Dennis’s Diary of Destruction

So it seems like the posts about Dennis the Rescue Vizsla are among the most popular on this blog, and since we do strive to give the people what they want, I thought I would provide a little rundown on his activities over the last few weeks. Now that he’s getting his energy back, most of these activities involve wrecking stuff.

Here’s a partial list of the things Dennis has damaged or destroyed, in roughly the order he did it. I say “roughly” because most of the destruction occurs when no one is home. (Otherwise, we would stop him.)

• The sheet that was covering his crate. There is a remote possibility that the other two dogs pulled the sheet off so that they could taunt Dennis with their uncratedness. However, this is unlikely.
• The nice, soft, thick bedding that was in his crate.
• The not-so-nice, not-so-soft, not-so-thick bedding that replaced the bedding that was victim #2
• A wicker hamper. Dennis managed to destroy this from inside his crate. Very impressive. He clearly has access to technology that we cannot begin to understand.
• The crate itself. Mind you, this isn’t some sissy crate — this is an iron crate that has housed various dogs for well over ten years. Dennis knocked it apart and escaped through the top panel.
• Himself, escaping from the crate. It was only a tiny scratch on the nose, but it still counts. At this point we decided not to crate him anymore, as he obviously has kennel issues. (This set the stage for the destruction to follow.)
• Any number of my wife’s shoes and slippers. She has so many I can’t really keep track, but she can, and she says he’s done it. I’m not going to argue. I wouldn’t win anyway.
• My wife’s laptop bag. Mmmmm, nylon.
• An ink jet cartridge box. He didn’t eat the cartridge itself, maybe because it was the black one. I hear the red ones taste like cherries.
• An issue of “Entertainment Weekly”, so thoroughly destroyed that all we found were a few scraps of newsprint. The magazine was open to a picture of George Clooney when it disappeared. Even a male vizsla finds Mr. Clooney irresistible, apparently.
• “Orphan Orange”, a stuffed animal I’ve had since I was like six. After discovering him missing, I hunted around until finding him out in the backyard. Fortunately “Orphan Orange” was only wounded, and now has a few more scars (see below) to show off to his friends “Rabbit”, “Bear”, “Ducky”, “Quali”, and “Bucky”.
• Several of his brother Tucker’s stuffed squeaky toys, rendered neither stuffed nor squeaky.
• Something that we can’t identify, but that now consists of dozens of small, hard, oddly-shaped plastic fragments scattered around the floor of the bedroom.
• A bottle of Wite-Out. No word on if he was trying to correct typos on one of my manuscripts.
• A sheet off our bed. We suspect he was trying to drag it off the bed and take it to his “stash”. More on the “stash” later.
• The diffuser thingie that goes on the end of a hair dryer. We used this on him several times after giving him medicated baths for his mange, so this may have been a revenge killing.
• Paint It Black by Janet Fitch. I actually caught him with this book, and confiscated it with only a few tooth marks. He’s very smart, and may have been trying to read it. If he were really smart, he’d have started with White Oleander.
• My wife’s portable hard drive that she uses with her iBook. The case is only dented, so it should still work. (Dennis has also exhibited an unhealthy interest in my iPod, so that always gets put away.)
• The dust jacket to Remains of an Altar by Phil Rickman. The book itself appears undamaged. Who knew dust jackets were proof against puppy teeth? Perhaps hardcovers are worth $24.95 after all.

Yep, Dennis has been a busy little guy. Fortunately he’s really, really adorable, when he’s not destroying stuff.

…… Okay, I admit it. He’s adorable then, too.

“Orphan Orange” shows off the latest in a long line of injuries