What is it lately with the creatures of this house?

Finally, Zach has seeded the back yard. He backed filled it with the dirt they dug out for the new basement, raked out the rocks, tilled it, covered it with topsoil from a local farm, seeded it and covered it with straw. Now the Waiting begins. The Waiting involves keeping the dogs and the children out of the backyard. This is easier said than done.

Actually, the children, or the Child, factor is not really a big deal. I just keep Jacob busy during the day, and when Zach is home and working on the backyard, Jacob is too. There's never a time when Jacob would turn down digging in the yard with Daddy for something else. And that's basically all he does - digs in the dirt for hours on end.

The dogs, however, are another story. Holy Hell do they ever miss their backyard. We didn't realize how much they love it until now that they can't go in it. Can you imagine the damage those two would cause with all the rumbling they do? So we're walking them like normal pet people. What a novel concept. When we're not walking them, they are sitting by the back door, looking out the glass, giving me that melancholy look. And when we're not home to see them being depressed over the temporary loss of their playground, they are tearing apart the house in revenge. Well, I assume it's Mango, and Mango alone who is taking out her wrath on the items of the house. I will now back up this statement with my current theory of Mango's destruction.

We got a new area rug for the new living room and put it down shortly after getting home from our trip. This is a nice rug (not the one in the picture below), the nicest one we've ever had and the dogs wholy agree! More recently I purchased a new dog bed to place near the new carpet to discourage the dogs from laying on the carpet, as they are wont to do. Somehow the bed ended up in our bedroom, at the foot of our bed, and Mango has taken to sleeping on it at night. So now instead of just having one dog bed to share, the dogs have assigned themselves ownership over the respective beds. Mango has surrendered the old dog bed to Ginger, but probably only because the new one is fluffier. So when I leave the house we block the dogs off in a strange way with random barriers to keep them contained. The bed goes in this spot, along with the many toys Mango has for the purpose of tearing apart. Instead of the toys though, she chews apart the bed. I haven't yet fully thought through what her sadistic reasoning could be behind chewing apart Ginger's bed, and not directing the assault at me, but I'm working on that. Perhaps she trying to dominate her mother and show who's the leader of the pack. Either that or she's just really, really pissed about losing her backyard.

Then there's the walking. I'm trying to walk them four times a day and no matter how often, or how long those walks are, when it's over the dogs are just at your feet again acting like their lives suck. Sometimes I walk one dog at a time because it's a very big undertaking to walk them both at the same time (and manage Jacob on whatever kind of wheeled toy he is trying to ride through the bumpy wooded area). The times when I walk them both at once it's usually because I can't decide who to take first. Ginger makes it clear by her uncharacteristically wild behavior at the front door that Going For a Walk is her sole pleasure in life and to leave her behind might crush her poor, dear heart. But if I leave Mango behind in favor of walking Ginger first, there will always be repercussions.

Actually walking them is a whole other matter. Ginger likes to dilly dally and sniff everything, while her daughter prefers to go as fast as possible, her attention always shifting between this and that. She's like the dog version of ADHD. Mango also likes to be the leader so that if ever Jacob speeds in front of her, she barks her head off and tries to bound ahead. If only I could get them both to compromise, then we'd be at a nice brisk walking pace instead of my arms being pulled apart by their opposing desires. And with the leashes - what's up with this? Why can't they just walk normal and not get all tangled? It seems simple enough to me: One dog on each side, leashes hanging from their collars with a clear path to the loop over my wrist. But no, they have to always be under foot, tripping me, tangling each others' legs with their leashes, getting caught up in the bushes.

If people with pets are supposed to have lower blood pressure, then I must be an exception to the rule.