Katie, the Home Wrecker - Girl Interrupted

Katie (short for On Golden Pond's Katherine Hepburn) is our newest Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. An adorable, almost 10 months old Blenheim,  Katie is quite the character. Her facial expressions tell you exactly what's on her mind and she has attitude with a Capital A. Usually she's loving and playful, smart and cuddly, and she's always finding new and interesting ways to get into mischief. But she does not like having her "fun" interrupted.

For almost a month now, it seems like every time I turn around, I am finding Katie with a nail or a screw in her mouth. It's been driving me crazy because we are very careful with little things a dog could swallow. If she did manage to swallow one, it would be a medical nightmare. 

Typically I will hear something going "clink clink" on the wood floor and I'll look down to find Katie playing with a big nail or a short rusty screw.  In the past three weeks I've taken away at least 3 screws and almost a dozen nails. I have gone crazy trying to figure out where she is getting them.  

At first I thought that someone must have spilled some in the workshop and that she was somehow getting in there and scavenging. That part of the house is  generally off limits to the dogs and the workshop door is not left open so that was a stretch to begin with. And these were not new nails and screws - in fact, they all appeared used.... as in, old....  with painted or rusted or tarnished tops.  But I couldn't come up with an other reasonable, alternate explanation so to be sure, I checked the workshop half a dozen times. For the record, there are no nails or screws lying around there at all, nothing on the floor she could have gotten into, even if she could have morphed her way through the door.

This morning, while I was cooking my husband's breakfast, I heard the familiar "clink clink" again on the wood floor right next to me. Lo and behold, there was Katie playing with another short rusty screw. I took it away from her, again totally puzzled as to where she'd found it. She was clearly unhappy with me and scowled her indignation.  I saw that same expression many times on my teenagers' faces. Yikes. Wait till she starts asking to borrow the car keys and I say "no". I can imagine the look I'm going to get.

After breakfast, I went out to clear the last of the breakfast dishes off the table on the deck and there was Katie, on her belly, wiggling and twisting with her snout locked in what appeared to be a kiss with the outside wall of the house where the trim boards overlap the exterior clapboards. It took a minute for my brain to process what I was seeing and then I did a double take when I realized that she was actually pulling a nail from the cement fiber clapboard siding. These nails are flush with the siding and the trim boards, so don't ask me how she is getting her little teeth under the lip of them, but there she was, twisting and pulling, twisting and pulling, until she finally eased the nail out. I quickly snatched it from her and when I told her "No, no, no!" she gave me a baleful look and then took her sweet time coming inside. I told her she can't play outside alone anymore if she's going to dismantle the house.

I checked a little more carefully and discovered where she is getting all the screws - she has been raiding hardware from here and there around the frames that support the many sets of sliders we have. I could not figure out why the kitchen slider keeps jamming and won't slide open and closed easily, but the frame and track are loose! 

What a character she is! She gives new meaning to the term "home wrecker". (Cute though, isn't she.) 

(Top picture:  Unhappy when she can't have her way, she scowls.  This picture: The dogs are not allowed to beg at the dining room table and are expected to nap when the family is eating. Katie found a way not to beg but still remain under foot by curling up under the table and resting her head on the ornate curved bars that span the table legs.)