Sandee Strobel Szabo My credit/debit card and a cell phone at the same time . . . while my husband was sitting right there. Andy was sitting on the couch reading and didn’t know it was happening. I came into the family room and asked him where my cell phone was and he said where you left it on the table. It wasn’t. It and my debit/credit card were on the floor. The credit/debit card had bite marks in it and the cellphone was close to being destroyed, but luckily was still usable. The credit/debit card was unusable as teeth had hit the magnetic strip. It was Augusta, our Dalmatian/pointer mix who at the time was about seven years old.
Marilyn Wolf Paper currency. We had it for vacation. (Black Lab, spayed female, probably about two.) Burt had left it on the nightstand. Later we were walking back that way and saw shredded money on the floor. We followed the trail and saw that she hadn’t eaten much of it. We knew how much had been there. We took the pieces to the bank and they replaced it. They just laughed. It happens.
Flacortia Rosiea Shortly after my husband died, a six-month-old Finnish spitz came into my life. On day #2, he found the wooden jar containing hub’s ashes and a lock of his hair. You guessed it! I walked into the room—ashes all over the bed! I thought it was hilarious and no way was I going to punish him for it. “Sorry, honey!’’
Nick Hof My dog Bruce ate one of my books on dog training.
Terry Hill Cunningham My black lab Siggie ate half a pizza, box and all. Crosby, a yellow Labrador, brought home a bucket of cat poop he took from the neighbors. They scooped their litter into [the bucket] and left it outside. We live out in the country, and I looked out the window and he was coming down the driveway, bucket swinging, looking very pleased with himself. Cros put the bucket down on his outside dog bed to share the kitty McNuggets with his sister Sally.
Donna Furneaux My first dog, a beagle, had a passion for those cheap rubber slip-over-your-shoes rain boots. She would rip off and try to eat the catches that fastened them on. My mother and I each had a pair of these boots. Georgie would always eat the catch on the left boot. We went through five pairs of these rain boots before we got smart and put the overshoes in the closet with the door shut tight.
Elisha McCallum My second Jack Russell terrier pup had a knack for home renovation—unplanned and of course unsupervised. She regularly brought me entire lengths of baseboard she had peeled off the wall, nails and all. I never did figure out how she did such a clean job. Needless to say, we replaced all the baseboard after.
Greg Gower My $2,000 mouthpiece for sleep apnea. I came home and saw some crumpled plastic on the floor and thought, “Gee, that looks like the same stuff my mouthpiece is made of . . . ” Zephy, Mountain Cur, five years old. Zero health problems [as a result]! Though it was hard [for me] to sleep!
Scott Kusel Our young black Lab destroyed a Christmas tree, eating more than three-quarters of the glass ornaments. They were gone without a trace until I had to clean up the yard.
Kati Paulsen Morneau My work iPhone. I was embarrassed when I had to call the IT department to tell them, “My dog ate my phone.”
Photo by Soshannah Forbes
Nancy L Zietlow Dewey ate a carpenter’s apron. Also, he loved to play with, chase, and “kill” those giant bouncy balls. What we didn’t realize was that, with the “kill,” he was consuming some bits of the plastic. We never noticed any pieces in his stools . . . which should have given us a hint. In time, add stomach acid to the mix and the plastic turned to hardened shards in his stomach. He wound up having surgery and there were about a half-dozen different colored pieces removed! Dewey was about five years old. Aussie. Never ate anything off-limits (except the carpenter’s apron as a pup . . . in his defense, there had been treats in the pocket). He had an iron gut but suddenly it was like he had morning sickness and he would vomit every morning. Still was eating, drinking, and eliminating okay. We knew he wasn’t pregnant! Took him in and they did an X-ray and saw the shards. Still didn’t know what they were until they showed us what they removed. Very lucky that nothing perforated!
