Stupid Penny Spazoid Dog

My dog Penny is a spaz, and she has been ever since I got her. Her first signs of being a spaz were pee accidents all over the place. I put in a doggy-door to the patio and backyard. Problem solved. Then, I moved to a different house where the doggy-door wasn’t an option, and she spazzed all over again. She was peeing, pooping, and puking whenever I was gone for more than five minutes.

(Don’t even ask me how I know this wasn’t Sophie, DOUG. It wasn’t).

During this spaz period, she consumed TWO pairs of my glasses as well as a number of remote controls – so many that I started keeping spares around. She also developed a habit of pulling my body pillow off my bed and dragging it to the living room. Another random spaz act was knocking this stuffed frog from my dresser to the floor. I have other stuffed animals. She only targets the frog because she’s racist.

After we settled into my new house, these behaviors sort of died down for the most part. Maybe there was one accident a week if I’d had a long day at work. Her acts of violence to the stuffed frog became more sporadic. Then, we went to Louisville.

The dogs love the car, so I’ve road-tripped with them many times. This time was no different. They lay in the back, every so often popping their heads up to look around. After 8 hours, I got to Louisville, checked in to the hotel, and went to get drinks with the manfriend. Not even an hour later, the hotel manager calls me and tells me that one of the dogs (PENNY, duh…) was HOWLING, and apparently it was so bad, it was upsetting some of the guests. I had to come back to take care of it. Sure enough, I get back, and get up to my floor, and I can hear this plaintive and consistent howl. “Woooo-oooooo-owowowowowowow!” She’s stayed in hotel rooms before. This has never happened. Jesus.

Long story short here because it kind of isn’t the point, but I made it through that “vacation” by going to Banfield the next day, and getting her a tranquilizer and some doggy-Xanax. However, after this trip, her spazformation was complete. When I got back home, the peeing, pooping, and puking became a daily occurrence. More remotes were destroyed. The frog took up permanent residence on the bedroom floor because picking him up was an act in futility. I felt miserable. Not just because cleaning up dog mess is an unsavory activity, but because I felt I failed this dog. I couldn’t help her. She was miserable, and I couldn’t do anything. I thought seriously about rehoming her until my mom suggested that maybe she just needed crate training… DUH.

So, since summer of last year, Penny has been crate trained. The first time I set up the crate and opened the door, she walked right in and sat down on the blankets I put in there for her bed. MIRACULOUS! For about a week, she was in the crate all day every day except for potty-time, eating, and exercise. Now, she only goes in when I am at work and when I am sleeping. The pees/poops have ceased completely. I’ve adjusted her feeding schedule, so she no longer pukes. AMAZING! The frog has suffered maybe one or two more slobberings since then, but for the most part, he is unscathed. No more destroyed remotes.

Again, this has been about a year. So, feeling proud and confident in my awesome doggy training skills, I decided to let Penny stay out of the crate while I made a quick run to the grocery store last week. Surely, she would now be the perfect dog! I would come home and the dogs would be napping on the couch. Maybe one of the cats would be curled up next to them. No poops, no pees, no problems! Still, since I am so smart, I made sure to put up the remotes, and I made sure my glasses were on my face. I put up the doggy gates to close off the carpeted areas. I even remembered to put my current crocheting project far out of reach just in case. I was gone for BARELY forty minutes.

Of course, the body pillow had been dragged to the living room. Of course the frog was on the bedroom floor, soggy. However, the sight that greeted me immediately on entering my house was snow. Fluffy flakes of snow had accumulated all over my living room. It was beautiful... Except that it fucking wasn’t. Penny had torn up an entire box of Kleenex into tiny bits and the entire living room was covered. I cleaned it up in an enraged fit after banning the dogs to the backyard. I’ve only since recovered enough to be able to write this.

This is how Penny looks all of the time. She has one expression, and that expression is one of guilt. Because she is guilty of something all of the time. Asshole. Back to the crate you go.