I Have a Bad Dog

I have a bad dog.  He’s not a horrible dog, but he is unruly.  Most of his bad behaviors are ones I don’t really have to worry about.  He’s not aggressive toward people and he’s not a biter, so I don’t have to worry about that, though he is a bit dog-aggressive.  Unfortunately, most of his bad behaviors only manifest when I’m not around to correct him.  The sole exception being his singular compulsion: he must bark at any dog on the other side of a fence.  It doesn’t matter how well he knows the other dog or how well they get along while in the same yard.  If a fence separates them, he must bark until his throat is sore.  Then, he drinks some water and returns to barking.

My least favorite of his actions is when he takes things from the kitchen counter.  What is so obnoxious about this behavior is that he rarely eats what he takes.  Generally he just destroys packaging and spreads the rest around in the widest debris field he can create.

Yesterday when I got home from work, I was greeted by a sub roll in the middle of my living room floor accompanied by shreds of clear plastic bag and a broken plastic bread clip.  Knowing that screaming at my dog at this point would do nothing to curtail his behavior, serving only to sublimate my anger; I began cleaning up the debris.

As I threw the waste into the trash bin I remembered that there had been four rolls remaining in the bag.  Where were the other three? 

Prior experience with this dog tells me that sometimes he will take the party up on the bed and, when finished, would bury the fun.  Beneath a blanket or the sheets, under a pile of dirty clothes, or even covered by a stack of junk mail, burying things is one of his common behaviors.  It just serves to increase the joy of clean-up when I realize the dog has decided to shred, then bury, a bag of tortilla chips in my bed.

Straight to my bedroom I headed and shaking out my comforter I found sub roll number two.  Next I went into the guest bedroom.  Blanket and sheets were askew.  The pillows were kicked completely off.  Oh, what fun he must have had playing sub roll in this room!  Beneath the corner of blanket that still remained atop the mattress I found sub roll number three.

I took a spin throughout the remainder of the house and I have of yet been unable to locate sub roll number four.  Somewhere, loose in my house, is a single roll, its crust pocked with tooth marks. 

I hope it doesn’t remain hidden for long.