Write Again Soon

Saturday was spent getting ready for our respective business trips (Bill to Hawaii, me to New Jersey).  We both left on Sunday, and that meant getting up at 6 a.m. to get Bill to the airport and then coming home to frantically clean the house and run a few errands so that everything would be acceptable for my parents, who graciously agreed to watch our menagerie while we were gone.

I drove 5 hours to New Jersey on Sunday, worked 18 hours on Monday, then made final client presentations on Tuesday and drove back home.  I arrived at 5 p.m. yesterday ready to hop into bed only to find that Maya and Gracie had some serious energy to expel.  Crazy playing ensued (them), along with a few hours of work (me).  When they finally fell asleep I sneaked upstairs to chat quickly with Bill (still in Hawaii).

I came back downstairs to find that Gracie had woken up and decided to destroy the basement.  She had ripped our brand new $100 remote into 8 different pieces (plus however many pieces she swallowed) – the fourth remote we’ve gone through since getting puppies in the first place.  She had also dragged an entire row of books off the bottom shelf, destroying four of them.  Several magazines had been shredded everywhere, along with a roll of toilet paper.  She had apparently also tried to destroy our four Wii remotes, but Maya had planted herself on top of them and was growling at Gracie whenever she got close.  My good girl.

Now, Gracie has destroyed many MANY things and I’ve been frustrated with her  over countless bad behaviors, but this was the first time I came close to beating her.  She just would NOT stop jumping around, barking at me, wagging her tail, and generally looking pleased with herself.  I screamed at her at the top of my lungs, then sat down on the floor and started crying hysterically.  Not my best moment.

Getting myself under control, I put Gracie in her crate for punishment and spent the next 30 minutes cleaning up.  It was now past midnight, and I decided that Gracie (who hadn’t yet calmed down) needed some more quiet time.  I took Maya upstairs and got in bed. 

Now, if you have gone through puppy training, you’ll know that the rule is that a dog cannot be let out of her crate until she calms down.  Otherwise, you are rewarding the barking/crying/whining.  You just have to wait it out.

Except in this case Gracie barked for more than 3 hours without a break.  I mean REALLY without a break…there was never more than 20 seconds of silence.  And even if you’ve never been on the edge of a nervous breakdown, exhausted and grumpy, you can probably imagine what listening to 3 hours of barking does to a person’s psyche. 

In the end I gave up and let her out of her crate, which I’m sure just made the problem 10 times worse, but it was after 3 a.m. and I had a full day of offsite meetings beginning in the morning.  She happily trotted upstairs onto my bed and was snoring within two minutes.  Bitch.

Today was a collection of more madness—filing business tax forms, addressing an error from one of our vendors that is going to cost us two full weeks of work and more than $9,000, dealing with the sudden cancellation of a new project, and figuring out what the hell is going on with the new group of interns that are starting tomorrow. 

At 5 p.m. I decided to switch locations, grabbed my laptop, and took the dogs down into the basement, where Gracie promptly vomited everywhere.  While I was cleaning it up, I got a voicemail cancelling a class I was scheduled to teach tomorrow.  Then the power strip for my computer broke.

I need my husband to come home.  Right now.

Update on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by Jennifer

And now Maya and Gracie just got into a fight over a bone and while I tried to head it off I got bitten on the arm.  Just a big bruise, no blood.  Clearly they are feeding off my horrid energy.  I need to get a massage, stat.