I won’t lie to you all and say that I’m a perfect, mistake free, dog-owner.  Sometimes I make mistakes… sometimes I leave the pantry door slightly less than latched and I end up coming home to bird seed, or flour, or mini-wheat cereal all over the floor (and slightly more round dog(s), or slightly whiter dog(s), or dog(s) with bird seed stuck in their fur).  Sometimes the gate (pressure style) at the top of the stairs is not tight enough and one of my two lovely dogs will go down stairs, hop the gate into the cat room and eat the cat food (luckily they leave the kitty-krunchies in the cat-box alone).  Other times I may forget about the bag of treats I have stashed inside my training pouch, which is inside my training bag, which is sitting on top of my dresser and I end up coming home to a dresser top completely void of objects, my training stuff strewn across the floor, one bait bag completely destroyed, and at least a clicker or two chewed up (Rio will chew the clicker and click it himself then look for food, it’s actually quite comical).  Sometimes a bathroom door gets left unlatched and toilet paper gets destroyed (by the cats) and paper towels ripped up (by Rio).
I try my darnedest to prevent any mishaps… but eh, in a house with 6 creatures and with busy schedules, sometimes things get overlooked.  It’s a pretty rare occurrence….but I do sometimes make mistakes (shocking right?).
Today, however, was NOT one of those days.  Or so I am claiming.  I had the opportunity to go to the opening day at PNC Park to watch the Pirates play.  Since it was an absolutely gorgeous spring day, I couldn’t pass up the chance to go to one of baseball’s most beautiful ballparks.  I prepared frozen kongs, ran the dogs for 30 minutes of “chuck-it” sprints, gated off the down stairs, cleared the kitchen counter, checked for any bait bags, and checked to make sure the pantry was securely closed.  All was good when I left.
All was not as good when I came back (though nothing awful, so fear not!).  When I returned home I found Life cereal crumbs all over the floor and an empty, chewed up, cereal bag on the floor. “Hmmm,” I thought to myself.  Could I have not noticed this bag while I cleared off the counter?  No. I didn’t notice it because it wasn’t there.  It was firmly sitting on top of the fridge when I left the house.  Now, while it is probably possible for Rio (not Shayne) to leap up onto the counter and then leap up onto the top of the fridge, it’s completely unlikely.  THAT DARN CAT!!!!  I have no proof which one of the three monsters it was, but one of them had to have knocked the bag off the fridge and on to the floor, where it became fair game for the dogs.  Lesson learned, next time the whole kitchen will be gated off since apparently my cats are the worst trouble-makers ever and are in cahoots with the dogs!
The scariest part… one of the cats, Jefferson is a polydactyl (Hemmingway) cat and has thumbs… I think I may be doomed.
Have a good weekend everyone!