iTraining

I do not know where my puppies, Bart and Lisa, got the idea that digging in daddy’s pot plants was a good idea or a fun thing to do, but lately it is one of their favorite things to do. They have also taken to biting limbs off the shrubs in the back yard.

I give them plenty of toys and give them new ones when I suspect they are being bored of the ones they have.

Still, they manage to be destructive.

Bringing the plants most threatened by the promised freeze we were to get with the latest cold front reminded me to be prepared for puppy damage. I have spent two years nurturing pineapple plants grown from the top of two pineapples I purchased on a whim (and during a particularly good sale) at the local grocery store. They managed to knock one off the plant stand in the yard twice and I worried about what they would do to it in my kitchen.

After playing with a couple placements, I think I found a spot where the plants will get enough light and not be in the path of the puppies running area. Much of what they do in the house is not malicious; it is brute muscle carelessness as they run around playing. And some of it is just them being puppies.

Still, I have to clean up after them.

Realizing that they are just puppies, I am ok with doing it. Unfortunately I can never catch them in the act because they are always nearly angels when I am home. They manage to do the damage when I am at work. I need to get a nanny-cam so I can see which of them does what during the day when I am at work.

Of course that would work best if I had a remote control and could watch the camera from my desk at work and activate a recorded “Stop!” command when I saw them doing something they were not supposed to be doing. I have an iPhone and my home theater system is connected to iTunes. Surely there is an app for that.