Warning. Some of the photos you are about to see are GROSS. Reader discretion advised.

There’s something about this time of year that makes our darling diva go off the rails.

I’m not really sure what it is, if it’s Cabin Fever, Seasonal Afflective Disorder or maybe it’s just the static in my house.  I’ve noticed a definite increase in static lately.

Long time followers of this blog will know that Delilah a.ka. the Diva of Destruction typically contains her destroying to napkins/paper towels/dryer sheets and of course, toys that need destuffing.

EXCEPT for this time of year.  This time of year, you never know what Delilah will go for.  

Take for instance the grandkid’s book box.  It’s a little canvas box I have filled with storybooks and a couple children’s puzzles.  This Christmas we added some coloring books and colored pencils.  The box sits on the floor in  a corner of my living room.

It’s sat there for four years.  During those four years, Delilah has never even looked at it, let alone approached it.

That is until Thursday.  Thursday she got some wild hair across her ass and decided she’d tear up the contents of the toy box.

Hubby came home to this.

Typically we don’t yell or scold her when she destroys something.  Mostly I feel like it’s our fault for leaving whatever it was lying around.  Except this time I’m told, some yelling went on. I wasn’t there, I have to take Hubby’s word for it.

All I know is she was quite content to lie on her bed while I cleaned up her mess.  Thankfully she only destroyed the boxes the puzzles came in, so I was able to salvage the actual puzzles and they are now in ziploc bags.  She had a go at one of the books, but didn’t damage it.  

But the box of colored pencils was destroyed.

 Over the years we’ve giggled at the thought that perhaps Sampson was actually the one destroying things and letting Delilah take the blame for it.

I’m here to tell you, that theory has been permanently laid to rest.  The proof as they say, is in the pudding.  

Or in Delilah’s case, the poop.

Honestly while I was cleaning up the mess in the living room, it never once crossed my mind that she might have actually EATEN any of the pencils, but sure enough, the proof was there, staring me right in the face.

Thursday night I giggled when I looked down and saw the bits of red, green, blue and purple staring back up at me.

But yesterday morning, she was still pooping pencils.  

Big bits of pencils.

Why can’t she poop something I can use, like money? Oh and for the record, the other day on our walk I called her Diva and she responded to me.  

One day, when my two oldest daughters were in 7th grade, Lynn asked if she could wear eye liner to school.

“Absolutely not,” I replied adamantly putting that silly notion to rest.

The next morning as I was driving them to school, I looked over at Lynn and she had eye liner on.

I blew a gasket.

“I thought I told you you couldn’t wear eye liner?” I asked angrily.

Lisa, her twin, and always the peace maker piped up from the back seat, “She was going to bring the eye liner to school and put it on in the bathroom Mom, I told her to just wear it and see what happened.”

Right then and there I realized, despite your desire to keep your children from doing something you don’t think they should, they are living growing beings and need to experience and learn in their own time.   I also decided I’d much rather have an honest, trusting relationship with my daughters, than have them sneaking around behind my back.

It would seem, the same holds true for your relationship with your dogs.

I was reminded of this story yesterday, after the dogs and I came back from our afternoon walk.

I put Sampson and Delilah in the back yard while I went about digging out some wood so I could stock the fire before I went back to work.

Neither one of the dogs had pooped on our walk (you can’t blame there, there really isn’t anywhere to go, unless it’s the street).  I should have kept that thought in the forefront of my mind, but I didn’t and went about the business of digging out the wood.  

I threw a few pieces onto the tarp and as I turned around, Sampson came bounding down the hill, doing his impression of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  

You know the part where Clarice kisses Rudolph and Rudolph flies through the air yelling, “She thinks I’m cute”? Sampson does something similar.  Except he does it after he takes a dump.  He’s all happy, like a great weight has been dropped, and he bounds joyfully.  Hubby and I always say, “I pooped, I pooped.”

So here comes Sampson bounding down the hill, I glance over at him then up to the deck where Delilah was just 5 seconds ago, only she’s not there.

My ‘mother intuition’ screams, turn around.  I do and there she is, up on the hill cleaning up after Sampson.

Hubby and I have been working hard at cleaning up after the dogs so there is nothing in the yard for her clean up.  I also am working her hard on our walks with the “leave it” command where she gets rewarded for not eating the disgusting stuff.

BUT it seems like the harder I try to keep her away from it, the sneakier she gets about trying to eat it.  

SO, The moral (if there is a moral) of this story is this:

Dogs, much like teenagers, are sneaky little shits.