I'm guessing it's the latter.
Over and over again, I obviously need to be reminded that Thea is not Panda and probably won't ever be. In my nearly 6 years with Panda, I can think of only a couple of items she has destroyed before she learned that she could only have things that had been explicitly given to her, everything else was off limits. Brilliant, I know. We were spoiled.
Thea, she is loving and sweet and cute in so very many ways. But there are times.
That was 3 weeks ago. Except for an odd incident when I found her giving a hex wrench a taste, she's been as close to angelic as she's capable of being. Then, on Monday, Leo and I came home from dinner to this...
Brace yourself.
The Inox needle and clover stitch markers are destroyed. She seemed to mainly be interested in those and not the skirt itself. There are only one or two breaks in the yarn and areas where she has pulled out short sections of rows, repeatedly, down several inches, but not across the whole round. It salvageable but it'll be some time before I'm back to where I was.
I think the hardest thing is that my momentum for this piece has been (hopefully temporarily) quashed. A few hundred stitches, worked in stockinette chevron does not for exciting knitting make.
But just when I think I might actually be able to hold a grudge, she goes and makes cute at me again.
I'm such a sucker.
From the picture, Panda looks like she felt guilty about Thea's actions ... Wiggley is the disruptive one amongst the two of us. And then he puts on this ultimate cuteness and everything is fine again !
Ouch! At least it is fixable though and the random chewing instinct for dogs *really does* taper off at some point.
If you had cats instead, you would have to be on constant watch. Also, they are interested in everything about knitting: yarn, needles, stitch markers, they'll play with it all. And they have a 6th sense for most natural wool and will appear within seconds of you starting to work with it. I live in a house with 6 of them, btw.
Thea's still a pup! Expect random acts of violence against property for at least two years. Just when you think it's over, you'll find it isn't.
But it does get better. :)
Well look at it from her perspective, YOU spend so much time (and have fun in the process) that SHE wants to enjoy the knitting experience too!! Okay - done laughing yet? Between her growing up and you learning to remove the temptations, it will get better!
Panda looks traumatised! My beloved beast seems to prefer the more expensive, delicate stuff. Makes for hours of untangling fun.
I have a few stuffed toys around the house, not in any prominent place and my dog will occasionally bite the tiniest plastic nose (beanie baby size) or eyes off of them. She doesn't eat them. I just find the plastic nose/eye by the gummed up toy. It reminded me of the stitch marker and circ. cable. The dexterity of the biting is very fine. I'm sorry Thea had to disrupt the stitches to get to the tiny plastic things. Hopefully you'll find the groove on that piece again.
Poor Panda! I agree, she looks stunned by the naughtiness.
My theory is that it probably tastes/smells like you, and she missed you and one thing lead to another...
My Bel was like that in her younger days, but fortunately has calmed down quite a bit.
(She even took a chunk off the corner of HP#5 - I almost lost it!)
But cutie pie Thea will be calmer eventually, and you'll look back fondly at how far she's come!
Oh, dear. When I first started spinning, my angelic Camus turned into a monster. He has a thing for superwash and alpaca. Great. The only thing that stopped it was putting stuff out of his nose's reach. We learned that he acted this way when he wasn't happy that we'd left for the day.
Now, he just eats the cat food when we're not where he wants us to be. Good luck!
Panda looks appalled and apologetic. Thea, not so much. (sorry, mom, I know you told me to watch her while you were gone...)
We have a new little Min Pin that both my dh and I have regretted getting a hundred times over, yet could we now give her up after having her only a couple of months? Not on your life!
When she's sweet, she's precious, and when she's silly and playful, she's more entertaining than a barrel of monkeys. Yet, like you with Thea and Panda, there's no comparison in the world with our new little Leyna and our older dog, who has always 'naturally' been well behaved and known what lines not to cross.
I'm so sorry about your skirt and other goodies. When they turn on the charm, it's easy enough to forget all that though.....thankfully. ;-Þ
Oh...wow...Panda has such a worried look on her face. Like, "Mom I tried to stop her." Glad the project wasn't totally destroyed...unlike where I work the dog just ate up an entire cushion of the couch and three work boots. :)
Wow it really is like having kids Marnie! My first (child we're talking about) was also pretty well behaved and seemed to understand early on what "No" meant and adhere to it ....number two?....not so much....but he is gosh darn cute and affectionate which always erases my anger too! Hope you get back to the skirt it was looking very promising!
I *know* your pain, sistah!
On the one hand, you might think, "Well, it's just knitting," but on the other hand, there's always "Egads, all of that time spent! Pfft!"
Deep breathing works well...
my cats leave most of my stuff pretty much alone. both of them have a fascination for roving, though, so that has t o be at least bagged (i can get away with grocery bags, thank goodness). other than that, jimi tends to chew on EVERYTHING when he's hungry. i guess he has me trained, cuz then i know i need to feed him, lol
I had a dog once that every time we left the house she would tear something up. My background with this dog though is we took her in when she was almost a year old and the first year of her life she was neglected.
