Yesterday we had to visit the farm to give our contractor a new key. We had only checked one of the keys for the front gate and not the one to the front door and unfortunately the latter didn’t work. This meant he hadn’t been able to get inside to fix the leaking heater he had just installed but thankfully no damage seems to have been done to the bathroom.
We played with Ayla a bit while we were there, kicking the ball around in the courtyard and seemed to have worn her out pretty well. When we got home a few hours later she took a nice long nap and apparently fully recharged her batteries.
Later in the afternoon we left to go to an electronics store to see if they finally had a satellite card adapter for our new hard disc recorder. We’ve only bee waiting for one to arrive for about 4 months and were very happy that they finally had one. We also did some grocery shopping at Metro, a Costco like store here in Germany. We were probably gone about 2 1/2 hours total and left Ayla at home, out of her crate. She’s been good lately and we had no reason to think we needed to be concerned even though she normally eats at 6pm and we weren’t going to make it back until 6:30.
When we arrived home, it looked like a tornado had ripped through the place. I usually take pictures of events like these but since they rarely do the damage justice, I figured I would just let this one go. Ayla apparently decided to throw her own little party and must have been on the dining room table which essentially serves as my office. We have a big accordion folder thing with all of our farm paperwork…contracts, financing things, blue prints, receipts, etc. Ayla decided to shred the folder but thankfully avoided chewing on or shredding any of the papers in it. She also took a big stack of other papers and shredded a few of those but didn’t do any real damage. We are working on another side venture and had about 100 lip balm tubes on the table as well. Those were strewn all over the living room and dining room, the area Ayla had access to, and it basically looked like she had taken the bag of tubes and lids and just shook it all over the place. But amazingly, she didn’t really destroy anything. The one thing which was broken was a glass candlestick holder which was on the dining table. She apparently knocked it off the table during play time and ate most of the candle. But somehow she managed not to cut herself on any glass even though she must have carried the glass stem of the thing in her mouth to the other room.
We can only imagine how the whole scene must have evolved. We were jokingly saying we should install some motion activated video cameras for moments like these. It probably would have been really quite amusing to watch. Surprisingly enough, we weren’t mad at her at all. We were pretty disappointed and did punish her with a long time out in the crate and we took away her evening walk. But she still got a big long ox tail while we ate dinner which took her a few hours to eat so we figure she still made out ok in the end.
Lately Ayla has been a bit crazier than usual. Maybe we’re entering another phase of growth and have to endure some new challenges from her…but so far they’ve all been a bit better than the one before and easier for us to manage so either she’s just getting more broken in or we are. 🙂
