#OurEden

Okay, so you know that old brain teaser we learned in school, about taking the chicken, fox and bag of grain across the river? That’s pretty much all day, every day, with Hashtag-Our-Eden.

Recent true tales from the continuing adventures of the Royal Peanut, aka Harley of the Quinns.

A few Sunday mornings back, Kristi and I are sitting at our desks drinking coffee and reading dumb things on the Web, as one does on a weekend morning. Dog is outside in the back yard. It’s early. We’re both undercaffeinated. Suddenly the Internet goes completely out.

I do a bit of pinging and we rule out anything inside of the house as the culprit. The bill’s been paid, and while there is still a back balance there, there’s no reason to believe that anything’s been turned off – and besides, when that has happened (rarely) in the past, everything got rerouted to a “we’re AT&T and we’re here for your money” page. So maybe the gateway is down, or AT&T is having some other sort of network problem. All you can do is wait it out then.

Forty-five minutes pass with no sign of Internet recovery. Okay, now we’re in damned-odd territory. Call AT&T repair line. Go through the automated “are you sure your computer is plugged in?” troubleshoot system. Ultimately get told by the system that a repair tech will have to be scheduled for an on-site visit.

And then a dark, nasty feeling strikes. I go outside to see what the dog is up to.

Yep. That would do it.

Eden has ripped an eight-inch chunk of coaxial Internet drop right off the wall of our house. Her teeth are like razors and she has pretty powerful jaws now: that mouth cuts through wire as cleanly and quickly as a brand new set of wire cutters, and we’ve already lost several electronic items that way.

Luckily, AT&T was able to get a repair tech out to our house first thing on Monday morning. With Don Jepson’s help, we were able to secure the new cabling with a steel cover to (hopefully) prevent a repeat performance.

For about two weeks this summer, we had a small blue plastic kiddie pool full of water. Eden loves playing in water, and oh my god, she loved that pool. Loved it so much that she tried to eat it. Within just a couple of weeks she’d reduced it to blue plastic splinters. Okay, pool done: thank god it only cost us five bucks.

We’d rehabbed Sam’s old ortho bed and brought it back out into service for Eden, and she quite enjoyed it for a long time. And then eventually she decided she’d rather eat it. So it’s back in the garage, in the growing pile of dog-jaw casualties that is also the last resting place of our garden hose and the current residence of our back porch mat.

We’re constantly picking up chunks of firewood, bits of trash, things that we simply have no idea how Eden found them, just a ton of junk all over the yard. We had a bag of potting soil back there by the fence for a long time, but she eventually found that and gutted it. Eden has taken an interest in gardening, trimming the bushes and working on a long term project to uproot the roses.

On a more humorous note, the other night Kristi and I decided to screw with her a bit and do a dog-howl duet. We know just the right pitch: we could get Sam howling every time. So we did the pack howl and Eden looks at me, stunned. WHAT WAS THAT?! Then back at Kristi with the same look. Then back at me. Then CRAZY DOG! Up on the couch and jumping over tables and dashing everywhere and okay let’s not do that again anytime soon, agreed.

I say all this to give you an idea of what life with a nine-month-old Lab is like, for the benefit of those who may be thinking about adopting a puppy with a “aw, they’re so cute” twinkle in your eye. I’m assured that she will eventually outgrow this phase, and I’ve no doubt of that. But first, she needs to survive this one, and every day #OurEden pushes her luck a little bit further.

This morning, as I do every morning, I put Eden out in the backyard to burn off some of her top-of-the-day hypercrazy while I get some coffee started. Last night, the sprinklers ran, as they do twice a week (California water restrictions). That makes today a Mud Day. We’ve been fighting the Mud War with Eden for months now, nearly all of her life, and I fear that we’re not winning it. It doesn’t help that we never remember that it’s a Mud Day until it’s too late.

So we’re sitting at our desks, drinking coffee. Kristi’s headed to work in about twenty minutes, and I’m still 85% unconscious. We can clearly hear Eden out there, going to town in the mud: the glop-glop-glop sound is unmistakable. I tell my wife that Eden’s not coming back in the house anytime real soon.

Then a minute after that, we’re hearing a much more ominous sound: metal being wrenched from position.

“EDEN NO!!! NO! – STOP. RIGHT NOW! NO!!”

She backs away from the water downspout pipe, big doggie grin on her face.

Good girl. Just go on. Go play with whatever.

