I've talked about my little girls a few times before.  Like the Gum Drama or my last anxiety attack.  I love my dogs.  Promise.  Really.  I do.

Even when they eat both pairs of my tan sandals.  Or my husband's brown dress shoe things.  Or my bit belt from Equine Couture.  Or the pillows that I designed and sewed.

To be honest, it's not my grandma dog - Scarlette.  It's Savannah.  That little fraction of her that is labrador has taken hold of her brain and flipped the KILLLLL switch.  It's a pain in the ass.  And now that it seems (*knock on wood*) that her chronic UTIs are under control, and she's feeling better, it's worse.

Thus began Operation Please Stop Destroying My Crap.

(I think it was the eyeglasses that she munched on that pushed me over the edge.)

I know enough about dogs to understand my options.  I could crate her, I could remove every valuable thing in the apartment, I could otherwise engage those chew tendencies.  Since the horrible, horrible weekend (prior to blogging) that everything that could go wrong, and did, and Scarlette broke her canines trying to chew her way out of her kennel during a thunderstorm, I don't crate my dogs.  It's a personal choice and not one I made lightly.

So, Operation PSDMC has three parts:

And, thus far, it hasn't been bad.  It's been two days and I'm hesitant to say that it's successful, but it certainly hasn't hurt.  I feel a little weird breaking in to a ball park (it's behind the poopie place, about a quarter mile away) at seven in the morning when it's still sorta dark, but hell.  They have fun.  There's a sign that says "no dogs", so I'm seriously ignoring that.  I meant to take a picture of the little blue man with half of a milk bone in him - you have to see it to appreciate it.

The idea is pretty simple:  if she's tired, she's going to sleep more.  If nothing is appealing to her olfactory glands, she's less likely to eat it.  And if I can get her focused on getting the super-awesome Publix brand bones out of the Kong Extreme and the man toy, she might be less inclined to find something else to destroy.

As far as the ride went last night, I took a different approach.  More.. methodical.  Ten walking steps (technically, 20, but I was only counting one shoulder) followed by twenty trot steps (again, 40).  Rinse and repeat for three laps.  Reverse, repeat.  BO came out, of course, while I was riding. She was goofy blitzed on red wine and started telling me god-awful stories.  She did tell me that I could ride the skinny man if I wanted.  I said I would break his spine.  Then we had an awkward conversation about my weight.

Yay!