Dogs Gone Wild

My last post ended with the statement "I think I like having dogs." RETRACTED! I hate dogs. I do NOT like having dogs AT ALL. The sooner these girls we're dog sitting go home, the better.
Wait, I take that back. That's rude. They're still really cute, and when they look at you with those puppy dog "I LOVE YOU" eyes, it is pretty hard to be mad at them. Still, this week I kinda was.

This week my grandpa died. This is sad, so I will not expound on that. The only reason why it is relevant to this post is that Rex and I had to go to out of state for a few days for the funeral and stuff. We didn't get much notice of when we were leaving (7 hours to be exact), so we had to quickly pack up and decide what to do with the dogs while we were gone. With limited options, we asked our neighbors to let the dogs out a couple of times a day and take care of the cat. They agreed. PHEW! So we left them a DETAILED note about how to care for the pets, and we were off on our road trip.

I'm not going to say that our neighbors are the WORST pet sitters in the world, but I will say that I hope they don't ask me for any letters of reference or anything. When Rex and I returned home from our trip, we immediately knew there were going to be problems when the dogs excitedly met us at the door (they are supposed to be in their kennels if no one is home). They then started whining and heading toward our slider, so I knew they wanted to be let out. We went to go let them out and passed two puddles of pee and a pile of poop on our way to the door. EWWWW!!! We tied them up outside and set about trying to clean our living room.

In cleaning up the living room, I discovered that the dogs DESTROYED my favorite, most comfortable pair of teaching shoes. The "I can only afford these because they're on sale and I have a gift card" shoes. They were chewed up like a rawhide bone. Those shoes had been sitting by the door all week without getting touched, but when we left they suddenly became chew toys. BLAST. Is it rude to hope that it gave them indigestion? Yes, I know, that is rude. I will stop hoping that.

As I was mourning my fallen shoes, I continued to pick up the debris spread around the living room. Rex has (well, had) a toy collie that sits (er, used to sit) on his desk. It was found on the floor, decapitated. It's body was fine, but chew marks showed that the head had become a yummy treat for one of the dogs. Oh boy. We're lucky the plastic ears didn't puncture their intestines or anything.

As I went to throw away the rest of the collie, I noticed something strange in the hall. Was it...cat litter? "OH NO!" I thought as I remembered the fact that the dogs are not allowed in the bathroom. With no one there to tell them not to, though, why wouldn't they do everything they aren't supposed to? Sure enough, they had frolicked in the litter box and spread the cat litter EVERYWHERE. I have no clue why dogs would want to frolic in a litter box, but they did. Further gross-osity to clean up. Also, the cat didn't want to go in her destroyed litter box, so I found a neat little kitty puddle right next to our bedroom door. Lovely. I also noted that the cat's food and water dishes were completely empty. Poor Elsie. BAD NEIGHBORS! BAD! NO TREATS FOR YOU!

So, I had a rather depressing week, but it looks like the dogs had quite a good time. Hoorah for them. When are they going home again? My formerly nice white carpet is complaining.