. He snapped it off by the base, and the water in it was dumped down the back of the couch.

Plant 0
Dog +1

Our front door is a large glass panel framed in wood. For privacy there is a curtain thing, gathered in the center with a sash of cloth and attached by little rods at the top and bottom. The curtain had been ripped in two and was lying on the entryway floor. The rods were bent and the metal rod holders screwed into the door were really bent.

Curtain and rods - 0
Dog + 2

Aww, heck, I’m not keeping score anymore.

There was dog hair on the front couch and pillows. Oh. And a plastic bag that had been on the kitchen counter and at one time had either two or three bagels in it was laying on the floor, bagels were of course gone.

Of course all of this wouldn’t have happened if we had just left the dog outside. Our yard is fenced but the door to the garage is too warped to stay shut, and there’s tons of crap in the garage that I'm not sure what he'd do with. And besides, Kristin tells me he has the run of their house while they’re at work. So I’d hoped nothing would happen. The idea of sanding down and refinishing my beautiful dining room chair… and the same thing with the lovely old swinging door… Sigh.

Suddenly I find myself very uninterested in getting a dog.