Our little slipper thief

We've documented Mochi's love of slippers in some previous posts. Sadly, we haven't been able to change this behavior, and in fact, he has become bolder.  Before, he would wait until we had left the house.  Now, it seems like he just waits for us to leave the room! The most egregious example came a couple weeks ago while Tracy was making dinner. Our garage door opens up to the kitchen area, and I was going in and out to start some laundry.  After my last trip, I reentered the house to find one of my indoor slippers missing.  He had taken it more or less right under Tracy's nose!

Every time I've caught him stealing a slipper (or sometimes both slippers), I put the slipper up to his face and give a stern "No!"  I realize that scolding after the fact isn't as effective, but I have to do something, and he's usually still in the area where I find the slipper.  I've never yet caught him in the act.  Each time I do chastise him, I have to quickly turn away because even his ashamed pose (ears down, tail tucked down around hind quarters) looks so cute.  Yeah, I'm a softie.

30 minutes of destruction

At the end of October, we needed to borrow Tracy's parents SUV to return an office chair we purchased the week before.  They live close by, so we walked there and drove back to our house.  We were out about 10 minutes.  Mochi decided to chew up the instructions that came with the chair while we were out.  Fortunately, he didn't chew the chair itself, so we were able to get our money back.  But that dog...

On 11/4, we did our civic duty and voted.  Our polling location was within walking distance, so with the line outside the booths, we were gone about 20 minutes.  When we returned, we found a loaf of bread sitting on the couch, partially eaten.  Now, we fed Mochi breakfast before we left, so he didn't grab the bread out of necessity; no, I think he did it out of boredom, or to punish us.  Punk dog.