A Little Light Refurbishment

A vet had estimated that Strauss was about three-months old when he came to live with me at the end of February 2001; and once past those frustrating house-training weeks, he spent the fourth and fifth month of his young life as a pretty exemplary puppy.

But then we hit the half-year mark and everything went ever-so-slightly to shite. And to make things worse, it was almost certainly my fault…

Having spent three months with a seemingly happy and well-balanced little mutt, I decided that keeping to my plan of going home to visit my parents for a week would be perfectly acceptable.

Strauss’s Aunty Anja was at her between-live-in-relationships stage and had kindly offered to step in as full-time Pooch carer during my absence. So off I flew to Blighty with nary a flicker of unease.

The first indication that things were going a little off-track was a phonecall from Anja telling me I was not to worry, but that the puppy had eaten her expensive running shoes and her phone charger. Oh, and her credit card.

Right. An occasional blip in good behaviour was to be expected, no?

Oh, and a small hole had mysteriously appeared in the sofa, but she’d stuck a cushion over it.

Hmmmm.  Perhaps it was more a blip and a half that we were being faced with here.

But when I eventually arrived back in Marbella, the blips very soon began  hailing down; transforming 26 Avenida de la Fontanilla into a war zone so ferocious that even NATO would have thought twice about intervening.

For despite continuing to be the sunniest and most semi-obedient-when-it-suited-him little chap  imaginable when in my company, Strauss could no longer be left alone for more than 60 seconds without causing unimaginable damage to our living space.

Over the following months he systematically destroyed two sofas, two arm chairs, two mattresses, endless pillows, cushions, two dog beds and practically anything else that was accessible by either tooth or claw.

And when not engaged in ripping and tearing, he spent his time liberally coating all damaged and non-damaged surfaces with urine.

For over two months I came face to face with the scattered, yellowing innards of my most comfy furniture every single time I opened the front door, and I simply had no idea what to do about it.

I got up at six o’clock to take him for long walks along the beach – for which he very publicly repaid me by hunting out the human turds deposited in the undergrowth by revolting beach-lubbers, and racing along the Paseo Marítimo with them hanging out of his mouth like Cuban cigars.

I bought him all manner of entertaining toys and games.

I hugged him and kissed him and told him a hundred times a day that he was Mummy’s Bestest Ickle Soldier.

But it didn’t work.

So I put my energy into yelling and shouting and smacking his unrepentant little bottom.

Nothing.

Eventually I even turned to doggy books, which assured me that for a puppy, all attention is good attention even when involving yelling, shouting and the smacking of recalcitrant bottoms.

Ignoring the bad behaviour was DEFINITELY the way forward.

Nope.

By this time I was close to losing my sanity, and although well aware that the behaviour had originally stemmed from the reaction of a scared and troubled little canine to being abandoned yet again (BAD Mummy), I could only assume that it had since turned into nothing more than uncontrollable habit.

So out came the muzzle.

I strapped the horrid thing onto his tiny face every single time I left the house for an entire month. Then I began to leave it off if I was only popping out for a matter of minutes.

Damage when I returned led to it being slapped straight back on, no damage led to an orgy of cuddles and tasty treats.

And thus, about four months after our lives had seriously hit the skids, peace was slowly restored and we could start enjoying each other’s company once again.

The only real casualties of the mega-blip being the repeated furniture-shop violations of my wallet, and the gloriously soft ears of my childhood lamb-friend (soft toy, not flesh and blood), Maasy: ears that had soothed me into sleep for twenty-four long years apparently being irresistibly easy to suck in and decimate through the plasticky bars of a muzzle…

Who was really punishing whom, I wonder?