Theresa Lewis

The Adventures of Misty and Sasha

We loved our two perfect little puppies. We had heard horror stories from other dog owners about how destructive dogs could be, but we never had any problems with either of our dogs, at all.

One day I was talking to my sister in another province. She had Great Danes who totally trashed her house over time. She told me how her dogs had even torn the wallpaper off the walls. They had chewed the seats off her chairs, had ripped up her wall-to-wall carpeting, had dug up her house plants, had chewed her shoes, had destroyed their sofa, had chewed the corners off the walls, just to name a few of the horrifying events. I honestly don’t know how she tolerated that destruction. It simply blew my mind.

I was shocked by what she told me. She said her dogs started on their path of destruction from the time they were puppies. My dogs were just past two years old and had never, ever done anything horrible, like what her dogs had done. After I got off the phone, I told my husband and my dad what my sister’s dogs had done to her house. At the time of my relating the events, our two little white angels were lying on the floor in the same room as we were in. That was on a Saturday.

Normally, I worked Tuesday to Friday then had the next three days off. As usual, my days off were spent doing laundry and other tasks. On Tuesday, my husband and I went to work, my stepdaughter went to school and my dad went out with his brother.

When I got home from work around five o’clock, I was horrified by the carnage in the house. Everything I had said that my sister’s dogs had done in her house (over time) was right there before my own two eyes. My two little fluff balls went absolutely nuts while they were alone in the house. Now, they were cuddling together and sleeping like angels.

Oh, my goodness! What had they done? I nearly lost my mind. As I entered the house, there was a staircase that led up to the bedrooms. The carpet on the two bottom steps was ripped to shreds. A beautiful rare wooden telephone seat that my mother had given me before she died had been chewed beyond salvation.

Oh, holy crap! I went into the dining room and noticed that the forest scenery wallpaper had been ripped off the wall up to the halfway point. I was devastated. The seats of all four chairs that matched the dinette set had been destroyed. The corner of the wall that led to the hallway was all chewed up.

In the parlor, I had off-white wall-to-wall carpeting that I kept immaculate. It now had mounds of wet earth ground into it as all the plants had been dug out of their pots. There were tiny spit-balls of white foam strewn everywhere around the parlor from the sofa cushion they had split open and shredded.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. When my husband came home, he asked me what had happened. I was so mad that I could barely answer him. Moments later, my dad came in followed by my stepdaughter. They all wanted to know what had happened.

Once I was done cleaning up the wet earth from the parlor, I gave my family a tour of the areas of destruction. My stepdaughter said she had only been gone for just over two hours and that the house was perfectly intact at that time.

I couldn’t believe that in less than three hours the dogs had done that much damage to the house. No wonder they were sleeping when I came in; they must have been thoroughly exhausted.

I learned a profound eye opening lesson from that experience. Watch what you discuss in front of your dogs; they’re listening.

It was almost like they said to themselves, so this is what is expected of dogs. What took my sister’s dogs five years to do, mine did it within a matter of hours.

Look for more stories about the adventures of Misty and Sasha coming soon.

The End