Bella the Naughty Lab

The last two weeks are a blur. One day melded into the next. I've been busy on a job, busy with the dog care, busy with moving all my stuff in the office into the living room to make my office into an office/workout room.

I dog sat for Bella for 5 days over the weekend. Bella is stubborn. She doesn't like to listen to me. She's a counter surfer and she leaves my house through the front door when I'm not paying attention. She just adores R. ...and she is naughty naughty naughty....

Three times she left my house, three different days. She waits until I'm caught up with the noisy little ninjas, letting them outside, carrying Tilly out and thinking she's right in the group going outside, too. Well, she is going outside, it's just the front storm door that doesn't always latch that she pushes her 80 pounds through. I, of course, don't realize this until it hits me and I say, "where's Bella?" "Bella?" "Bella?" oh, no. I grab my keys and hop in the car and circle the streets of my neighborhood. The first time I found her she was taking a dump in a yard about a mile from my house, "nice Bella." ugh. I get out of the car, call to her to come and she looks at me like I'm bothering her and meanders her way to the car. The second time, I call for her in the backyard to make sure I just can't see her somewhere and then I hop in my car and start searching. This time she went in the opposite direction and was a few houses West of me, but I drove East and circled South and then came around. Each time I think, "uh, how do I tell Chuck that I've lost his dog?" or worse, "what if I find that she's been hit by a car?" "oh, get those thoughts right out of your head Denise" So, I found her this second time and she trotted to my car and jumped right in. Of course, you can't yell at a dog at this point. You actually have to praise them! Yes, praise them because they came to you. So I end up saying things in a very happy 'aren't you a good girl' voice, that I would say if I were to yell at her. She doesn't know the words, she just knows how happy I am to see her and have her come to me. Brat.

The third time I subconsciously heard the door close behind her and got to her before she hit the edge of my front yard. She took her sweet time coming back to the house. Brat.

Bella is a counter surfer and I forget this a lot. My dogs are too short for me to worry about this so it's not habit for me to push food way back or to put a container away before going off to take care of something else before coming back.

I had gotten a new container of treat like Gluclosamine chunks for Tilly. They were on the small island in my kitchen for 3 days and Bella didn't touch them...so I didn't think of them being there as a problem. Well, apparently I should have. I came home Saturday late afternoon to find not only had Bella been on my bed (she's not allowed) but also a very empty chewed up container that had 60 chunks in it, enough to last Tilly 120 days for her size (if she would eat the darn things) or 20 days for Bella for her size. Uh oh, this isn't going to be good. After a couple hours of drinking in larger quantities than normal....she let loose...dark murky water and mucus over about 12 square feet of my kitchen floor -- wood floor. ugh. I was a total bitch that day anyway (thanks hormones!) and this didn't help at all, add to it that R. was exhausted from all the work he's been doing and he was napping...NAPPING? how dare he! LOL Bella loves him more, he should be cleaning this up right?????? Yes, there are times of being indignant in my life. So I cleaned it up with much grumbling under my breath and kept an eye on her afterward. She did well, I thought, for the rest of the evening until 9pm hit and I really needed to go to bed. I walk into the bedroom and I smell a foul odor....oh, no...not the other end...yup, lucky me.

Glucosamine is not toxic in large quantities but may cause diarrhea...check!

I did a google search, thank goodness for the 'www'....I thought I'd be giving her some peroxide to help her upchuck the rest but I just let it take it's course and except for another small accident the next day, she survived, she was just mellow for awhile.

Fortunately, Chuck knows exactly how she is and was not surprised to hear these stories upon his return to pick her up. The girl's not boring that's for sure.