At first it was little things like books and paper. Then, it became bigger things like tearing a hole into our couch. Eventually, we realized that we had to put her inside a kennel in the house while we were gone. It wasn't something I wanted to do, but I knew eventually she would get into a routine with it and feel more safe.
This dog we had never really outgrew this type of anxiety and after we had kids we realized that her unpredictability was something we couldn't trust and had to find her a new home.
Our other dog, who was a black lab did not have any of these problems and was very empathetic on how we were feeling and rarely did anything to disappoint.
Another thing is that your pup Thea is still a pup and until she hits about 2 or 3 years she will test all boundaries.
Energy to burn is the problem sometimes... tired pups :)
Yes, I've come home to those sights. And sad to say, my pups are 12 and 13 (so much for it ending with puppy hood).
Sapphire will chew up paper like the first picture and she will toss a skein in the air a bit too which can have destructive results. (I'm scared to death they will impale themselves on the needles so that motivates me to keeping projects zipped up or high up)
Argus, my half-blind old man seems to always be tangled in my knitting and I come home to strands all over the house and wrapped around things and unraveling galore.
And I take one look at him and wouldn't have it any other way.
Oh, poor Panda looks so guilty, and Thea, um not so much. Hang in there, a crate might not be a bad way to go, and most do eventually grow out of the destroying stage. Although, I just found that Meadow got a hold of the HP7 dust jacket that I had so carefully taken off so it wouldn't get ripped. Yah, now there are pieces torn off it and teeth marks through most of it. I'm going to try to tape it all back together, but really nothing is going to make it pristine like I wanted.
If it makes you feel any better my friends lost FOUR remotes in one week to their dog. She has to be in a crate when no one is home, she can never be trusted. And another friends Dobie ate the side of their COUCH. Yes, the couch, about a square foot of it is missing off the arm. See! Don't you feel better? It could have been a lot worse.
Wow. I almost cried for you. It may be the pollen, but, no, I think it's for you. All I can think, is, good thing it was on a circ, or you could have come home to way worse. The only thing I have to compare is when my 2 youngest, boys that is, who amazingly do compare to pups, got into my big trunk of yarn. They not only took off all the paper wrappers ("but they're our treasure maps, Mom.") but also had way too much fun winding several skeins all over the basement, a la spider web. Unfortunately, I'm way too cheap to have just cut all the ends and thrown away the tangled mess, no, I had to sit there for a couple of hours re-winding everything. There's now a footstool upside down on that trunk. And I have never again taked a shower while they're awake. Lesson learned.
I do agree with the others who said that Panda looks WAY more guilty than Thea. You can totally tell who the responsible one is. Poor Panda, to have to put up with all that.
Well she is still just a puppy. Adn I agree that Panda is the one who looks guilty. Could it be like my grandsons (3 & 5) - the older one feels guilty for not keeping the younger one from misbehaving (altho he is also just as likely to point out that HE didn't do THAT)? Or she could be reacting to the tone of your voice - she knows someone did something wrong & wonders if it's her. At any rate you have the 2 cutest dogs I've ever seen.
Wow. I almost cried for you. It may be the pollen, but, no, I think it's for you. All I can think, is, good thing it was on a circ, or you could have come home to way worse. The only thing I have to compare is when my 2 youngest, boys that is, who amazingly do compare to pups, got into my big trunk of yarn. They not only took off all the paper wrappers ("but they're our treasure maps, Mom.") but also had way too much fun winding several skeins all over the basement, a la spider web. Unfortunately, I'm way too cheap to have just cut all the ends and thrown away the tangled mess, no, I had to sit there for a couple of hours re-winding everything. There's now a footstool upside down on that trunk. And I have never again taked a shower while they're awake. Lesson learned.
I do agree with the others who said that Panda looks WAY more guilty than Thea. You can totally tell who the responsible one is. Poor Panda, to have to put up with all that.
Yikes!! I totally FEEL your pain. My little one is NOTHING like the older one (who is perfectby the way - hehee!)
He constantly chews up any paper left on the coffee table, gets into the trash and always find any yarn and/or needles left on the coffee table or side tables.
Just this past weekend a sock in progress was eaten...! (Along with the expensive Addi bamboo circs!)
But then he wiggles his little but and looks at me and I forgive him.
As always!
I'd be really curious to see how Panda reacts while this sort of thing is going on. She's already a little . . . erm . . . neurotic, yes? This must make her nuts. Do you think it'll make her want to try doing something naughty?
