The adventures of Misty and Sasha continues
There was something wonderful about having two dogs. There was no dog whisperer back in those days, but most people did their best to train their dogs to obey. As much as we taught them, they taught us more. We were lucky as far as I was concerned, we never had to worry about our puppies misbehaving, because they never did… for the first two years of their lives.
I had often heard the experts say that animals only do what they were trained to do, or what is instinctive for their breed. I have to laugh at those experts because I have experienced the unbelievable decisions that our puppies have made. If I sound like a proud guardian, believe me I was.
As I mentioned in one of my other stories, I only worked four days a week at my job. During the week, someone was usually home during the day. As long as there was someone in the house, the dogs would behave themselves. However, every second week, my dad would go out with his brother for about two to three hours and the dogs were left alone in the house. Only when they were left alone did they get into trouble. After a while, I had the feeling that they just waited for us to leave them alone because the mischief they got into was always different from the time before.
I had done my grocery shopping on the Monday and one thing I purchased was a thirty-six roll pack of toilet paper. My downstairs powder room had no cupboard, nor shelving unit to store bathroom needs. I had always stored my extra toilet paper on the floor next to the toilet.
When I came home after work on the Tuesday, I walked into a mountain of spit balls of toilet paper. You have no idea how thirty-six rolls of toilet paper, unrolled and shredded into little balls can decorate a house. Every single room was decorated but the bulk of it was piled just inside the door as you walk into the house. My work days were fourteen hours long and I was always exhausted by the time I got home.
I noticed that Sasha was lying on the carpet in the living room, but Misty was nowhere to be seen. I called her and she came bounding down from upstairs. I leaned over to scold her for the big mess. When I did that, I noticed that she had minty fresh breath. Dogs aren’t supposed to have minty fresh breath.
I ran upstairs to find an empty mangled tube of toothpaste on my bed. We had always kept the toothpaste behind the taps on the bathroom sink. I had no idea how she knew where it was, or better than that, how she could have got up there to get it. There was nothing for her to have climbed up on except the open toilet.
I had to test her on that one. I took the toothpaste tube (what was left of it) and I put it back where we always kept it, behind the taps on the sink. I told her if she wanted it, she would have to get it. I watched as she eagerly went for it.
Misty gingerly climbed up on the rim of the toilet seat and stretched her body until she could get her front paws onto the edge of the counter. She struggled, but she was finally able to drag herself up onto the counter. She had to dig the tube out from behind the taps with her paw. While she held it between her teeth, she retraced her steps and actually went down off the counter backwards. Oh, my goodness, I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. I would have thought that once she was up there, she would have jumped down to the floor. I was amazed to watch her nimble climb backwards without her falling into the open toilet.
Misty’s nature was very different from Sasha’s nature. Misty was adorable and loveable and very predictable. She didn’t like to fetch, nor did she like to play ball. For that matter, she never played with any toys. Sasha was the thinker. She was always looking for new things to do, new games to play, and new places to hide things.
For that reason, I had always believed that Sasha was the instigator for all the chaos caused in the house when no one was home. I strongly suspected that I had underestimated Misty’s role in all the nonsense.
As tired as I was, I had to wash the quilt on my bed to get the toothpaste off. While the quilt was in the dryer, I started cleaning up the mountain of toilet paper from around the house. Just when I thought I was done, I would find more spit balls behind the sofa, under the end tables and hanging off the lampshades. I wish I had been a fly on the wall to see how fast they made that mess. If dogs could laugh, I’ll just bet they were laughing that day.
Another Tuesday, I came home to find the heavy scent of too much perfume in the air. I wondered who had been in my house while I was at work. Sasha greeted us at the door, but Misty didn’t. I called Misty and she came running downstairs absolutely reeking of expensive French perfume. I ran upstairs to see what she had done. She had totally destroyed my bottle of “je reviens” French perfume. It was a new bottle and now it was totally empty. She had bitten off the aerosol nipple and the perfume had soaked into the bedding, the mattress and her. I loved that perfume and used it only for special occasions.
Even though I bathed the dog in lemon juice then tomato juice then vinegar and had disposed of the bedding, I couldn’t get rid of the smell of perfume in the mattress. That scent lingered for what felt like months. Now, I hate the scent of strong perfume and never use it myself.
More stories of the adventures of Misty and Sasha to follow
The End