Imperfections

I am not a perfect pet owner. There are times when the thought of beating Remus senseless gives me perverse pleasure. I am trying to make this whole "restricted activity" as painless as possible for the puppy, and yes, I know, he has no clue whats going on....but still! Instead of keeping him crated 24/7, I have used his leash to tie him to his crate so he has a greater radius of space. He can get in and out of his crate, get to his food and water, sprawl out on the carpet, the works. No, it's not as much space as he usually haves, but he's not supposed to play AT ALL or run or even walk fast. I ALSO try to keep the head cone off as often as possible (as long as he shows no inclination to chew on his bandage) so that he can enjoy eating, drinking, and chewing on his bone without that giant cumbersome plastic satellite dish in the way. So what does he do? He chewed through his leash.

Now, before people start asuming he did so to "free himself", Remus is not that intelligent. The leash was severed. Completely. Did the puppy then make a wild break for it and dash through the living room? No, he continued to chew on the leash.  And chew. And chew. And chew. Laying down, perfectly content in shredding his own means of limited freedom. Once we noticed, he got a smack on the nose an emphatic "stupid dog!" from Brian and crate confinement for the rest of the night. He gets crate confinement for most of tomorrow, too, and depending on how generous I'm feeling he might have crate confinement until thursday when his bandage comes off. And crate confinement means that collar stays on as well. BUH! It makes me want to kick him! I mean not really...well, yes, kind of....more like just strangle his awkward scrawny little neck until he has some sense!

I know, it's irrational to assume he'll ever be intelligent enough to link that complex of an idea together (Idea: Surgery, I'm on limited activity, this leash is better than the crate, therefore I should not chew it...) but it makes me so frustrated! Other things that make me frustrated? His limited attention span. His occasional refusing to follow commands. His WHINING! The fact that all these things make me angry and I hate being angry!

I'm not angry now, I've had wine. Wine tends to make me more inclined to giggle then to yell. But tomorrow I'm going to PetsMart and buying him a thick heavy chain. With spikes on it. Lets see if he can chew through that! Also, I'm going to brush his teeth. HA! He should be properly contrite (AKA, oblivious) by the time I'm done with him...