Spending Christmas With a Naughty Bear

Hope you had a nice Christmas full of warm memories and good fun!  We planned a quiet little Christmas this year, just my daughters and me, doing whatever we pleased because...it's Christmas!  

Ash has been house and pet sitting for friends in the neighborhood for the past week so we have been spending time here and a little time there.  The family had just taken on a new family pet -- a beautiful chocolate lab puppy.  Emphasis on the word puppy.  Sweet as can be, but a puppy.  A big puppy that sounds like a horse galloping toward you when he runs to you with a toy, wanting to play.  His name is Bear.  

We quickly learned to put our shoes in the bedroom, behind closed doors.  The family had explained the importance of putting Bear in the side yard whenever Ash left ("He'll destroy my new couch if you leave him inside!").    

Bear after emptying his toy and chew bone box in his owner's house!

So on Christmas morning Ash dutifully put Bear in the side yard despite the rain (he does have a spacious dog house with a bed there) and she and Lys came over to my house to open presents.  Oh what fun we had, unwrapping, oohing and aahing over seeing our wishlists unveiled before our very eyes.  We had a little breakfast and watched A Christmas Story, while beginning the Christmas dinner cooking in the kitchen.  Ash decided she better check on Bear around noon.  Soon the phone rang -- it was Ash reporting that Bear had managed to chew a large hole in the gate from the side yard into the back yard (another off limits area to him).  I turned off the burners, and drove over.  The three of us stood out in the pouring rain, trying to fix this gate.  We scavenged through the wood pile for boards that we could nail over the opening.  Bear stood watching us the entire time -- a look of "I wasn't supposed to do that?" mingled with "You know I'll just do it again."

It wasn't a pretty job but we figured it would keep him confined while we had our Christmas dinner, so back to my house we went for the afternoon.  We went back over there that night to play games and watch a movie -- sure enough, our bandaid approach didn't last but did slow him down enough that he didn't get into the back yard.

Such are the makings of a memorable Christmas!