Doggone it!

I have two Boston Terriers named Rocky and Bogart.  They are my furry little men.  We love them and treat them like they are members of our family, but they are notorious for destroying things when we are not home. 

It all started when Rocky was a puppy.  My husband (then boyfriend) and I bought Rocky my junior year of college.  Rocky was my buddy and I was thankful to have him around.  He was cute and innocent until he destroyed nearly a hundred dollars in college library books.  This descended into a downward spiral of shoes, rugs, and furniture.

 Being a glutton for punishment, a year later we purchased a female Boston Terrier name Scout.  This gave Rocky a partner in crime.  She was Bonnie to his Clyde.  Together they managed to destroy our apartment kitchen linoleum and our kitchen chairs.  They chewed the chairs so bad, I thought perhaps I was sold beavers instead of dogs.  Sadly, we had to put Scout down about 6 years ago.  We had her cremated.  She sits in a little urn on our mantel.  We still miss her. 

About a year after we bought Scout we again added to our pack of dogs with a floppy eared, droopy eyed Boston name Bogart.  We called him Bogey because in golf, a bogey is one too many, which is what he was...one dog too many.  Rocky, Scout, and Bogey were the three amigos.  They ran the show in our house.  My favorite destructive memory of this trio was an eventful trip to the grocery and video store.  Of course we took the dogs with us because if we left them at home something would get destroyed.  We ran into the grocery and bought some fresh items from the deli.  Sandwiches, beans, potato salad, chips, etc. Then we decided to run quickly into the video store.  We were gone 15 minutes, but the dogs managed to devour our groceries.  Wrappers, cartons, and food were tossed about the car and the dogs.  It looked as though a tornado had ripped through our car.  The fearsome threesome strikes again!  Over the years there have been more incidents than I can count.  Pizzas on the counter, a pound of fudge (that lead to a late night call to the vet), multiple magazines, and of course the red marker that met it's demise on my living room carpet.  Bogey was caught red pawed on that one. 

We have learned how to avoid these "messy" situations by shutting our dogs in our laundry room.  This leaves them nothing to chew up, and they can be messy with little damage done.  Tonight I broke the lock down rule, and forgot to shut the door from the laundry room to our kitchen. When walking into the house my husband's reaction was a shocked and angry, "You left the door open!" Upon our initial inspection everything seemed OK.  Then we notice there was a plate on the floor that used to hold a few leftover donuts from breakfast.  Doggone it!  Now, in Rocky's prime he could jump over a 4-5 foot gate without a running start, so jumping on our kitchen table or counter is child's play for him, even in his old age.  My daughter was the first to notice the chocolate cream filled donut smeared all over the hallway carpet.  My husband just handed me the carpet cleaner and scrub brush.  This was my punishment for foolishly leaving the door open.  I love my dogs.  This is part of being a dog owner.  What I'm most surprised about is that they left the 3 dozen freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on the counter alone.  Either they were already full from the donuts, or they are not quite as adept as they used to be!