Official UpToDate QE Mascot

Continuing with the theme of "testing" my various possessions for ruggedness, Marley has been adopted by my Quality Engineering team's lead, Anna, as the mascot for our team. Here is the picture that inspired that.

Another picture for your amusement

Corinna started working on a post while she was sick, so in due time it will be up. For now, here's another picture of the Marles and I:

In order to get rid of technology, you must get rid of math

I think my dog is way too smart... first it was dragging all our mail up into the hallway and taking out only junk mail to shred, now she is attempting to destroy the basis of modern day technology... MATH. Among other thing, she ate my Discrete Math text book. In order to curb this behavior, I have decided she is limited to only being alone in HER bedroom, the hallway and the kitchen. The human bedroom is off limits. Lets see how that goes when I get home tonight... she will have been alone the entire day.

More Gnawing Marley

So I have been keeping Marley out of her crate during the afternoons, while keeping the living room and dining room closed off (to prevent electrocution by gnawing). Somehow though, everyday I come home she has ripped something apart. I try giving her chew toys, bones, rubber things, stuffed animals, and music, yet she can't stop gnawing on my stuff. First it was my PSP, then my N64 controller, yesterday it was Corinna's Frank Sinatra Christmas CD and 2 of my computer science books. Today, this:


The other day, she managed to walk down the front stairs pick up all the mail, then proceeded to sort out the letters and bills, grab the newspapers/catalogs and then sit on my bed while she shredded it. It was luck that she didn't shred important stuff, or did she know newspapers and catalogs are ok to eat?

From ripping stuffed animals apart to eating my shoes and various electronics

How did it happen? How did Marley go from harmlessly destroying her stuffed animals to crawling under my bed to retrieve my shoes for a nice gnawing session. Clearly I am not ok with that, so I showed her the shoes, said "NO, bad dog" and watched her stance change from happy to apologetic. A few minutes later I caught her crawling under my bed with that same shoe in her mouth.
The shoes, ok, they weren't expensive and they were not used all that much anymore (not very comfortable and sort of worn out), so I was annoyed, but not upset. Then came the day she decided to eat my PSP (Playstation Portable). Where did she get that idea? She totally destroyed it. I ended up taking it apart to inspect what parts still worked. Since it wont power on, I have to assume it it toasted. Along with the PSP, she destroyed a book Corinna was borrowing from a co-worker, and a picture of her and I. Earlier in the week, Marley decided to eat my Ipod charger, and most recently my favorite Nintendo 64 controller. Here is most of the damage:


And the repair:

The first two weeks

were entirely about testing my devotion to raising Marley. Each day I tried to come home during lunch to help her deal with her separation anxiety only to find new presents, and a further destroyed bedroom door. After a few days of this, I decided that a crate was the way to go.

I hear that dogs do not like to dirty their "cave" but I came to find out Marley was an exception to this. The first week with a crate I would come home at lunch to let her out. About half of the time she left presents for me in the crate, and always made a little pond for me to clean up when I got home later in the day. What made my afternoons though was knowing that even if she peed in her crate, each time I let her out of it -but before she even made it out of the room she was in- she would pee all over the place. Not only would she do this, but sometimes she would also feel guilty afterwards, and would fall into a submissive posture laying in her new dog-made pond as her way of saying "sorry". I assumed this was something that would change if I just didn't pay any attention to it and cleaned it right up. She was scared in her new environment. I tried to leave things that smelled like me in the room, and nice cushy blankets and a dog bed, but as quickly as I could put them in the room, Marley could make confetti out of it even quicker. I decided she needed more people time and less alone time. I then looked for somebody to hang out with her in my home for an hour or two a day that wouldn't charge me more than my salary. That's when I found Elizabeth.

I owe a lot of my sanity to Elizabeth for taking care of Marley and running her around a bit so i could stay at work during the lunch period. She was very patient with Marley and it shows now. Marley isn't the typical lab, she doesn't like meeting new people and cars, or even going for walks. She must have been abused. It used to take her a half hour to warm up to people which involved ignoring her until she approached and sniffed you then ran off to think about trying that again. Don't even think about walking towards her as she would run to my side and cower, sometimes building me another dog made pond. The first day we met Elizabeth, she hung out at our house for probably an hour, just waiting for Marley to decide if she was going to be friends with her. Eventually Marley was just ok with her. I was praying it would work out.

In the begining there was

the ride home from Connecticut with Marley (then Tator-Tot) with her on my lap panting anxiously. Little did I know, that was to be the smoothest car ride I would have with her... to-date. Now it is uncommon if she doesn't "toss her cookies" (as Tracy puts it) all over the back seat of my car. Strangely enough I haven't purchased a back seat cover for the dog... Maybe that night when she refused to sleep anywhere except between Corinna and I, or in the morning when she got up, jumped off the bed and unloaded her bladder, or even that same night when I came home after work to her having ripped apart the bedroom door, the wall next it, and went to the bathroom numerous times all over, I should have known this was going to be a long journey with her.