A Little Monster

My dog is a 7 year old sweet, loveable, well mannered Rottweiler Pitt bull mix and I would not trade him for ANYTHING in the world. But during the first year of his life he was a complete asshole and it took everything I had on MULTIPLE occasions to just tie him up and drown him and blame it on the neighbour. He chewed everything in sight, my new shoes that had never been worn, the crotches of every single pair of underwear that he could get to, furniture and my all time favourite I went to school one day and because it was snowing I left Rogue baby gated in the kitchen so he could not freeze, see how nice I was being. That little kernel of weakness led to him chewing every single cabinet and drawer in the kitchen so that the once square edges were now all rounded. After that first year and many rounds of training classes where I was sure that there was something wrong with his brain because all the other dogs seemed to catch on so quickly we finally found a method that would control Rogue.

Now as long as Rogue has his things he is allowed to chew on he is mostly the best dog ever. There is still the occasional problem, like he cannot resist any type of paper. Toilet paper and paper towel are his all time favourites but when these are unavailable he dedicates himself to trying to beat his time limit on gutting the stuffed animals we give him. We buy him the same type of toy every time because after years of assessing his love it seems like his true love is a stuffed animal with a squeaker. Now normally I would NEVER buy something with a squeaker because I would find that noise terribly annoying but it never squeaks for long. When I take one out of the toy cupboard you can almost hear the crickets cheeping in the room because all falls silent and Rogue stares at you like “OK I TOTALLY GOT THIS GET THE TIMER OUT.” Usually within 20 minutes or less the animal is torn, dismembered, gutted, and the squeaker has been destroyed so it will never squeak again. After he is done he brings the largest mutilated piece that is left to me as if to say “There Mommy this bad monster will never annoy you again.”