(http://kristenking.com) —The dog owners among you have probably extrapolated that the garage smells like pee because the dogs are morons. It’s been raining for days, and rather than go outside in the yard like good dogs, like the well-mannered dogs they’re supposed to be, one or both of the big dogs has taken to peeing on boxes in the garage, where it is (was!) dry. And tools. And the garbage can. And Jesse’s motorcycles.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get the smell of dog urine out of concrete, but it’s neither fun nor easy. Concrete, as you know, is porous. Urine, as you also know, is a liquid. Liquid is just excellent at seeping into pores and staying there until it dries, leaving its lovely, lovely aroma behind.

Scrubbing helps, but doesn’t do the job completely. I’ve tried soaking the affected areas with pools of soapy water, bleachy water, vinegary water, straight vinegar, and Nature’s Miracle. Yet, my garage still smells like dog pee, and I’m running out of ideas.

I guess I should be proud, in a way, that the dogs have such superior problem-solving skills. They don’t like getting wet, so they stay inside but not actual inside. It’s good logic, if you’re a dog. I wish I had comparable strategic skills.

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I’m either a glutton for punishment or just slow on the uptake, because I thought I could run out to the post office for a few minutes the other day without worrying about the dogs making some kind of mess. We don’t let them loose in the house when we leave anymore because they’re so darn creative and brilliant at getting to things the shouldn’t have, and I figured there was nothing that would appeal to them in the mudroom or garage in the 15 minutes I was gone.

I was wrong.

I managed to pick up most of the dog food before I thought to take a picture, and about half of the paper towels were somewhat salvageable, however slobbery. None of them can go on a paper towel holder, though because the dogs ripped through so many layers that the individual sheets are no longer connected in most cases.

Sigh. When will I ever learn?

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I got a frantic call from my husband today while I was pulling into the chiropractor’s parking lot about 35 minutes from our house. (I need adjustments 3x/week for the next 4 weeks thanks to my recent car accident.)

“The alarm is going off at the house!”

“Well, I’m at the doctor and I won’t be home for over half an hour if leave now, so…”

“Okay, I’ll tell them to send the police.”

Dave,* who’s been living with us for a few months while waiting for his wife to get a transfer from her job 3 hours from HIS new job, beat me home and called Jesse with the news: “The dogs ate that big box of chocolate. I think it set off the alarm when they were scraping the plastic across the floor.”

Oh, great. My dogs, who just a few days earlier, downed 10 lbs of flour, just ate 2.5 lbs of chocolate. Does it get any better?

Fortunately for all of us, it wasn’t very good-quality chocolate, so the amount of cocoa consumed even if one dog had eaten the whole thing alone would have been minimal. So far, everyone seems just fine. Even Pickles, who we learned from the projectile vomiting post-flour, tends to have a more sensitive stomach than the other dogs. Awesome. What else can they POSSIBLY get into?

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

• Not his real name.

(image: SXC.hu)

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — We came home from visiting family last night to find a white explosion all over the kitchen and living room. We should have known better than to leave the flour on the counter in preparation for tonight’s fried chicken dinner. But honestly, what is appealing about 10 lbs of flour? The world may never know. And my rug will never be the same.

My bedspread will never be the same, either, because about an hour after we got home, Pickles projectile-vomited a disgusting green half-liquid, half-paste mixture all over it. Oh, and have you ever used a regular vacuum to suck up 10 lbs of flour? I don’t recommend it. And neither does the manufacturer, I’m sure.

These dogs are VERY lucky we love them so much. Otherwise, we would be selling them to the circus, I swear. Oh, and did I mention how fun it is to clean flour from every surface in your home two days after getting in a car accident and having limited to no mobility due to back injury? It’s a blast.

Previous episodes:

• My Glasses Case
• Prescription Drugs
• A Framed Photo of the Dogs
• Electronics
• A Wallet

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Oh boy, oh boy, the dogs learned a new trick! It’s called “jump up on the counter and eat stuff they have no business eating and then shred the evidence all over the house so no one can prove nuttin’.” It’s totally precious. Except for NOT.

