Definitely Not Half the Work...

But maybe double the destruction.

I said in my last post that I had read that having two dogs was half the work - I suppose the theory being that they keep each other company and entertain each other. We're dog-sitting a little cockapoo named Mia. We rearranged the main floor of the house a little, since we planned on leaving the two dogs out during the day together.

The first day went pretty smoothly. When we came home, the dogs were tired (probably from chasing each other all day) and the only damage was our chewed-up blinds. I wasn't crazy about them anyway - they were here when we moved in - so I wasn't too upset about the damage.

That doesn't look right...

Mia wasn't really extra work. She does have quite different eating habits than Oscar. She is a grazer, and eats just a tiny bit at a time. We couldn't leave her with food all day though, or else Oscar would have eaten it in a heartbeat, so we separated her from Oscar several times that evening to try to get her to eat. The extra time we spent with her was more than offset by her having tired Oscar out so much with all the chasing and games of bitey-face that he pretty much just lay around rather than trying to play, being rambunctious or causing trouble as usual. We were feeling pretty good about things.

Yay sleepy dog!

The pups are tired out.

Then came Wednesday. My husband got home first, and immediately called me to ask me to come home, because the dogs had chewed the baseboards in our living room. Great. There was quite a pile of wood bits all over the floor, so I got worried and called the vet even though they were running around and seemed totally normal. I was told to wet and soften their kibble and see if they could eat and swallow properly, check the roof of their mouths for splinters, and check their poop for blood. If they could eat, and there were no splinters or blood, they were probably just fine.

I didn't see splinters and there was no blood anywhere. Mia ate all her kibble at once, which I thought was a very good sign that she was feeling fine - and actually hungry for once. Oscar ate all of his as well, as usual, which was also good. They both pooped more or less right away, and there were only wood splinters in one dog's poop...I'm sure you can guess which one. Sigh. Oscar is such a troublemaker. We cleared the entire room of anything that we thought he could eat before we left for the day. We definitely didn't think he'd go and eat our baseboards!

Note the entire top strip is missing.

This corner has been nicely gnawed on too...

I wish I could tell you that this is his remorseful
pose, but it's not. No remorse whatsoever.

Lucky for us, he was feeling okay. There were still long pieces of the baseboards that were intact (although no longer attached to the wall), and a big pile of wood splinters and chips, so I don't think very much of the wood actually made it into his system. Most of it has gone through him and he's been doing fine since then. Mia was fine, but that's because I don't think she did any of the chewing. I suppose this means we'll be making a trip to Home Depot and will teach ourselves how to install baseboards. It's probably going to come in handy, because now that he knows he can do it, he's tried to chew them on two more occasions. The baseboards are all over our house - on the main level and in the basement - so we really have to keep an eye on him now. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of this new habit, sadly.

I think having two dogs could actually be half the work (or at least no more work than having one), if only one of those dogs wasn't a chewing/destruction machine. Even now, after running around for the entire evening, Oscar's been going to town on his Everlasting Treat Ball for the last hour (which, might I had, he had pretty much no interest in before Mia decided she liked it) while Mia is lying quietly on the couch, sleeping. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - he's lucky he's cute!