When I woke up at 6am this morning for Jury Duty, this is what Gracie looked like laying in bed. Doesn't she look like a sweet little angel?


This is the first time since adopting Grace that I've been gone for a whole day. I put up the baby gate to keep her (and unfortunately for him, Wally too) in the kitchen/dining room area. Wally had always been very respectful of boundaries. You can lean a plastic baby gate up at a door opening and he won't go near it. I later found out from my next door neighbor who let them out several times today that every time she came over, the dogs were running loose in the house.

When I got home from the courthouse at a little after 5, the gate had been knocked over and they were out and about. Here's what else I discovered - the non-slip mat under my area rug chewed up, a baseball cap (I don't even know where she got it from) chewed up in the middle of the floor, one BL computer bag chewed up, the blinds for the dining room window destroyed, the plastic plate for the power outlet broken and chewed, and finally, the piece de résistance...she had chewed completely through the power cord for my DSL/WiFi box - WHILE IT WAS PLUGGED IN! Clearly, it's time to go back to the crate, no matter how much Grace doesn't like it.

I seem to have forgotten somewhere over the last several years what having a puppy is like. And since I got Gracie as a 1-year-old, I pictured her in my mind as being more of an adult - but she is in fact just a puppy in a 1-year-old's body. I forgot how much Wally left in his wake in his first two years...books, wallets, shoes, feather pillows, hockey gloves.

On the up side, my neighbor did report that when she let the dogs out, she let Stryder come out, too, and after a little growling on both sides, the dogs were able to be out together without any attacks.