Canine Crime Scene

I had a haircut today at 11 am. I piled all of Billy's toys in his bed in the kitchen, gave him some fresh water, put a pee-pad down and closed him in with the baby gate. Our normal 'me leaving the house' routine.

I stopped at the grocery store en route post haircut (she did a nice job, by the way) and then headed home. Upon hitting the garage door opener, I noticed the garage going down, not up like is supposed to. Translation: I left the garage opened, again...I did a quick visual inventory check of all the golf gear I have free-standing in the wide open for everyone to see. It was all in place.

Worse than that however, is that the door that leads into the house is rarely locked. Why? Because the garage is supposed to be closed all the time! It is such a bad feeling to have left the door open for any extended time period, especially when I do it overnight (2x)...yuck.

Anyway, I went inside to check on my puppy and I wasn't expecting to see what I saw:

No, it wasn't the poo that was smeared into the tile floor, I knew that would be there. It wasn't the two pools of pee on the pee pad, he is good that way too. What I didn't expect to see was the baby gate crooked, the water bowl tipped over and no puppy. Immediately my heart sank and thoughts started racing through my head.

"Billy, Billy, come here my Billy boy". Nothing. No Billy.

What the heck? Did someone come in and steal my puppy? I then looked to my 50" plasma tv and noticed it was still there. I mean, if they were going to steal something, Billy would be nearly irresistible, but face it, you could snag the tv, sell it and buy 4 'Billy's'.

There were signs of a struggle--the gate crooked and the water dish tipped over. How did that happen? Then again, how much struggle would one need to put forth to scoop up a 7 pound puppy? It was a prototypical canine crime scene.

I could feel the fear and panic rise throughout my body and my calling became more frantic as I roamed throughout the house. I don't have a big house, but Billy is a little guy and could be anywhere. "Billy, Billy, come 'ere boy".

I then started to fear that he could have chewed a cord and gotten electrocuted. I was now half expecting to find his cute little body laying somewhere. "Billy, Billy, come on my Billa-boy".

Finally I heard the jingling of his name tag against his collar--it was more music to my ears than normal. Here comes the little guy from out of my room somewhere. I am not sure if he was in his kennel (wouldn't that have been cute?) or from under my bed or in my closet. Regardless of where he came from, I was so relieved to see him.

I clearly didn't secure the baby gate well enough. What can I say? This is my first crack at motherhood. I scooped him up and promptly started asking him about the adventure he had been on. He had clearly just woken up and was his normal, licky, cuddly self. Imagine that little guy with free reign over the house? After I calmed down I began scouring the house for any stray piles of poop or pee. Nada. He had left it all neatly in the kitchen for me.

I was actually quite happy to see that MOST of the poo was on the kitchen floor still. He has been eating his poo lately which isn't ideal on a good day, but especially lately because he has a few parasites that we are trying to combat.

I then did my usual scrubbing and mopping the floor routine. It was sparkling. Maybe that is why Billy eats his poo...you know the saying: my floor is clean enough you could eat off of it. He is taking that waaaaay too literally.