Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Somebody Has A Paper Tooth

The Pony and I arrived home yesterday around 5:00. We were greeted by the #1 son, who handed me a package. "I found this on the front porch. That's exactly how it looked."

It was a brown 7 x 10 bubble-wrap-padded envelope with one side chewed out and the top heavily damaged. I can only blame new pup Juno for this carnage. The other dogs have not eaten a package since the black shepherd Ann was an adolescent, and chewed up Farmer H's Case Collector Knife. She ate the box and the Styrofoam and had the collectible box in her mouth when we came up the driveway. "Oh, look. I wonder what Ann's chewing on." #1 jumped out and rescued the treasure just in time.

Juno is that age. She's about four months, all gangly and loosey-goosey and boundingly playful with nobody to play with. The big dogs tolerate her now, give her a polite nose bump with a slight tail wag. But they won't romp with her. If she runs up to them while they're romping and wrestling, they stand stock still and look at her. Like, "B*tch. What's your problem?"

Silly me. I though the 27 assorted gnawing bones and squeaky chicken and rubber milk bone and three-ring rubber toy and mini basketball and rawhide chew sticks were enough. Apparently not. I thought of taking that package and rubbing her nose on it and spanking her with a rolled-up magazine. But I don't know if she has the memory to make the connection. More likely, she would look at me with sad, abandoned, starving puppy eyes while thinking, "Why New Mommy no like me now?"

So I put a note on the front and back doors for UPS and FedEx. "Please put packages in garage so dog does not eat them."

Today, the garage door raised to reveal four boxes. Kudos to UPS.

2 comments:

labbie1 said...

Way to go UPS! At least UPS delivers to you--or attempts to. They just sent my boots right back as soon as they got to the hub near me. UPS asked for a verification of address at 1:00 pm and at 5:00 pm they were on a truck being returned to the place from which they were ordered! I mean--geez! Never even put them on a delivery truck or called!

Hillbilly Mom said...

labbie,
Dang. Our UPS at least tries for a second delivery.

So far, so good this year. One year they opened every package. Sneakily, too. Pulled the tape loose and tried to stick it back down. Another year, every package was smashed like a 500-pound gorilla tired of flinging Samsonite luggage and tossed my purchases around.