About two weeks ago, I came home from the post office and everything seemed normal. Until I went to make lunch and couldn’t find the baguette I had thought was on the kitchen counter. I called my husband at work.

“Did you take the baguette to work with you?”

“Uh, no, why?” he asked, like that wasn’t a perfectly reasonable question.

“I can’t fi– oh my God, is that part of a PANERA BAG????”

“What are you talking about?”

“Murphy just rolled over and there is part of a Panera bag under him on the dog bed.” I later found small pieces of it in about six other locations. But not nearly enough to make a whole bag. Hmm.

“Maybe you should talk to him about the baguette.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

In the week or so that followed, the dogs consumed:

• Half a pan of brownies
• A box of Krispy Kreme donuts
• A bag of single-serve coffee filters
• A raw, unwashed sweet potato
• Part of a grilled cheese sandwich
• Several paper plates and napkins
• Eight (8!!!!!) empty cardboard boxes
• A sheaf of brochures from my husband’s old company

And those are just the items we found evidence of. I shudder to think what may have gone missing without our noticing yet.

At first we thought it was Ty (he HAS been mighty pushy when I open the fridge lately), but based on last night and this morning, we’re pretty sure it’s Murphy. You see, Murphy has food allergies. Wheat, corn, beef, things normal dogs can eat. We switched him to food that doesn’t contain those things and limited his treat intake, and his dandruff and horrible stomach rash went away.

So when his rash came back in one small spot on his inner thigh (is that what you call it on a dog?) a few days ago and then spread with a vengeance I’ve never seen to the rest of his stomach last night, I took him to the vet right away. Turns out he has a staph infection (!!!) because he licked the living daylights out of it over the last few days, unbeknownst to me. The diagnosis? “Must be the stolen food,” the vet said solemnly. She did not add, “You neglectful dog-mother, you,” though I suspect from her expression that she was thinking it.

Now, not only do we have to change his TREATS to make extra sure he’s not consuming any allergens whatsoever and stop giving him people food entirely (what, you do it too, shut up), we can’t leave anything edible (or inedible, for that matter) on our counters or tables, lest he scarf them down.

It’s kind of like childproofing, except your toddler has the reach of a six-foot-tall adult and will not only mouth but actually consume whatever he can acquire.

Why did he have to finally realize just how tall he is???

Previous episodes of “Things Murphy Destroyed or Ate”:

• My Glasses Case
• Prescription Drugs
• A Framed Photo of the Dogs
• Electronics
• A Wallet

Contents Copyright © 2008 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — It’s been a while since we had an episode of “Things Murphy Destroyed or Ate,” so it was about time for him to ruin something. And ruin it he did.

This used to be my glasses case:

From what I can glean from the crime scene, one of the cats knocked the case to the floor from my nightstand while fleeing from Murphy. Thwarted in his attempts to eat the kitty, he ate the case instead. Fortunately, the glasses were on my face instead of in the case.

Earlier episodes:

• Prescription Drugs
• A Framed Photo of the Dogs
• Electronics
• A Wallet

He’s going to grow out of this soon, right?

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

Well, if this isn’t irony, I don’t know what is. I came home from being gone maybe an hour, and found the house in utter disarray.

Now, before I get into the details, it’s important to point out that with as well as things have been going since Bark Busters came, we’ve started leaving the dogs loose in the house when we’re gone for short periods of time. Aside from a few garbage can incidents, it’s been mostly successful. Until yesterday.

Something felt a little…off when I walked in. Then, I saw the new phone book. Or, rather, what was left of the new phone book. We’d dropped it on the coffee table and forgotten about it, but the dogs didn’t! Parts of the alphabet were strewn all over the house, with a big shredded pile still attached to the binding. Bye-bye, phone book!

