I told you that she has been getting into trouble lately and causing us a bit of grief. I am taking her out late at night as her last outing of the night NOT on the leash, as my husband was doing, since she pulled him into the planter and caused a lot of grief plus an all-nighter in the ER. I am simply letting her out, telling her to ‘hurry up’ and hoping she won’t be gone long, if she leaves the area. So far, so good.
The other problem is that we had taken down baby gates, leaving only one between the tiled areas on the first floor and the carpeted ones. She has a nice bed in the utility room right next to the garage. Suddenly, she was stealing food off the counter in the kitchen, or grabbing not-yet rinsed dishes and taking them to her bed, etc. We finally re-installed the baby gate between the dining/kitchen/pantry areas and the utility room.
The problem THEN was we installed it so the gate opening part got in the way of the door to the garage. We go in and out of that door all day long, so we were TRYING to adapt to the difference. We finally decided today to turn the baby gate around so it opened the other way – AWAY from the door to the garage. It took us a bit of time but we just accomplished it. This will save us a bunch of problems, as I found myself with the gate part open, the door to the garage open, the dog trying to bull her way past me to get OUT and the cat trying to sneak past me to get IN – all at the same time with me right in the path.
Hopefully we can now separate Amber from any food that needs to be out to thaw, or the chance to take a breath after dinner before cleaning up the kitchen. I’ll be able to let Amber out without getting trapped between the doors and the cat streaking her way in.
Life gets complicated sometimes, but we – as our animals’ people – are supposed to be smarter than they are…
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