Dogs of a feather

Wednesday was absolutely gorgeous. Warm, sunny, dry, Lovely, lovely day so I brought my rubber boots to work.

In a previous post I noted that cats are better than dogs. Mostly because my cat has never eaten his bedding – Kitty has destroyed many, many, many things in his time – most of them things that could not be replaced and Kitty has never even tried to pretend he felt bad about those things. They were in his way and they had to go. End of story. Cats don’t do remorse. Dogs on the other hand, remorse is practically a default setting. They feel bad about everything. Dogs are Catholic, they feel bad about every thought, deed or desire they feel and usually they are right there to confess to what they have done.

Not Tuesday. I walked, dripping, into the house, checked the mail, turned on the lights and went to greet the dogs. I hadn’t entered the room yet and I could see something that I didn’t like. That turned out to be a leaf. Fine.

Then I looked further into the room. There was stuffing everywhere. It looked like Santa’s Workshop had blown up. The elforrists were standing in the ruins smiling at me. They were thrilled to see me. I was trying to figure out what exactly happened and whether any one would mind if the fur slippers I gave them for Christmas were actually lined with dog pelt and the little criminals were acting like they had done nothing wrong. How could they not know that killing the mattress was bad? They’re dogs! They instinctively know everything they enjoy doing is probably wrong.

Nephdog looked at me with his big brown eyes and said nothing, just looked at me. He didn’t seem unhappy or guilty and as a Boxer, Nephdog always looks as though he is feeling unhappy or guilty about something. He took part in or was a witness to the slaughter of the innocent crib mattress and he wasn’t even slightly ill at ease. Law and Order would totally have enough on him to indict, but he was feeling no guilt.

Dogger was hoping around. She didn’t feel bad either but she in general does not feel bad about her actions. This can be a problem because I can catch her red pawed at something and she doesn’t understand why my head is spinning around.

I couldn’t very well do anything about it then. It had been that way for Gawd only knows how long and nothing I did then would have any impact on the dogs other then to confuse them. I may have put Doggers collar on with a little more force than usual, but… I took the dogs out in the rain and then fed them. I think the dogs were more upset about their obligatory business doing time outside than they were about the torn up mattress.

While the dogs were eating I took the time to examine the mattress. The dogs managed to remove the mattress cozy and the mattress pad with out harming either. They went after the stuffing with a passion. One of them did ding their mouth on the metal springs but just a little. I was like “Where are the CSI people and their gadgets now? I need this blood trace typed and crossed now! I need the DNA run through CODEX!” The stuffing must have looked like it tasted of ambrosia – it must have not in realty because the floor was covered in mattress fluff.

The mattress despite its injuries was not entirely totaled. It is just a dog bed and with a little duck tape it may recover. Dogger isn’t going to be able to use it with out adult supervision and she’s going to be sleeping on the floor for the immediate future. She looked so sad this morning curled up in a little dog ball on her piled up blanket. Good! I looked sad when I discovered the remains of the bed. She unmade her bed now she has to (not) lay on it.