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.

FHP and zinc, camping, and a cardboard tube

It's been a long time since mochimommy has posted, so I thought I'd give a brief update of Mochi's adventures in the past, ahem, four months...

FHP and Zinc

mochimommy and mochidaddy were gone long dime one Friday back in May. We both returned home at about 8:30 pm to find that mochimommy had forgotten to close the office door. Mochi got into mochimommy's work bag, which contained feminine hygiene products (FHP) and zinc lozenges among other things. As we cleaned up the *clean* FHP bits all over the carpet, we found what remained of the wrappers of five or so zinc lozenges. Various search results from googling "dogs zinc" and a $75 emergency phone call to animal poison control later, we were told to watch and wait, and call back if he started vomiting. Yay. Nothing ensued, except heartburn for mochimommy. (See also "Zinc-y.")

Camping, aka "I want your baby."

--ala Fat Bastard, licking his chops, from "Austin Powers II - The Spy Who Shagged Me"

Camp Hackamura was lots of fun. Mochi got to go camping for the first time and we got to try out our brand-spankin' new camping gear. (We went all-out Coleman just about.) Did we mention that it was fourish days of four people with four dogs? One of them Mochi's half-cousin Arago, the lovable but deadly police dog? Oh yeah, by the way, Arago doesn't like little animals. He hunts them...including Mochi. Crystal and I caught him on more than one occasion hunting Mochi (there was a slight rustle of leaves as Arago slowly stalked his intended prey) or outright glaring at him (think Iceman's bite toward Maverick in "Top Gun"). Oh, but other than that, Arago was just as happy a puppy as he could be...

The Cardboard Tube

Just like mochidaddy's parents decided long ago, we have decided that we're not going to spend so much money on expensive toys, because really anything cardboard will do (minited, ca. 1980, of a Kleenex box: "It's a boat! It's a shoe!"). Such is the case with Mochi's well-loved cardboard tube.

After I finished off a roll of wrapping paper I left the tube out to see what Mochi would do. Just as expected, he co-opted the tube as a new toy. What's even funnier, he has tried to go through his dog door with it centered in his mouth. I heard him struggle, pause, and then just bust through to the outside. He never realized that all he had to do was turn his head.

This is the tube's condition today:

I guess I'll have to use up some more wrapping paper soon...

More misadventures

Needless to say, Mochi has given us many reasons to laugh, shake our heads, and try to discipline him even when we're laughing so hard from the humor of whatever he's done lately. Here are more things he's been up to in the last few months.

• Reading. Mochi, ever bored while mochimommy and mochidaddy are at work, has taken to, ahem, reading our magazines (and occasional newspapers) while we're gone. He seems to like "Budget Travel" and "Eating Well" best, but he has also taken to "Diablo" and even boned up on self-training one day. Look closely...
  
  
• Cantaloupe. mochidaddy blogged about this one. See below.
• Chores. Mochi has taken to "drying the dishes" and "putting away napkins" while we're away. This generally entails stealing the towels off the stove and freezer handles, or taking napkins off the dining table. Mochi has trained us to leave the kitchen towels hanging high and not leave napkins on the table. Good boy.
• Chewing. Yep, the chewing is back. With a vengeance. Enter bitter apple. We'll see who wins this one.
• Swimming. Mochi isn't a big fan of swimming, but he tolerates it a whole lot more than his cousin Joey does. We've been trying to get him used to the water just so he'll
• New friends. Mochi, ever the social butterfly, has made a few new friends, including Bonnie and Clyde down the street. Bonnie looks like Mochi's long-lost little sister (chihuahua/terrier/daschund mix from the same county shelter; she's actually older than him but with her doxie blood she's smaller).
• Gardening. As I was working on this post, I heard a strange noise behind me...and found that Mochi now enjoys gardening, even in the house. But where did he get that. Oh, that's where.
  
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Canteloupe

A couple Fridays ago, we went out to see a movie after dinner. We were away from the house about 3 hours. When we came home, we found that Mochi decided not to sleep or play with his toys. Instead, he managed to grab one of the canvas bags on the kitchen table, bring it to the floor (and later his ottoman), and gnaw on the contents. What was inside? Why, a whole canteloupe.

No, he didn't eat the entire thing. He managed instead to eat a quarter of it, including the rind. Tracy was worried that he would get sick, and I, being a responsible parent, couldn't stop laughing. In the end, Mochi was fine. He didn't seem to have any symptoms of an upset stomach, though he did pee a lot the next day. Hmmmm

Unfortunately, I was laughing so much I didn't think to take a picture. You can imagine what we saw by picking up a ball/canteloupe and pretend that the the top left quadrant has been removed.

Kitchen courier

I was on the couch this evening and was too lazy to get up to throw a napkin away. Mochi happened to be nearby, so I tucked the napkin in his collar and told him to visit Tracy in the kitchen. My plan worked - he went to the kitchen, and Tracy threw the napkin away. Not without yelling at me for "exploiting" the dog first, though. :)

Zinc-y

The latest incident wasn't my fault this time, it was Tracy's! In her rush to leave Friday morning, she forgot to close the office door. Mochi found Tracy's work bag and tore into the four zinc lozenges nestled inside. Zinc apparently is bad for dogs, but only in sufficiently large quantities. But since Mochi is a little guy, we didn't know how much is considered bad . Just in case, we called our vet, who directed us to animal poison control (who knew there was such a thing?). We paid $60 for a consult with their on call vet. Since Mochi wasn't acting abnormally (he was bouncing off the walls like he normally does when we get home), the vet said to simply keep an eye on him for the next day or so. Fortunately, Mochi was fine.

So lesson learned - don't trust Tracy with closing doors. No, wait, I think the lesson is that Mochi is still a butthead who will find his way into anything.

Still chewing...

Last night, I left Mochi at home for about 30 minutes to run a couple errands. When I returned, I found multiple items in the family room floor:

1. Tracy's softball mitt
2. both of my indoor slippers
3. a torn plastic bag
4. a bottle of sunscreen (which was previously in the plastic bag)
5. Tracy's sun visor
   

All of these items were in the living room couch, so we figure he had to make five trips. Fortunately, it looks like the only casualties were the plastic bag and my slippers. I found a lot of small plastic bits on the floor, so I'm hoping he didn't eat too many of them. And my slippers needed to be replaced anyway. :)