The devil in her

Miss sweetness and light, our Lady boxer, has a dark side. I have to admit I knew she was antsy and needed to get out, but we were hungry, wanted to go eat first. Gone only an hour, we pulled into the garage and (without going into the house) invited Lady into the car for a trip to dog park, where she was more playful than usual, initiating action from the get-go instead of needing a half hour to warm up. Home again, we discovered what she had accomplished while we were eating. A big fat roll of paper towels had been unwound and spread over the entire living room floor. A roll of toilet paper had been chewed and spread over the paper towel layer. One of Grumpy's moccasins (which I had naively hidden under blankets on the sofa) was disassembled (insoles removed & scattered). All these things had happened individually before but never all at once and so intensively. Done redecorating the living room, she started on the area around Grumpy's desk in the dining room. He likes to hang grocery store plastic bags from knobs to collect garbage. Lady likes to unload them.

The rarely-used dog kennel gathering dust on the back porch now sits in our living room with a fresh new, white, fluffy, perfect-fit doggie cushion. Lady goes in there EVERY time we leave the house. Why so long before we hit upon this well-known and widely-used remedy? Guilt. She seems to feel the kennel is punishment. (The first year of her life is a blank for us.) Well, it worked fine at cousin Hooly's house, so it's going to work fine here. No more guilt.