It wasn’t until I began picking up G-J that I realized that something else was in the pile. I started finding broken glass and wood splinters. And then I discovered our “family photo” amid the debris: me, Jesse, and the three dogs.

They stole a wrapped present out of a bag in the dining room, unwrapped it, and procecded to utterly destroy a framed photo of themselves. Except, the picture was unharmed, just a little slobbery. Awesome.

Even more awesome was that as I swept up the mess, I started finding huge splotches of blood all over the floor. A careful examination of everyone’s paws failed to reveal who the bleeder was. It wasn’t until I separated everyone during the cleaning efforts that I finally discovered who it was: Pickles, as evidenced by the blood spots all over the white carpet in my office, where she was confined. Did I mention that it was awesome? She is fine, by the way.

In Murphy’s defense, I don’t think he worked alone. But now that we’ve stopped calling him “the life ruiner,” we’re back to referring to him as “Destructor.”

And here are a few other things they’ve destroyed recently. My favorite was the feather pillow. It looked like a duck exploded, and the best part was the feather stuck all over Murphy’s face.

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — We’ve opened a new chapter in our ongoing discussion of what my English mastiff puppy, Murphy has ruined. Several weeks ago, he appropriated the cordless phone, which Jesse had left on the coffee table. After hearing crunching sounds, Jesse raced in to find the slobbery phone cracked and chewed, but still functional. He placed it out of Murphy’s reach and went about his business.

About 10 minutes later, Jesse heard more crunching. He raced into the living room again to find that this time, Murphy had gotten Jesse’s cell phone, which had been on the coffee table right next to the cordless phone but which Jesse had neglected to remove from chewing range. Not only was it chewed, but it was essentially destroyed. It kind of rang and you could kind of hear things and sort of dial, but the screen was completely shot, and teeth marks were like razors. It had to be replaced, which set us back about $400 because it was one of those fancy deals Jesse had for work.

Flash forward to yesterday, when I came out of the bathroom to find the already chewed up phone that I had left on the bed now lying on the floor, sans antenna. Yes, that’s right, Murphy went back to finish the job and polished off yet more of the phone.

May I remind you that he’s already destroyed one wallet and eaten a bottle of Xanax, too? He’s on a roll, this one…

Contents Copyright © 2007 Kristen King

When Jesse started freaking out, I didn’t know what was going on. “Kristen, come here RIGHT NOW!” he hollered from the kitchen. I dropped everything and ran to him, but skidded to a stop when I saw Murphy lying on the floor looking googly-eyed and Jesse whitefaced, holding an empty, chewed-up up prescription bottle with no label.

“What was in this bottle?” he asked.

I didn’t know. We dug through cabinets and drawers and wracked our brains, and couldn’t come up with a single prescription that wasn’t accounted for. But we had proof that one was missing. We called the vet immediately and told them what happened, but since we didn’t know what he’d consumed, they didn’t have specific protocol for us. The pharmacy and our doctors’ offices didn’t open for 2 more hours, so we couldn’t get our list of recent prescriptions and figure out what he’d eaten until they were answering the phones. Our only option was to induce vomiting.

We would do this, the vet tech told us, by forcing hydrogen peroxide down Murphy’s throat with a turkey baster. Easier said than done, but highly effective. About 5 minutes after we dosed him, he started puking like crazy. But no pills came up — only parts of the prescription label that were completely illegible.

Hours later, we finally narrowed it down: He’d eaten about 30 tablets of Xanax. The vet told us to call Animal Poison Control, which we did. After running calculations based on Murphy’s weight and the total maximum dosage that could have been in the bottle, the vet assured us that he’d be fine, just a little loopy. Apparently, Xanax is even used to treat dogs with serious separation anxiety, so it wasn’t that big a deal.

He was stupid and uncoordinated for a while, but mostly sleepy, and seems no worse for the wear.

We, on the other hand, have been traumatized thoroughly. And we have yet to figure out how he got the bottle in the first place.

The mind boggles.

Contents Copyright © 2007 Kristen King