When we first moved into our new place, I had to lock Petey in his crate when I left him alone.  He had graduated to free reign of the old place, but until I was fully unpacked, there was just too much shit to explore and eat all over the floor.

But Pete’s crate is so enormous, that I’m keeping it on our enclosed front porch.  And b/c I wouldn’t take too kindkly to anyone coming in off the street and waltzing into my apartment, I have to close and lock the door to the front porch – effectively leaving Pete doubly locked in – in a crate inside of a small room.  It can’t be that fun for him.

So, finally I got unpacked and tried giving him free reign again.  It worked well….for a while.  I was out working from a cafe – as part of my new plan to “get out there” more and try and meet guys to go on dates with – and feeling exceptionally great.  Look here’s the tweet:

(I know, cute thumbnail.)

So, I come home and find….destruction.  There is foam everywhere.  At first I think it’s just that Pete has eaten his new dog bed.  I’ve caught him doing this when I’m home.  I yell at him, but not really caring all that much.  After all, it’s his bed and he’ll have to lay in it. 

But upon closer inspection, I see that he’s chewed the entire corner of my prized Le Corbusier lounge chair replica.

NO !!!!!  Not the chair, Pete  !!!!!

That thing was ordered specially from NJ Modern back in 2008.  It’s the longest story ever, but it kept being delayed and delayed again, and then I unexpectedly moved to Israel and finally it was ready and I had it shipped here.

Me & the chair in happier times, 2009

I lost it and smacked Pete’s face hard.  I think he peed a little.  I’m not sure what I’ll do about the chair – either try and have my tailor dressmaker restuff the corner and sew it up.  Or, buy new fabric (maybe chocolate brown to match the wall?) and have her cut a whole new pattern and sew a replacement cushion.  Probably the former (cheaper).  Who cares if the bottom tip is a little asymmetrical? Right?

Besides beating his ass, I started giving him the silent treatment for like the next 24 hours.  Anytime he tried to approach me,  I got on the ground so my face was next to/level with the destroyed chair and he’d have to focus on it, and I raised my voice to him.  He knew what he had done.  In fact, he exiled himself to the front porch the whole next day and hid out there, even though the door was not closed.  Serves you right, bitch.

Oh, it only that were the end of Pete’s maniacal wrath!  Next day, I took him on a leash out jogging with me.  Out of nowhere he jumps up to Michael Jordan heights and pulls out my $100 Bose in-ear headphones out of my ears!  I think maybe I’ve lost a plastic tip, but that’d be no biggie, b/c I have extras.  But no – Pete has ripped the plastic casing from the right earbud, and it has fallen under the boardwalk.  No way I could yell at him for this, he has no idea what he’s done this time, and it was purely an accident.  Plus, I think since I have an older, defunct pair of the same ‘phones at home, I can maybe pull off some MacGyver-like repair job by affixing a piece of the old ‘phones onto the new ones and krazy gluing it there.

[Pats self on back], And it worked!  But #fail nonetheless, as it appears Pete’s chomp has destroyed the speaker’s bass and that ain’t comin back.  A failure made worse by the fact that my friend Evan brought these back from the States for me only last winter, so I’ve had them just a few months.

Damn.  So, I immediately become obsesses w/ purchasing a replacement ASAP.  I don’t need much – travel, clean floors, a husband – but fuck w/ my ability to have top quality mobile digital music I can bike, jog or workout to, and watch out.  I try both ebay and Amazon.  I find them for as low as $44.00.  But no one ships to Israel – not even the vendor w/ “international” shipping.  #Failey McFail.  Alcoholic obsession serves me well occasionally except when it almost ruins my life every other time, and I found the Israeli ebay, called “GetIT.”  Yes, they have the headphones!  And bonus, the site integrates automatically w/ Google Translate quite well.  I could pay 329 shekels ($87.00) if I bid on them, or 500 shekels ($132.00) if I “get it now.”  Even though the site translates into English well, I don’t want to have to bid repeatedly, so I just buy them now, and I’m waiting to receive them.

Having an evil, monsterous, rabid, Lord of the Flies type dog is expensive!

So no more jogging w/ Pete.  And, no more free reign in the apartment when I’m away.  Sorry, Pete – it’s the crate for you until you’re at least one and a half years old  (currently 11 months).

