I’m way behind on The Tinny Chronicles and I’ve been reminded of this several times. Here’s the deal: I’ve started and stopped the next post many times and it turns out I’m just worn the hell out of even talking about the individual incidents, let alone experiencing them. So here’s a quick summary and then I’ll share the good news in the next post (no, we didn’t find Tinny a new home… at least not exactly).
After the “muzzle” attempt we came home to find she’d pulled it off in the first 5 minutes or so, and then proceeded to perform her normal wreaking of havoc on the house until we returned. We did learn of her interest in champagne that day. We also learned that the more expensive champagne bottles are more durable than our ceramic tile floor. But, I digress.
It wasn’t long after this event we went on vacation. We spent 8 days in Hawaii in January and Tinny spent that time in prison, hopefully thinking about all the trouble she’d been causing. Okay, she was actually at Diane’s Canine School of Charm. Tomorrow is the first day of March and I swear since we returned to Knoxville on January 24th Tinny has not been left at home alone even once. It FINALLY occurred to me if I didn’t want my house ripped to shreds, I simply shouldn’t leave the bad dog there when I go.
So… the back of my SUV is now a make-shift Tinny house. There’s a fleece bed, a giant down comforter, chew toys and other such distractions. If I go to the store, the doctor, to a business meeting, to lunch Tinny goes with me. She has spent a LOT of time in the back of my car in the last six weeks. I have no idea why Tinny is perfectly happy (and GOOD) alone in the car, but I am thankful to have found this work-around.
Two days ago I had a business meeting, then I ran by the store to re-stock on Milk Bones before heading to a business lunch. Only as I walked back up to the car after lunch and saw the boxes of Milk Bones did it occur to me what I had done. Amazingly, Tinny didn’t rip open the boxes. There WERE teeth marks on the boxes, but they were still in the bag on the front floorboard of the car. She was sound asleep, curled up in the back, as she normally is now when I come back to the car.
This little discovery has made life lots easier in our house. However, we know it cannot last. While it’s hard to imagine as cold as this winter has been, we know that summer is coming and eventually it will be too hot to leave her in the car for any extended period of time. In fairness, it also hasn’t been without incident. Tinny has gotten used to having me and the car to herself. So when I had to take Hayley to the vet last week, Tinny of course had to come along. This is when Tinny decided to teach Hayley that the back of the car was Tinny’s land.
I was sitting at a red light when I was clued in to the situation. A car behind me suddenly started honking. I checked and the light was still red. As I looked in the rearview mirror I simultaneously saw the man behind me (with his own dog in the front seat), laughing hysterically, honking and pointing… as Tinny was fully mounted on poor Hayley with a “who’s your daddy” look on her face, riding high. That man was still laughing in full hysterics, even as I pulled away from the intersection, completely embarrassed.
So as I said… brainstorming for a long-term solution continued!
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