Cynthia Gordon A number of years ago, I took home a male Mastiff that was confiscated from a backyard breeder. He was four years old, unneutered, unhousebroken, and had stage 3 heartworm. We needed to keep him quiet and had three other dogs in the house. He had never been crate-trained and it terrified him, so we used a spare bedroom as his quiet place. One day we went out for a little bit and left Goliath in there, and when we came home he greeted us at the front door. Upon inspection, we found that he had removed the door from the bedroom, dragged it out into the hall, taken the doorknob off it, and left all the pieces for us. Goliath lived out the rest of his life with us to the ripe old age of eleven and became a wonderful family pet. We became foster failures because we pretty much figured there was no one else out there who was going to keep that boy!
Risë VanFleet During his adolescence, Murrie ate the head of one of those cheap plastic razors. I found the handle of the razor without the head, suspected he might have ingested it, and took him to the vet for X-rays. Sure enough, there were six little pieces of metal visible in his stomach (he had chewed the blades into smaller pieces). Fortunately, having him eat about six pieces of bread pushed them through without incident.
Lori Adams [Our] second Golden, Holmes, lapped up half a container of grease in a part-time catering kitchen—and did not get sick. He was eight months old. He also stole half the smoked turkey off the grill, eating no bones, but all the dark meat. (The part we like.) He tore several twenties in half. Also chewed through a TV cord; never did that again. Also ruined a pair of good shoes. Believe it or not, he was my heart dog. Third Golden ate three-quarters of the most delicious lemon custard apple pie I have ever had after we had only one slice each; he also chewed up a feminine item. A Golden I dog-sat chewed one of the feet of my secretary [desk], a clawfoot. An ACD mix chewed off a baseboard and a door molding, a piece of soap, and an expensive beeswax candle shaped like a Christmas tree. A Lab mix chewed up one fancy Ugg boot and a Teva leather sandal. A young Golden chewed only one thing, an expensive Mac cord. Never touched anything else. A pretty good girl.
Toni Vignogna A friend’s beagle leaped onto the dining table at Thanksgiving to eat the turkey. The faster she ran towards him, the faster he ate! (Luckily, they had already eaten dinner!)
Darcey Byrne The turkey on the counter, which someone did not put out of the way of temptation. The humans were in a stupor from eating said turkey, brought it into the kitchen, placed it on the counter, and did not put it away. None of us blamed the dog. The clue of the theft was a carcass with no meat left on the bones—on the platter, which was still in place. No turkey leftovers or soup that year. Very, very good lesson: do not leave temptation right in front of someone.
Laura Thompson Two Thanksgiving pies, one pumpkin, the other pecan. We went for a family walk after the dinner, having placed the pies, still in their pink bakery boxes, at the very back of the stove. When we came back, the first thing we noticed was bits of pink cardboard strewn across the floor. Pancha wasn’t a particularly large/tall dog, but she was a border collie. We lost the pies but we gained a bit of family lore with that episode. Pancha was a wonderful dog. (And though I’m sure she enjoyed wolfing down those pies, her digestive system definitely had some regrets.)
Kimberly Kelly My first Aussie (with full show coat and feathers) stole three one-pound pure butter bricks that were softening for Christmas cookies. Ate every lick of butter. But that dog couldn’t blink for three or four days without having explosive diarrhea.
Virginia Rhodes Korn My mom sent me a cookie bouquet for my birthday—beautifully decorated cookies baked on the ends of dowels and arranged in a vase. I woke up the next morning and all that was left was dowels. My dog carefully ate all the cookies without disturbing the arrangement!
Sue Cox A loaf of fresh-baked bread from the table. It was as big as he was and we were laughing so hard at the picture he made as he dashed from room to room that we couldn’t catch him. [He was a] miniature poodle.
Inna Krasnovsky Years ago, I lived with a roommate whose family owned an Italian bakery. His dad once brought over a tomato pie that was one of their specialties (delicious). I placed it on the kitchen counter and stepped out of the kitchen for no more than one, maybe two, minutes. When I returned, all that was left was the large box and wax paper. Henry, my then greyhound, easily reached up to the kitchen counter, took the tomato pie out of the box, and ate the whole thing. I was laughing. My roommate was not amused.
Nikki Lockwood Many years ago I had a dog, Scooby. I had decorated the house for a holiday gathering, including putting out a big bowl of peanut M&Ms on the coffee table. Pleased that I was ahead of schedule, I took a nap, then took a shower and got ready. In that time, Scooby ate half the M&Ms and puked or pooped in several spots, right before the party. Lesson learned!
