The Thief

In the Oscar nominated film, Les Miserables, the amazing Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean laments his cruel and unjust 20 year imprisonment, incurred merely for "stealing a mouthful of bread."

Given that testament, it's a good thing that my dog, Cloey Margaret, doesn't live in 19th century France.  She has stolen enough bread to warrant une guillotine sentence.

It's hard to admit that our lovely Golden (ahem) Angel has literally and figuratively taken the cake one too many times. What was just a once-in-a-while occurrence is now rampant. She's now officially a full blown thief, no doubt about it.

Yes, I'm talking about YOU!

From a loaf of bread to a carton of yogurt to turkey to fruit to butter (as well as the common butter substitute, Smart Balance) Cloey will scarf it down with aplomb. While we try our best to clear the counters as much as possible, life distractions inevitably happen, luring us away from the kitchen midway through making a ham sandwich or, say, Thanksgiving Dinner.  You better believe that The Thief is hanging around, paying close attention to any interruptions.

Besides snatching the unsuspecting muffin from the counter, she also chews toys- seasonal items in particular.  This past Christmas-and I'm not making this up- she plucked Baby Jesus out of the Little People manger scene.  (Fortunately I then plucked it out of her mouth.) Then she moved on to Santa and his hapless reindeer, followed by a futile attempt to gnaw off part of the Easter Bunny, who just happened to be hanging out with the Christmas gang.

How she always managed to select the holiday superstars I'll never know.

Anything made of wood is especially fair game. Lincoln Logs are carefully stored in a sealed container; however, she's pretty much cleared out our entire United States puzzle.  While South Dakota didn't phase me too much, I was almost personally offended when she chewed up my home state of Indiana.

But that's just the mischief happening in the house; she's decided that our yard is fair game as well.  She'll chew several nuggets of pine bark mulch if we're not paying attention, not to mention the kid's multi-hued sidewalk chalk and a ball... or two or three.

Obviously we have realized that enough is enough.  After all, not only is her habit an issue of inconvenience for us, we understand it could be dangerous for her.  While she doesn't swallow most of the stuff she chews, what if she accidentally did?  And there's always a chance that she'll get one too many Hershey Kisses when raiding the kid's Halloween bags, or Christmas Stockings, or, coming up right around the corner, Easter Baskets. Therefore we must now acknowledge, much to our dismay, that Cloey Margaret is not quite as perfect as we'd made her out to be in our minds.

However, before reaching this conclusion, I'll admit that I'd gone through every plausible excuse for these chewing fests. For a while there I fancied myself as some sort of animal behavioralist/detective (think The Dog Whisperer meets Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) trying to solve The Baffling Case of the Perpetual Munchies.

My first hunch involved a hunger or nutritional issue.  As in, are we not feeding her enough?  Our veterinarian- who also happens to be a trusted friend and seasoned doctor- said that no, she is getting just the right amount of the right kind of food. Then I thought, well, maybe she's not getting enough exercise and she's just bored. However, sure enough, I noticed that she stole food and chewed up random things even after coming back from long walks or playing in the yard.

Then at one point I postulated that perhaps she chews toys, for example, when we're all having fun and she isn't getting enough attention.  But that theory proved a bust when I discovered that she was chewing a toy car in her mouth while I was petting her. Her bone lay there just a few feet away, untouched, while she surreptitiously crushed the jeep into scrap metal.

Cloey, shown here making some good chewing choices

I kept coming up with more reasons as to why my precious lamb was eating, chewing and scarfing her way through our house with increasing gusto.  Separation anxiety? Dominance issues?  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? Some disease of the neurological-hormonal-hematological-vascular nature? Her doctor refuted all of my stellar theories, saying that no, she is a Golden Retriever who loves to eat and chew and is tall enough to get what she wants, which is food from the counter. She also pointed out that Cloey's definition of "food source" seems to be broader than ours.  (Picky humans!)

Now, I would be kidding myself if I didn't factor in the sucker piece of all of this thievery business: Cloey knows she has us wrapped around all four of her paws. It's as if she feels she had passed the probationary period of her adoption and now she can eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants, knowing she is here to stay. And that assumption, of course, would be correct; our adorable, furry baby is going nowhere except in her crate: a nice, big, comfy cozy "home." We've concluded this will happen when we're away from the house for a little while or away from the kitchen or whenever we decide that she needs a little break from the chewing action. And who knows, she'll probably like that anyway, having boundaries and restraints and all.

(That's about as "pack leader" as I think I can get.)

The reason I am disclosing the shenanigans of our resident thief is this: sometimes an excuse is just an excuse. We can spend many an hour constructing elaborate excuses about a person or job situation or a beloved pet; however, most of the time we're spending lots of energy masking that big old reality that needs to be accepted.

In this case, we've had to accept that not only do we have a wonderful and loving Golden Retriever who is not as flawless as we'd once thought, but also one that has the oral fixation of a goat.  And if you had a goat, you certainly wouldn't let it roam freely in your home when you are gone now, would you? Time to accept this fact and move on, I'm guessing.

We can all stand to question relationships and job environments or anything that seems to keep us in a rut. The more we deny, ignore or excuse a problem the more destructive it's going to get.  And yet we tend to spend more time rationalizing behavior rather than doing the necessary steps to prevent it.

Conversely, when we modify or abandon a destructive relationship or stand up to the critical issues at hand, we empower ourselves to move forward instead of backward. And sometimes just the acknowledgement alone can be half the battle, followed by some boundary-setting.

So here's my question of the day:

If you took away the notion that something- or someone- isn't as perfect as you'd once imagined, what would change? Could you move forward? 

I'm guessing you could. 

And I'm personally crossing my fingers that we can put a stop to Cloey's shenanigans before Cesar Millan gets our number... and puts us all in la guillotine.