I take it back

Everything I said about Cooper being a great dog and not chewing everything up while we were gone? It was a lie. Ok, not everything, not even most of it. But, he did have a tiny chewing incident yesterday.

I have a few guesses about why this may have happened…

First off, I’d like to say that I only took two, maybe three snoozes on my alarm yesterday, and the Michael was already out of bed when I took them. It was Special Agent Dale Cooper who was the lazy bones that almost made us late! Coop sleeps in something that we call his “pup tent”, or as he knows it, his “bed time”. Cooper’s Pup Tent is a canvas crate that unzips of three of the four sides (well, ours only unzips on two because someone chewed through one of the zippers when he was a puppy) and is a lot bigger than his hard plastic kennels. It provides him with a safe space that is enclosed enough that he feels protected, but thin enough that he can still hear us. Michael or I unzip the front panel in the morning and Coop will take his time inching his way out, and in most cases up into our bed. I love this, especially on Saturday mornings when I can snuggle in bed with my two favorite guys.

But yesterday morning, Cooper would not get out of our bed. Every time I switched tasks getting ready for work: in between tooth brushing and getting dressed, in between getting dressed and packing lunch, I tried to get him out. It’s so difficult to explain to a dog, “Listen, if you get up now you can run around in the yard for a full 45 minutes before you have to be back inside, then you can sleep all you want.” They just don’t understand the logic! So, instead of running off some of his energy, Coop just watched me get ready. Then, I had to take him out on his leash for a quick potty. When we got back in, I set him up with a big hollow bone that I stuffed with peanut butter, gathered my things and left for work. Michael was going to be home in a few hours, so I just left him on his bed (different than his bed that he sleeps in).

I snuggle my bones when I’m alone…

This is the ste up for the first theory. My dog Cooper had too much energy, and when he was up doing laps around the house he knocked the remote off of the table, and then thought, “wow! what a great snack!”

The second theory stems from the Cooper Carpool. Our Special Agent was stuck in his kennel for about 8 (non-consecutive) hours the day before the remote chewing incident. I think that he was still a little stressed over being cooped up for so long that he needed to take it out on something hard and plastic.

Me? Stressed? Never! You’re not going to leave me, right?

Of course not, Buddy.

Will I ever know why Cooper chooses to chew sometimes and not others? Will I ever know how he chooses items to chew? Probably not, but that’s ok. We can just work to make sure he’s a relaxed as possible, which is usually not too difficult 🙂

Please. I can’t be bothered right now.