I don’t need quantum physics to know that the overturned kitchen trash can or the rolls of eviscerated paper towels are the work of the cur dog. He might as well have signed his name.
Similarly, credit for the chewed up house slippers and the desecrated cactus plant goes to the girl pit mix. Their tastes are different but the end result is always the same: destruction. Only the little pit mix, standing watch at the window in case of backyard intruders, is innocent. He’s loud and obnoxious and aggressive, often nippy and the first to get on my last nerve, but he’s never been destructive. Oh, sure, he can find a discarded plastic dog food container with the accuracy of a heat seeking missile, but he’s quite content to chew it and only it to pieces. The girl pit relies on Michael’s absent mindedness and usually finds only those targets of opportunity he leaves in plain sight – shoes and slippers are her favorites with weather stripping and linoleum close seconds – but I have seen evidence of search and destroy missions for pillows or couch stuffing. It’s the cur dog who is the most agile and determined. He is undeterred by gates or closed cabinet doors or high shelves – he has, as best we can tell, learned to climb, jump or otherwise propel himself onto counters and sinks etc to reach his goal. He’s also quite partial to used coffee grounds or filters, we’re not sure which. Michael absolutely swears he recently jumped from a second story window to the concrete front porch at the sight of a squirrel but I’m not convinced. Seems to me he’d have broken a leg or two, at the least, but I perhaps he just bounces better than I imagine. Michael thinks he could’ve cleared the concrete and the iron gate, landed in the shrubs and then jumped the gate to get back on the porch. The dog isn’t talking so we may never know.
I pick up a pair of underwear, the remains of a toothbrush, a roll of duct tape, a half eaten tape measure and what’s left of its packaging, a dry erase marker, several miniature candy wrappers, a sheet of stamps and a handful of what appears to have started life as a kitchen sponge. In the office I stumble across a bagful of plastic shot glasses, chewed and cracked and shattered almost beyond recognition, a cell phone charger cord with the charging end missing,
the pieces of a Bic lighter, and the forlorn remnants of a scented candle, glass holder and all.
The kitchen floor is littered with empty sugar packets, more ragged pieces of sponge, a tattered leash and dog collar, a couple of dishtowels, a small scrub brush and a half dozen or more torn up paper grocery bags.
The evidence strongly suggested a two pronged attack, concerted, focused and certainly highly organized. “My, my, my,” I could hear Tommy Lee Jones saying as he surveys the bus crash scene from The Fugitive, “What a mess.”
The dogs pranced and danced around me and each other as if I’d been gone for years, completely oblivious to the damage and destruction they’d created in just four hours, anxious for attention and food. I shooed them out the back door and down the steps and set about cleaning up. There are times when you just need to embrace the chaos.
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