Kristi goes to work. I return to my desk, and Eden’s back at the downspout. She’s had some very recent success in pulling the pipe’s mounting bracket away from the concrete, and because she’s freaking OCD, she is obsessed with finishing that job. So she’s out there, covered with mud, trying to pull the downspout off the side of our house.

So here are we back to the fox, chicken and grain dilemma. If I open the back door, Eden comes barreling into the house covered with mud. If I open the door just long enough to slip out and fix her little red wagon, now I have a hyperactive, very muddy Lab jumping all over me – and in any case, I still can’t just leave her outside, because she’ll go back to destroying the downspout.

Somehow I have to get out, keep her from coming inside, get her at least a little bit cleaned up, get her BACK inside in a relatively clean state, kennel her in the office for the morning, and then go back out to survey the damage.

There’s just no way to get the grain across here without losing the chicken.

Sigh. Okay. I don’t need this at eight in the morning.

Move quickly. Push Eden’s Big Ass Crate (TM) out of the bedroom, down the hall towards the office; pick it up to get it into the room – tilting it just a bit to the right to get it through the door – and slowly down to the floor. Okay.

Change clothes. I haven’t showered yet, but I don’t really want to destroy my sleep clothes this morning. So change into some dirty clothes from a couple of days ago – was planning to wash them today anyway. Done.

Ready? STEEAADDDDYY. Hand on doorknob. GO!

Slip out very fast. Eden’s all over the door, all over me, there’s mud flying everywhere, oh my god she’s really been in it bad this time, EDEN GET OFF ME laundry room get to the laundry room door, of course it’s locked and OF COURSE I LEFT THE KEY BACK IN THE KITCHEN DOOR son of a okay, grab Eden by the collar stay STAY NO NO NO! NO! STAY! I’M SERIOUS DON’T FUCK WITH ME DOG STAY, okay manage to slip back in quickly grab the key close the door again without Old Muddy hitting the kitchen at full crazy and BOOM there’s mud flying everywhere AGAIN and in the laundry room door unlocked open okay there we go EDEN PUT THAT DOWN NO DROP IT grab the bucket the blue one that she tried to eat last week put it in the sink tap open cold water filling crazy jumping muddy dog for fucks sake okay, bucket mostly full YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME LET’S PLAY:

** SPLOOSH **

She looks at me with that calm, disappointed Lab look that says, really. Was that truly a necessary, appropriate response to this situation?

Bucket back in sink. Tap open again. Filling.

WATER ohboyohboyohboy WATER jumpJUMPJUMPCRAZYDOG better head back to the mud!

EDEN NO!!

She turns and comes back, just in time for

** SPLOOSH **

Now she’s wet and not nearly as muddy but still in full on hyper dog mode. Mud forgotten, downspout long forgotten, now it’s all about Dad throwing buckets of cold water at her. She’s not quite sure if she should be happy or pissed, but she chooses HAPPY because OF COURSE SHE CHOOSES HAPPY.

** SPLOOSH **

Now there’s a soaked dog. The porch is drenched, the back door is a freaking disaster area, and I’m not a whole lot better. Eden turns to return to the mud hole and by some divine miracle I manage to grab her collar before she can.

Oh, I don’t think so. You’re done.

Pull her into the kitchen, get the door closed, now she’s going crazy and there’s mud on the inside of the door and up on the kitchen counters and all over the floor and sweet Jesus.. okay, STOP. Come on, NO, you know where you’re going.

Into the office, into the kennel, SLAM goes the wire mesh crate door.

She looks at me for just a moment with a “that was fun, let’s do that again tomorrow” expression and then retreats to the back of the box for her morning nap. And then I’m off to shower, change clothes and clean up the kitchen.

This is daily life with #OurEden.

Now here’s the next issue on the board. As I write this, she’s been crated for the last couple of hours. She needs to come out, and I obviously can’t just let her run amok in the back yard, not until that mud dries out. So that means I’m going to have to walk her this afternoon, a task that I very rarely look forward to.

So that’s where I’m off to now. I’d try it with her harness – because whenever she’s collar-leashed she pulls at it so hard that she chokes herself – but unfortunately trying to fit it on her right now just puts her into immediate crazy dog mode. So I’ll have to collar-leash and take our chances.

No witty end to this blog entry, no poignant life lesson. Just a guy who loves his dog, but has to work harder at it some days than others. Some days, “not killing” and love are pretty indistinguishable. Perhaps, in fact, that’s the highest form of love: being willing to take a deep breath on occasion, dive headlong into the dirt, and refrain from just flat out killing your loved one today.

I should get into the greeting card business.