When the Apprentice Surpasses the Master

Wednesday, a woman who reads this blog came by my shop. She asked where Bugsy and Erwin were, and I said, "Oh, they're at home." She asked, "Loose in the house?" and I crowed, "Yes. Those two are totally good dogs, not like Chester at all."

Then I arrived home to this:



"This" is what happens when you brag about your "good" dogs. You arrive home to... something.

Before I get into the explanation of that bit of evidence, I must say: Chester has an alibi -- he was with me and Marley all day, five miles away at the shop. Nope, this was the doing of the Wee apprentice, Erwin, and his pal Bugsy who apparently took notes on Chester's parkour escapades around the house and decided to have one of their own. Bugsy is NOT blameless in all this, -- was in on it, too. Don't ask how I know.

Erwin, all 16 pounds of enthusiasm, managed (with Bugsy) to retrieve and eat almost an entire cantaloupe. Not a dinky little melon, either -- this baby was from Costco. Judging from how covered in cataloupe his face and paws were, I'm thinking Erwin was large and in charge on this one. But I don't know. Bugsy does know how to pop a tennis ball, and he did have some on his paws. He didn't look like he'd taken up residence inside the melon, like Wee did (as you can see by the photo there on the left). By weighing the leftover bit and a "sister" melon of similar size, I think they got about 3 pounds of fruit (rind and all).

The only things that I know for certain are that the floor was sticky and I had to mop it, and that Chester didn't do it (for once).

The vet said to expect diarrhea (after he stopped laughing) but luckily, it didn't happen. However, there may be canteloupes springing up in the back yard. Fertilized canteloupe, if you know what I mean. Just for grins, here are the two heathens as I attempted to get them to pose next to the sister melon. Wee wasn't buying what I was selling.

In other news of the ridiculous pugs that I call my own, Marley was outside and something bad happened to her. I was weeding and am only guilty of noting that she wasn't in distress, and SPRINTING in to the house to get the camera. Of course then I got the stink eye from her.

What happened is she was out doing her "dog stuff" which means she is sniffing around the yard. Besides sleeping and eating, sniffing around is one of her favorite activities.

When I looked up, she had her head stuck in the "bucket" and Chester was briskly trotting away.

Marley is a bit top heavy, so what I think happened was she was sniffing the bucket, and Chester decided to dominance mount her, knocking her in. Then he beat a hasty retreat. For her part, Marley just thought, "Who turned out the lights?" and started blundering around blindly while I raced for the camera. After that single picture was taken, I removed the bucket from her head (which she could have easily done herself with a shake or a paw, it was NOT stuck) and got the stink eye because she knew I took her picture. It's embarassing for an elderly, retired supermodel and official shop dog to be caught this way. Poor dear. After a treat, all was well.