Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Un-Crate-Able Sadie Mae

Have you seen (or read) Marley and Me? If so, you know what the first few years of Sadie's life were like. It was tough. She was so adorable I couldn't even stand it, but she was baaaad.

First thing on the list was to crate train her. I worked about 5 minutes from home at the time and so she was never alone for more than 3-4 hours without some play time. She hated her crate. On most occasions, she would poop in her crate. Even in the middle of the night. You can't sleep through that, so a trip outside at 2am to hose off the crate and the dog were required. One night right after she was spayed (at 6 months, about 60 pounds, and about 100 poop clean outs), she was allowed to sleep outside her crate. She never pooped at night again. She also stopped pooping when she was given the 3'x5' laundry room to hang out in. I guess she trained me?

The list of things she distroyed included:

-Any toy. Even the guaranteed undestructible ones.
-Vistors shoes. Sadie had to use her allowance to buy a few people new shoes because she destroyed theirs in about 15 seconds.
-The laundry room. Including riping up the linoleum floor, chewing off the baseboards and 2, yes TWO huge holes through the drywall as she tried to escape.
-The deck. She managed a 1foot x 1foot hole in the deck boards somehow and chewed about 50% of the railing so it looked like there was a beaver in the back yard.
-Countless sunglasses, Playstation games, loaves of bread, pens, markers (on the couch), an ink cartridge, the broom (I'll take the blame for that one, it was funny), you name it, she ate it.

I called her my "counter-surfer" and she still is to this day. If you turned your back for 1 second, she snatched something off the counter. She's a little slower now but she'll still jump up there!

One time, my mom was visiting and she had a new wireless adapter card for her PC. She set it on the table as she got out the rest of her PC stuff. She went to reach for the adapter card and it was gone. She hadn't even seen Sadie come by, but sure enough Sadie had about 10 teeth marks into it in no time flat! She new exactly what to snatch and was bold enough to do it with us right there!! Baaaad dog. But really funny and adorable too, right?

Yesterday, I was looking at the outrageously priced dog treats for cleaning teeth. They're about $1 each for the small ones. I bought a bag of 12 to see if they worked. Sadie ate the entire bag while I was at dinner last night. She's just lettin me know who's in charge around here, in case I forgot.

Overall, Sadie has become a fantastic dog and companion. She has been my rock through the hardest things I have ever faced. She has seen me cry more than anyone or anything else combined. The most amazing thing about Sadie is how empathetic she is to my feelings. She knows when I'm happy and when I need to be cheered up. It is amazing.

Here's to my best friend.

On a hike - she loves to hike: My beautiful girl:
My screen saver for the last year:And of course, the hugging shots:
My favorite picture of all time:

2 comments:

Gwen and David said...

Sadie is so adorable! I love this post, it made me laugh and remember the stories of how naughty she was. But now she is so loving and sweet! Your pups are so cute!

Anonymous said...

awww- tears. she is great dog, rough couple of years, but great!