Ann DueIt’s a beautiful autumn morning, and little Johnny goes to school.  He sit’s nervously in the class room while the teacher collects everyone’s homework from the night before.  The teacher reaches Johnny and his face explodes into a nervous smile and he says quietly, while looking into her eyes “Sorry Miss, the dog ate my homework!”.  Plausible yes, but I’ll let you decide if that one is fact or fiction.

The truth is however, dogs – and puppies in particular, do have a tendency to chew on things that we would much prefer the didn’t.  During my twelve years as an owner, I made my own Encyclopaedia of memories from some of those, and I’ll share a few with you today.

Memory number one relates to my big boy, Binx.  He was still a puppy and we had friends over and were going out for lunch.  Being so young, and it was a miserable day – we decided to leave Binx inside.  When we returned home we inspected the house and were very pleased that everything was in tact … until we found the crime scene.  Binx had decided to chew and destroy one of my friend’s shoes.  Oppsee…  Now it wouldn’t be so bad, but my friend was a flight attendant and was going off to work after lunch (hence, her uniform and shoes being at our home).  So apologies to any of the passengers from that day who were effected when a desperate flight attendant had to make a mad dash to the shoe store before being able to go to work.

Memory number two relates to both Binx and Chance.  While attending a BBQ at a friend’s place one summer, we tied both of our dogs up while we were eating.  Suddenly Chance was right by me, with what looked like a “Cut lead” was handing off his collar.  A bit mystified, I did have a spare lead in the car – so take two.  The next minute, both of the boys were there – same situation.  It appears Chance had the ability to chew through a lead very quickly – and I can only assume that he was was kind as to also free Binx to join in the fun??  It was very amusing for the other guests, but not so amusing for me when this trait later on expanded to seat belts in cars.  That was a very costly situation that resulted in being banned from my station wagon.

Memory three – while Chance owns this one, paws down.  For those that have heard stories about dogs eating cellphones… it’s not fiction, it is a fact.  My husband had a new phone and had left it on the coffee table.  Without being seen, Chance decided it was his new chew toy – and phones are no contestant for teeth.  The phone was completely ruined when it was found….  So let’s bring in the replacement phone – yes, a new phone was acquired and brought home.  This was a bit sturdier, with a plastic protective case.  Much more diligence was taken this time, but within the week – it happened again.  This time only the plastic case got damaged and was left with the tell-tale bit marks on it.  Now for those of you that don’t know Chance, when we rescued him from GSDR his name was Snow, but we changed it as Snow and No sounded too similar.  After this my husband decided we gave him a second Chance, but he was on his last Chance “if” it happened again.  I am pleased to report – it didn’t.

Well those are a couple of my stories, but I would love to hear a few of yours.  I know you all have plenty of tips and tricks as well to avoid the un-avoidable chewing sagas, so please feel free to share those with us all too.