One of our girls cats, Chloe, is like the Cindy Brady of the house. A major tattle-tale. If any of the other cats is doing something bad, she lets us know. Once, they got out the back door and into the basement. Chloe sat at the open door meowing like crazy until we came over, then she went to the stairs and looked down to let us know where the others were.
She's not very popular with them. They think she should loosen up. I'm glad she's a snitch.
Poor Panda. How to tell the non-guilty dog not to take it personally ... Does she feel like she is being scolded when Thea is? Or does she have that expression because she knows something BAAAD has happened and that you won't be happy?
You know, I have heard and tried this idea ... instead scolding the dog, scold the item she touched. For example, if she chews a hole in a sock or a shoe, take the shoe, smack it on the floor, and shake it, saying "bad shoe! bad shoe!" It flips the dog out something fierce ... "I'm not going anywhere NEAR that bad shoe!"
I love the look on Panda's face in that first picture. "It wasnt me!" And, ohhhhh, Thea . . . you shouldn't DO that!!
Does it make you feel better to know that Chappy chewed a hole in the kitchen wall--after tearing off a strip of wallpaper--when he was a puppy? And while my parents were upstairs??
It's a good thing they're cute, or they'd never get out of the puppy/kitten stage. Cuteness is their survival mechanism. You have my sympathies.
Three words: confine that grrl!
My grrl had a tendency (still does!) to have too much fun while I'm out, so I use a baby gate and confine her to the kitchen. She's so cute - she knows when I'm getting ready to go out (the lipstick is the clincher cue), and she goes into the kitchen into her doggie bed that I keep there for her, and waits for me to put up the gate.
It would be a bit more complicated with two dogs - perhaps you could confine Panda as well, out of a sense of fairness - but Thea may not grow out of it - Ms. B never did.
Mouth: agape.
Oh dear! Miss Thea! And you know as that was going on with the skirt (I loved that skirt, BTW), Panda was just shaking her hear, mortified. ;) Well, at least you can know for certain that Thea has learned the cute act down to a science! ;) Head scratches to them both from me.
I love that Panda is looking guilty, like she's got all the anxiety over having done something naughty that Thea is totally lacking.
You know, that first pic wouldn't be so funny if Panda didn't look so guilty! I mean seriously! The poor dog has a look like 'I swear I tried to stop her Mom, but she wouldn't listen....don't stop loving me' (like you ever would).
Oh, that's so hard, so upsetting - I have lost countless loaves of bread, several pies and other items carelessly left out on the counter (they're big dogs), but never any knitting (touch wood) - like kids, it's a good thing they're cute, or they'd never make it past the first year! I do like the fact that Panda has enough conscience for the both of them...
OH MY GOD
Well, if she doesn't learn, I guess you will. Time to keep the knits in progress up on a high shelf.
I'm sorry to say that my first reaction was to laugh out loud...then I scrolled down the page and saw the skirt ...poor you. That said my cat has carried away and hidden my $65 qiviut
and I have no idea where his stash is kept . He's better at hiding stuff than me.
Poor Panda, ears down sad......happy, satisified with her handy work Thea with her ears always perked up ! I know... it's all in the language of the ears. My friends dog with ears down is no trouble and her dog with ears always perked up is the trouble maker.
Maybe if you duct taped her ears down she would be less curious.
Ow...ow....ow....ow...OW!! That would have been very upsetting, furshur....
(And I'm sorry, but Panda's face in the first picture is so great - she looks all sheepish, like "I swear I swear I SWEAR it wasn't me, but I couldn't stop her and I tried and I'm so sorry and I love you guys and ohhhhh man I'm just gonna go lie down over there now....*skulk*"
Ow...ow....ow....ow...OW!! That would have been very upsetting, furshur....
(And I'm sorry, but Panda's face in the first picture is so great - she looks all sheepish, like "I swear I swear I SWEAR it wasn't me, but I couldn't stop her and I tried and I'm so sorry and I love you guys and ohhhhh man I'm just gonna go lie down over there now....*skulk*")
Wow.
Just wow.
Good thing you love that pup so much!! :)
Oh man, look at Panda. She really looks scared, like she is going to be punished in the worst way. Poor girl!
I think the knitting thing would have put me over the top, I'm afraid. I have a kitten who does this sort of thing. She'll sneak into the "wool-room," grab a skein, then slink out, low-to-the-ground and lightening fast. We have come home and happened upon the worlds largest "Gods-Eye"project known to man. (remember those things? nails, string, and a board) Strings around all of the dining room furniture, up and down all of the stairs, and anywhere else string can get tangled around.
Thea will get it. She's just not quite as cerebral as Panda. But, ohhh, the pain!
OMG. Panda's expression kinda makes it all go away though. Luckily.
Ooooh...*winces* Ouch.
I am really sorry. That is a bit soul destroying.
It's like when I was a new-knitter and my cat hairballed on the baby blanket I was making for a co-workers baby...
*shakes head* Ouch.