In the past few months, Ted has discovered that hopping onto the furniture gives way for all kinds of mischief, but he is generally obedient and jumps down when we scold. Neither JG or I were overly concerned about his climbing aspirations until he perched on top of our old sofa with his front paws placed dangerously on the half wall. One overambitious leap would mean a fall straight down the stairwell, which is at least a ten-foot drop. Our warnings and admonitions became even more menacing, but no amount of shushing, finger-snapping, or domination tactics would make Ted retain that the top of the wall was Not Where Doggies Should Go.
A couple of weeks ago, when Ted was at the groomer’s for the day, I had the notion to switch the furniture so that the couch would be against the main wall and the half wall would only have the armchair and the recliner. Hopefully, Ted wouldn’t immediately grasp that he could get to the half way by climbing up the armchair, and even if he did, the opportunity for a flailing descent would be sharply decreased by simple lack of surface area.
At first, Ted wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He kept sniffing around and pausing, as if he knew there was something different, but what was it? I congratulated myself on being sneaky and resourceful, and simultaneously saving Ted from the danger of falling into the abyss. He eventually pawed over the armchair, but he avoided the wall for the most part, so I was satisfied. Well done, me.
Just recently, however, Ted has taken over the couch. At first, I thought it was cute. I mean, look! He settles down on it to survey his kingdom, right?
Well, sure. Until he finds a particularly threadbare part of a cushion and starts pulling out stuffing like there’s no tomorrow. Even when I flipped over the cushion, a tiny portion of the tear showed, and Ted nosed his way in. Groan. I have a few schemes about patching it, but we have a crafty dog, and I suspect that any loose thread or edge of the fabric will catch his eye. At worst, I will invest in a slipcover to guard our faithful couch against Ted’s attacks. I am determined that this sofa will last us until we move out of this house, darn it.
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8 comments
Very clever! I can just imagine how confused Ted must have been after the rearrangement, poor thing. And dogs are always, ALWAYS really great at finding tiny tears to make bigger– thanks for the help, fellas.
Ben went through a couch-chewing phase, too! We had an old crappy couch that we never used, so we put it in the room Ben was locked in while we were out of the house, and he was free to chew on it to his heart’s content. Luckily he didn’t think the situation through enough to think “if it’s okay to chew on this couch, it’s okay to chew on ANY couch!”
Ted looks very regal, surveying his kingdom from his couch throne!
Oh no, what a bad habit. I hope Ted finds a new land to explore and abandons the mysterious couch fuzz soon!
I love rearranging the furniture because the cats go nuts. Their heads bob up and down, nose all a-sniff, whiskers twitching. It’s as if they think it’s new but it smells the same so it can’t be new. But it was there before so it must be new. But the smell is so familiar…
he’s too cute to kick off the couch
one of my bf’s dogs is a cocker spaniel. she is always hyper and jumps on the couch to say hi every 5 minutes. but when she jumps up and gives you those puppy dog eyes it’s really hard to say “get down!”.
Clever but OMG.
Loooook at that FACEEEEEE.
Seriously.
Once Rufus has discovered he can get the stuffing out of something, there’s no stopping him. Puppies are resourceful when it comes to mischief!
Aw, he is so cute. He can rip the stuffing out of my couch anytime.
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