Why was Pete doing this to me, you guys?  My mom and a few other peeps chimed in that Pete could be feeling uncomfortable in the new apartment still.  B/c I work from home, I’m here a lot, so it’s not so much as an issue for him.   But once I leave him alone, it kicks in and he goes berserk?  (It’s a theory.)  Yoda Jeremy also said to double-down on the Kong toys I have for him (stuffed with treats).  So, I bought a few more (another $30), and now whenever I leave him alone in the crate, he gets one of his three Kongs in rotation, each stuffed with a different kind of treats, and I’ve even started putting them in the freezer, to give him an additional sensation.

And still – I come home to find he’s completely destroyed his other dog bed that lines his crate. 

WTF, Pete?  He is definitely acting out about being kept in this crate inside the locked porch.  But, tough!  I tried giving him free reign in the apartment, and he ate my fucking chair.

#outofideas

This was a few weeks ago, and I really don’t feel like going into the whole story, but I brought it up, so I guess I have to.  #Fail   

Pete and I were walking in Park Hayarkon; not even the dog park, but the regular park.  Powerwalking in fact, as I was fighting my downward spiral into fat-assdom.  When all of a sudden, this enormous, unleashed German Shephard attacks Pete!  His owner was standing to the side, kibbitzing w/ some other people, and the dog just lunged from out of nowhere and chomped his jaw closed around Petey’s face.    

Poor Petey screamed super intensely!  But one leash-pull from me freed him from the Shep’s clutches, and we continued on our walk.  The whole thing didn’t last more than two seconds.  Except when I took a few steps and noticed something wrong w/ the side of Pete’s gums.  I touched it, and – HORRORS !! – he was bleeding.   

I turned right around, held my hand out all dramatically so they could see the blood on it, and said My dog’s bleeding.  The owner was a 60-ish, thin man, who was pretty reticent and unforthcoming about the whole thing.  The only thing he said was I don’t know what he [meaning Pete] did to aggrivate him [meaning Cujo].  As if !!!   Um, maybe *breathing*, you dipshit !?  Walking !?  Petey did nothing to aggrivate his monster, we were simply mall-walking like goobers when his menace lunged on us.  Fool!   

Anyway, I wish I handled the next part differently.  The criminal owner had an adult daughter w/ him.  I said to them Has he ever done this before?  She answered No!  I said Well, is he fully vaccinated?  She said, Oh, yes.  Then, I just gave her the stink eye and left.  My BlackBerry was rebooting at that very moment, or maybe I would have thought to take a picture of them or Petey.  Plus, I should have asked for their names and phone numbers, and I wish I had something like Your dog attacked us unprovoked, and now I have to treat my dog and get him medical care, and you’re going to pay for it.  But I didn’t.   

Anyway, we finished our walk, and then I photographed Pete and put the story out immediately on Facebook.  My friend Maya told me where the 24-hour veterinary hospital was, but my friend Danny said we could wait until tomorrow.  I put triple-antibiotic ointment on Petey’s three wounds, but he tried to scratch band-aids off, so I didn’t use them.  He wasn’t bleeding anymore, but as you can see the skin was definitely torn in two places, and open in a third.  Danny said he might need to get his skin stapled.  And my mom said Petey should definitely be put on a course of antibiotics.   

We went to our vet, and he did in fact put Pete on a course of antibiotics.  190 shekels !!!  Prick (the owner of the Shephard).  In a possible lucky break, my friend Danny thinks the A-Hole owner might be his neighbor, and he watched his neighbor’s shephard attack another dog.  So, as much as I don’t feel like turning up the heat and expending the energy to insist this turd fool reimburse me for Pete’s treatment, if it turns out to be the guy, I will probably do this.  Not so much for the money, but b/c if this guys’ dog is going around biting other people’s dogs, he has to be told that his dog is a problem and needs to stay at home or be muzzled if he goes out.   

Anyway, that was only Part of Petey’s bad week.  He was also on a chewing frenzy.  Now, we never really had this problem when he was younger.  If you’re a regular G-Fish reader, you know that he had his potty training issues, but he was not a furniture destroyer.  Until recently anyway.  My mom thinks it’s b/c I’ve been incredibly stressed out the last few weeks, with major changes of housing and employment coming simultaneously.  She thinks Pete had defintely picked up on that and was acting out as a result.  (She could be right, he’s kind of stopped now that we’re more settled in our new place.)  Some things Pete destroyed or effed up:   

My bluetooth headset. (Thanks, Anna, for bringing back a new one from the States!)

The punk loves to go through the trash can and bring trash back to his crate to munch on.

Knocked my coffee cup over onto carpet

On the lighter side, we did go to the dog beach a few weeks ago, and here’s a vid I took of The Petester chasing a doppleganger doggie down the beach.  I’m glad he’s behaving better lately.   

Also, here’s how his wounds have healed: