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Chooch Household Kaylee

A Work in Progress, aka Kaylee FAIL

As mentioned in a previous post, our beloved pup Kaylee has left her mark on our master bath. Truth be told, it’s not her fault because we decided to use the room as ‘her room’ when I started my job waaaaay back last March. Instead of using a crate, we just penned off our bathroom with a baby gate and she would stay there at night and during the workday. She was almost immediately housebroken, and it worked out beautifully in all ways. Well, except for the drywall and moulding. She has eaten, scratched and generally brutalized the walls, door, and baseboards. It’s truly hideous.

We finally got a big crate for her, and spent a few days acclimating her to it. She now goes in there at bedtime, and I also keep her in there for several hours a day so that when I return to work she will still be used to the schedule. It sounds mean, but I had a dog go through what I would classify as separation anxiety after going from companionship all day to being left alone while I went to work. She’s used to the schedule, I’m just making sure she maintains her comfort with it for when I’m back to working at Belvoir.

So now begins the repair on our bathroom. I had begun the redesign over a year ago when I finally snapped and tore down the lame train wallpaper border. Yes, in the master bath. We moved here in 2005, and just never got around to taking it down. GAH!  We were going to paint the room before we got Kaylee and decided to wait until she was settled in and I’m glad we did. I’d have been furious to have had this damage on freshly painted walls.

Here are pix of the train border, I forgot to get a picture of what that looks like now. The rest are all of damage done by Kaylee, and the work done so far.  You may even notice the guilty party having returned to the scene of her crime…

To keep me off the ladder in case of dizziness, Chooch will be cleaning up the wall paper border area and spackling where needed. He will then be replacing the chewed-up moulding where needed. This will be a nasty task, and my hopes of getting it done before guests arrive on February 19 are likely unrealistic. But a girl can hope, right?

I’m still deciding on a color. Since we are tentatively planning to put the house on the market, I’m not going for a personal preference. Most likely just a neutral color that will be pleasing to potential buyers.

Since I’m still dealing with my health issues, this is slow going. But with Chooch handling the ladder stuff, and me going very slowly with frequent breaks I think we can handle it without complications. Well, other than missing my self-imposed deadline.

We are tied to the colors in the floor since we aren’t changing that out. It’s linoleum with dark blue and dark green diamonds. You can sort of see the floor in one of the above pictures. Any suggestions on a color? If so, please post as a comment here and not on twitter. This would actually be appreciated for all comments, since they aren’t viewable from the blog. Much obliged!

Categories
Kaylee

Destructive Kaylee is Destuctive

December 28, 2009

You wouldn’t think it to look at her sweet face, but she’s done hella damage at our house.

Kaylee enjoys the usual dog treats, but we’ve discovered her to be on the extreme end of the ‘power chewer’ spectrum. We’re unable to give her most dog toys (tennis balls, rubber toys, fabric toys) because she eats them.

Because of her powerful urge to chew, which we have conflicting reports on the desire waning as she ages out of puppy stage, we keep a constant supply of things to satisfy this urge. We’ve not lost any shoes or furniture yet. And we count ourselves lucky for having dodged a bullet last fall in which a huge piece of rubber was missing from a toy that she had previously shown no interest in eating. She was having stomach issues at the time so we ended up getting x-rays to see if she had blockage, but luckily she ‘worked it out’ on her own without needing surgery.

Meet her latest victim, a ball with holes that drops little treats out as it’s rolled. She immediately learned the trick and began rolling it on the floor in a most adorable fashion. When the treats stopped falling out as quickly as she wanted, she went to her usual process to get to them.

I should also include the play equipment in our backyard. It is made of wood, as are the picnic table and stair case leading outside. Apparently Kaylee is part termite, because she LOVES eating these wooden items. She also enjoys baseboards, but that is for another post. We have not removed the equipment in spite of our kids being way too old to use them because we have friends that come over with their little ones, and this equipment is one of the few things we have to entertain them. Plus, we’re kinda lazy.

So, Kaylee’s amazing urge to chew combined with her strength only leaves us with super hard Nylabones, actual bones (blech), and the flossing ropes. The latter she is able to disassemble, but she takes her time doing it. Also, the fibers are unlikely to cause her huge problems if she does ingest any pieces before we can remove them.

We remain vigilant.