I’m so confident that my dog will destroy more things that I’ve started this post with a Part 1.

As I described in the post D’ya Like Dags?, I have a puppy. She is, and I may be slightly biased here, the cutest puppy ever. Like most puppies, she destroys things. That’s what they do. I’ve had dogs before, granted, not in a long time, but I have. I had nearly forgotten the utter devastation they can wreak on an unsuspecting ecosystem. A puppy is to a house as a plague of locusts is to a crop: sheer ruination. Forget the four horsemen of the apocalypse; all it takes is one puppy to destroy a civilization.

Before we begin, look at this face:

This is what I’m dealing with. At 2 months old, within that angelic adorable squishy puppy face lies the heart of a demon–an evil demon who cares nothing for material possessions. Following is a list of things my dog has destroyed over the course of four months that she has been in my household.

Several books.

While I was thrilled that the dog had taken an interest in books at such a young age, this is not the kind for which I had hoped. Thankfully, it wasn’t a library book, but as you can see now without even opening the tatters of the cover, it was a gift.

A brand new pair of eyeglasses.

I had just gotten my eyes examined and bought my first pair of new glasses in years. I left them on the nightstand overnight and they were missing in the morning. The scratched remains of what had once been stylish, or at least new, eye wear were on the floor.

This bone, that lounger and those pillows.

I used to have a lounger in the backyard until I got a dog. Now my dog has a lounger and I sit in a regular chair like a schmoe. Those pillows are now full of bite marks and holes and that bone is just gone. It took her quite a while, but she defeated it finally. Nothing can withstand the jaws of dog for long.

This bunny.

Like most bunnies, this one once had a face. My dog decided she hated that stupid bunny face and would like to rip it off with her bare teeth and eviscerate it, which is precisely what she did. This is just one of many dog toys that is missing limbs, faces or innards. Some last longer than others, but they all have to go sometime.

A scratching post and a cat.

In addition to bunny faces, my dog enjoys chewing on a wide variety of faces including my cat’s. The first thing she does when I let her inside is chew on my cat’s head. My cat, being the dumbest cat in the world, doesn’t seem to mind. He hardly even complains. He’s too stupid to figure out that high ground is the way to go. So, I have to run inside, pick him up and deposit him somewhere that is dog safe. As if chewing on cat head wasn’t enough, at the first available opportunity, she destroyed his scratching post out of spite.

My laptop charger cable and my roommate’s laptop charger cable.

Because one wasn’t enough I guess. Fortunately neither of them was plugged in at the time of their disfigurement, otherwise things could have turned out a whole lot worse I suppose.

The carpet.

If I had any that is. Fortunately, my house has hardwood floors. However, she has had more “accidents” than I can count on the rugs in my room. In fact, right at this very moment, one of them is in the washing machine.

The backyard.

Apparently, she’s got some terrier or bulldozer in her because this dog loves to dig. She will dig herself silly. I made her a sandbox in the backyard where she can dig to her heart’s content, but she rarely uses it. Instead, she’d rather excavate where she’s not supposed to. My backyard looks somewhat reminiscent of the beach at Normandy after D-day.

The strawberry crop of 2011.

We grow things in the backyard. One of the many things we grow, which happens to be my favorite, is strawberries. I had precisely one freshly picked strawberry this year. It was delicious. We only had to wait roughly two more days before the rest of them would be ripe enough for the pickin’. Before we could harvest, they were gone. The really infuriating thing is she probably didn’t even chew them first. She could have eaten cat poop and been just as happy. I had to purchase a series of fences, mainly designed for rabbits, to keep the dog out of the strawberries.

Every bottle, can, stick or piece of trash within a 5 mile radius.

She loves plastic and aluminum. She will eat the shit out of a Red Bull can as evidenced by this picture. I just took that picture. I gathered just a mere fraction of the random detritus she has collected in the yard. If you look closely at the picture, in the middle, there is one of my cat’s doorstops which she has chewed the guts out of.

The floor mats in my car.

Dogs in cars get bored. When dogs get bored, they get destructive and a floor mat has a pleasant texture and aroma (apparently). I had to actually buy her “car toys” so she has something to do while in the car besides destroying the car. Now, whether the dog is in the car or not, I drive around with stuffed animals. This is what I’ve come to–driving around with stuffed animals in my car and nose prints on the windows. The stuffed animals are not in the back window shelf though. I’m not that creepy yet.

Piercings – all of them.

Just a warning: this section is not for the squeamish. Feel free to skip to the next header if you’re a pansy.

I have four piercings; my ears and my boobs. That’s more than enough. I had these in my nipples:

I sleep in the buff. I think you can see where this is going, but a story is a story. Just the other morning, the dog was particularly playful. She grabbed the ring like a door knocker and pulled. The ring actually bent, the little captive ball flew off and half of my nipple was torn open. Yes, ouch. Right now, I have this on my boob:

Soon, I will be replacing the non-dog friendly rings with something more along the lines of this:

I’m hoping that will keep my nipple from ever bleeding again. Shudder.

In addition to the horrifically horrible experience I just described above, yesterday while I was sleeping, she pulled the jewelry out of my ear piercing and broke it in half. Fortunately, the jewelry in my ear just sits there so there was no bleeding with that one, but now I have to get all new piercing jewelry. It was a big honkin’ piece of horn, which as it turns out, is not indestructible, so now I’m looking for ear jewelry made out of steel or titanium or adamantium. Thanks, dog.

My bank account.

In addition to replacing things like piercings and laptop chargers, dogs are expensive. There’s the food, which I have to buy in ever increasing increments, vet visits, and all the accoutrements. Dog toys, dog treats, dog leashes, dog shampoo, dog collars, poop bags, dog crate, puppy pads, dog bowls… it’s a never ending cycle of dog. For someone who is technically property in the eyes of the law, she certainly does have a lot of stuff.

My ability to resist.

Again, I say, look at this face and tell me that you wouldn’t turn into a big pile of mush when confronted with that, even if you were bleeding from a place one never, ever hopes to bleed from. I leave you with this:

Continued in Part 2.