Marcy Britt [My border collies] don’t tear things up usually. They steal lots of stuff. The worst was Desi stealing the wooden, hand-carved baby Jesus out of the Nativity set and chewing the baby and the manger to bits. Took me a day or so to figure out what the little pieces of wood and straw were that I found on the deck.
Summer Storm Kingery Arrow ate a plumbing elbow, then vomited it up months [later]. We didn’t know she had swallowed it, but we knew how she got it and that we had moved since!
Robert Nelson Back in the ’70s, I had a small mini-computer at home. This computer had 8 kilobytes of RAM and no disk, so everything had to be loaded through paper tape: load a program, load the data, run the job, punch the output. My dog, a shepherd mix, ate my software paper tapes.
Tami Archilla Vito, a Boston terrier, loved cords when he was younger. He chewed my computer charger, a couple of phone chargers, and he ruined my beautiful tall lamp by chewing the cord completely apart. He chewed up two rugs. Chewed apart his nice comfy bed. This list could go on. I think he is part goat. He tried to eat stuff, but he would gag [it] out. Thankfully, he didn’t swallow a bunch of the stuff that was inside his nice fluffy puppy bed!
Gail S. Green Taxi was five months old on Christmas night. While [we were] away for dinner, he and his sister got into the junk drawer and he ate 30 clear marbles. He clacked when he walked. The vet staff laughed the whole time we were there. The vet couldn’t get him to throw them up, and he couldn’t X-rays because the marbles were clear. So after significant laxatives, Taxi continued to clack when he walked and when he played with his sister. The next day he began pooping out the clear marbles. His poop rolled. He was fine. Except we only found 29 marbles.
Jett Wyatt Two Jester stories: He once chewed the bottom out of a cloth bag that was hanging “out of reach” to get to the cans of cat food inside. Then he chewed on the cans until he could get the lids off—the cans were full of holes and flattened!—and ate the contents. I believe he knows cans can be rewarding because that’s not the first or last time he’s chewed through cans. I had one of those big jars of Costco Jelly Bellies in the middle cabinet of my pantry, about three feet high. One day while I was out, Jes opened the cabinet, got the jar out, took it somehow into the living room, and got the lid off! I came home to find a rather unhappy mini-Aussie who had finished off probably a pound of Jelly Bellys, barfed them up (technicolor carpet!), and re-eaten most of them, with the jar between his paws and growling at my other dogs because nobody was getting his prize away! He was fine, but it is the only time he’s turned down dinner in 12 years.
Lisa Lenke Sousa When my beagle was a puppy, he would steal my lingerie and take it to the backyard fence, where another puppy lived behind us. Some of [my lingerie] did find its way to the other yard. Not exactly the worst, but positively the most embarrassing.
Cheri Spaulding My dog would lie in wait to chew up my most expensive bras. One time I thought I was guarding the bra as I put a nightshirt over my head. As the nightshirt covered my vision, I heard a thump and by the time I got the shirt over my head all I saw was two yellow Labrador legs and a bra strap moving at the speed of light. By the time I caught up with Kevyn, she had already eaten the hooks and elastic strap holders. When she was elderly and very ill, I wished that she would steal one more bra. That would have made me very happy.
Jesse Nathaniel Miller My dignity. (I can actually pin-point exactly when it happened—the moment Edie picked up a pacifier while on a walk, refused to give it to me, and paraded around with it until we got home!)
Jessica Stinson Hudson About 19 years ago, our pit bull and her partner in crime (our toddler son) pulled my baby shower cake off the table and ate it together off the floor. Oh, and I almost forgot about Finn “eating” my business taxes. My fault, as I had created a “shred the box” game with him. I’d left my tax prep paperwork (a week’s worth of work) in a box on the coffee table and gone to work. He only wanted the box, but many of the receipts, etc., were chewed, too. Fortunately that kind of stuff rarely if ever happens and was totally my fault. (Hope that year doesn’t get audited.) A sense of humor and accountability is necessary when living with dogs, for sure!
