You may recall that I recently adopted Carly, an 18-month-old Great Dane.
Great Danes are known, primarily, for their size. (Think Marmaduke.) Carly is such a sweet girl, but still a puppy, and, as such, she requires a lot of attention. Her favorite time of day is our Matchmaker morning video conference meetings – where she makes a valiant attempt to get into my lap (yes, she thinks she’s a lap dog!).
In the past four months, I’ve realized that Carly is a chewer. Crafty Carly found a way to make our loveseat all her own by chewing a hole in it; it is now her new bed. Speaking of beds, she has also destroyed a twin comforter and four pillows.
Don’t worry – we aren’t encouraging her bad behavior! We have bought Carly DOZENS of dog toys – all shredded. I even spent a cool twenty dollars on one single toy advertised as “indestructible.”
That’s a lot for a dog toy, but it’s cheaper than a new loveseat! (Surprise: it didn’t last more than an hour.) Finally, we went classic. Rawhide bones. What dog doesn’t love a bone? Carly loves them. And as long as we kept a stash of bones in the house? No problem. But, of course, we ran out of bones.
And yet, the couch was still safe. It seemed that even without her bones, Carly’s chewing problem had abated. But then, I started noticing small, hard pieces of plastic on the floor, and I couldn’t figure out what they were. Not connecting them to Carly at all, I simply picked them up and threw them away.
Then, one morning, upon opening the fridge, I learned where Carly’s new obsession had taken her – to the refrigerator magnets. As you may remember: Carly is a Great Dane. She’s huge, and can easily lay her head on the counter tops. Carly, without her bones, was literally taking magnets off of my refrigerator, eating them and leaving their plastic “wrappers” on the floor!
Knowing this, you can bet I made a special trip to the pet store to buy some more rawhide bones right away. Carly loves going with me to the pet store, walking up and down the aisles, getting attention from other shoppers and, of course, receiving a treat at the checkout.
But this time, taking Carly with me was out of the question! Why? Because the pet store theft detection system is triggered by – you guessed it – magnets. The last thing I needed was for Carly’s ‘snacks’ from the refrigerator to trigger the alarm!
Ah, well. There’s nothing like a Google search about weird things dogs have eaten to remind me it could always be worse. And, after reading this article, I’ll be putting a lock on my sock drawer, for sure!
Happy Monday,
~Mary
