Writer's Workshop

From Kathy's blog



Describe a time when your pet caused chaos.


Shortly after we got married, my (now ex) husband, Bob, and I acquired 2 pets.

Morpheus was a beautiful black cat with striking green eyes. He was 5 months old when we adopted him from the ASPCA. Soon after we adopted him, we discovered he had a bit of a mean streak. His favorite game was to sneak up on you, bite you, HARD, and run away.

Maxine, or Maxie, as we called her, was a 2 1/2 year old German Shepherd mix that was given to us by some friends who could no longer keep her. She was such so loving and affectionate. Best dog ever. In caps. BEST. DOG. EVER.

Maxie was one of those dogs that would eat pretty much anything (aren't all dogs like that really?). We had to keep Morph's food on top of the washing machine because we quickly learned that Maxie would eat it all if we didn't.

We kept all the pet treats in a cabinet over the refrigerator because we didn't put it past Maxie to get into the lower cabinets and eat them all.

What we didn't take into account was the fact the Morph was a climber.

Bob and I had been out for the evening. We came home to find the brand new bag of dog treats we'd bought that day, and put in the high cabinet, torn open and empty in the middle of the living room. We went to the bedroom to find, lying on our bed, a very guilty looking dog. She also looked like she wasn't feeling too hot. We put her leash on her and took her outside, since we'd been out for a few hours. She promptly threw up. We were just grateful she'd kept it in until we got her outside.

Later on, we pieced together what happened.

The kitchen counter went flush up against the refrigerator. Morph could easily jump from the floor to the counter to the top of the fridge. He must have pawed open the cabinet and knocked the bag of dog treats onto the floor.

Either one of them could have torn the bag open. Morph wasn't declawed, and we weren't as good about keeping Max's nails trimmed as we could have been. And Maxie, being Maxie, ate all the treats.

Thankfully she was feeling much better the next day.