Lost Priveleges

Since Cooper went down to OR, we've (okay I've) been letting Russell and Ellie have rule of the roost of the house while we are away at work. Every day I come home and find something different. Actually when we went down to OR we left the dogs free to roam and came home to a shredded magazine and an empty chips bag.. both had been left on an end table.. Of course Ellie is the ONLY culprit here to blame.. I'm sure Russell shared in the eating of the chip crums, but he never gets into things left on the end tables.

So Monday morning, I put things up thinking all would be good. Came home Mon Tues and Wed to minor things moved.. My sandals were pulled off the chair and set in the middle of the living room, stuffed ducks had been moved to living room, a cowboy boot from our entry way moved to living room.. Nothing chewed up, just moved - almost to say "look at how good I was for NOT destroying these things that I could if I wanted!"

Well then I get home Thursday afternoon and am welcomed with a wiggly Ellie who is so proud of herself, smiling (if she could) and wagging herself all around, mouth as full as she can get it with bread! She musta had 2 or 3 pieces hanging out her mouth and she pranced and danced all around me, just so very proud of herself! Out in the living room is another chip bag and 1 slice of bread still inside the bread bag.. Now both of these were on the kitchen island when I left for work, the bread was UNOPENED and the chips were basically crumbs.. Russell is sitting in the chair hoping I dont see how BLOATED he is!! LOL

I am 100% certain that Russell ate about 80% of that bread!! he was SOO incredibly fat with a rock hard belly, he waddled as he walked.. :) I'm sure Ellie ate some and I KNOW she was the culprit once again because only she has the ability (or desire) to jump up on the stool and then onto the counter to pull these things off... So because of her, they have lost their house priveleges and are now treated once again as... dogs! Confined to the front entryway while we are away and not able to nap in luxury on the couches and chairs.

Dexter is doing really good. Progress is still quite slow, well it feels slow anyways. I am now able to clean out all 4 of his feet, can walk behind him feeling fairly confident he's not going to kick me, catching is getting easier and Derek can even go up to him now too. He wants to like us, he will follow us around but he's still pretty leary of a reached out arm, so instead of touching his neck prior to catching him, I now just hold the halter up to his face as I approach him and let him put himself into the halter.. it works pretty good, actually a lot easier to catch him that way. I was able to get my hand back to his naughty bits area, but he was too uneasy with it for me to feel if he has "dropped" and I'm not sure I even know what the heck I'm feeling for! Okay well it's pretty obvious I'm attempting to feel for his balls... but I've never really felt a horse up like that before so not sure if I'll realize what I am or am not feeling once I am able to even reach up there.