Recently, my wife went on a little trip with some of her friends and took the baby.
This left me alone to reconnect with the dog, who’s received a little less attention than she had been receiving before the baby was born. Although she’s by no means attention starved (a point she would contest I’m sure). We used to foster dogs and, as a consequence, have had a lot of dogs over the years.
One of the most adorable was a pit bull named Candy. Candy had severe separation anxiety and at the time we picked her up, they were out of her anxiety medication.
Initially, this was quite adorable. I was in between jobs at the time and spent most of my time at home and so she decided I was her person. She would follow me around from room to room, even if I was just going in and out. We had renters and between them and my wife even when I was gone someone was usually at home. Nonetheless, she would sit at the door talking until I was back.
One day I had to leave and nobody was going to be home. I decided to leave her access to the entire house and hoping for the best. She chewed some old shoes but that was about it.
The next time I had to leave her all alone, I thought it best to put her into a big heavy duty metal case they would give foster parents; this was a mistake.
Somehow from inside the cage, she managed to move it halfway across the house before wedging it between two walls at the top of the stairs before busting the cage at the corner. This was quite extreme. I don’t think I would have been able to do what she did. Additionally, she put some scratches on the wall where she wedged it and could have done significant damage to the floor.
The third and what would be final time (purely coincidental) I put her in the basement hallway with the doors closed and a bunch of things I was fine with her destroying. I was gone for less than two hours and the level of destruction of destruction was truly an impressive showing.
Where the door and the wall met, she had taken the trim off and clawed or chewed her way through the drywall.
Realizing that that led to another basement room where she couldn’t get out, she attacked the bathroom door, before finally going to the door at the top of the stairs.
Dropping her back off for adoption, was both one of the hardest and easiest dropoffs.