Oscar Behavior Report

This dog! Vince loves him too but if Vince had been the one begging for a dog and I had been saying . . dogs are difficult, we don’t need to bring more hassle into our lives . . and he kept on til I said yes, and then we got OSCAR . . I would not be happy. Oscar is learning and I look back and realize how far we’ve come with him. He knows “Leave it!” so when he grabs floss or a Kleenex or any of the million other things he grabs and runs with, when I say “Leave it!”, he will drop it about 80% of the time. He never goes to the bathroom in the house. He rattles the gate at the stairs when he has to go out. He knows “NO!” Sometimes he grabs something and looks at me to see if I’m going to say “NO!” He knows “No Biting”, No Barking!” Maybe it’s just NO that he knows and anything after NO, he will stop doing.

I guess training a dog is a bit less troublesome than training a child though. Here’s a funny story and those of you who remember Chad’s younger years will say “pay back time!” Addie has been a bit of a rascal and Nicole got one of those emails Thursday. Nicole is too kind hearted for her own good sometimes and Addie is bull headed and will wear Nicole down. With Chad gone so much, Addie was needing some consistent “NO” in her ilfe. Nicole called me Thursday and explained the situation. They had gotten Addie a phone and they had their reasons and I thought it was a good idea and even encouraged it. But it was to be a phone that was available for when it was needed and not stay on it 24/7 and . . you can guess how that turned out.

Nicole called me and she was upset and said “I so wish you lived closer” and I wanted to say “This kind of phone call is exactly why I’m an hour away!” I told her the first thing I would do is take the phone away and hand it to her when I felt she needed it and take it back the minute it wasn’t needed. We talked about several other things. It’s hard to listen, give a bit of advice but not stick my nose in it too far.

Yesterday, when Chad was off, he called and said “I need some parenting advice!” He apparently didn’t know Nicole had already called me. I almost said “Wait . . do you remember when you thought I was the worst parent in the world and told me you couldn’t wait til you could stick me in a roach infested old folks home?” Discipline . . I tell you . . I’m finding more than I thought I had because I bit my tongue and didn’t say that.

Anyway, he went on to tell me how he had dealt with Addie’s issues and he told me when she started to go to bed Thursday night, she said “I guess I’ll just sleep on the floor.” Chad said “Why would you do that?” She said “You’ve taken everything else, you might as well take my bed!” Oh, my goodness! I did laugh. I told Chad “I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this but kids do not raise themselves! Y’all have to stay on her. You have to know what she’s doing. You have to know who she’s with . . as much as you can And, Chad, I could see those exact words coming from you when you were 10 years old.” Poor Nicole. She was such a sweet, kind child and now she’s having to deal with a child who acts just like Chad did.

Anyway . . back to Oscar. We learned early on that puppies and cords do not mix so we’ve been careful to keep cords away from him. After losing a few computer cords, we took our computer cords, put them in the basement bedroom and every night before we go upstairs to go to bed, we take the computers and put them in the bedroom to chargewhen we go to bed, we plug our computers in, then get them the next morning and leave the cords in the bedroom. Same with phone chargers.

Two days ago I saw Oscar jumping at something, then jumping back, jumping forward and jumping back. That’s what he will do if there’s a bug on the floor. He’s afraid of bugs but he wants to play with them so he’ll go for them, then jump back. I looked down to see what it was. Vince had left his computer cord on the side of his chair, where Oscar shouldn’t be able to get to it but he did. He had chewed it and when he would nudge it, sparks would fly. It was probably gently shocking him and he’d jump back or else he was trying to catch the sparks. I have no idea but it scared me half to death. I jumped up, grabbed him, put him in the crate, unplugged the cord and threw it in the garage.

Last night my computer still had a good charge so Vince used my cord to charge his computer. This morning I thought . . I’ll bring my cord in and be very careful with it and charge my computer while using it. Oscar was in my chair, chewing on his bone. Then it didn’t sound like a bone. I looked and he had chewed my cord almost in two. I’m sure we have other cords somewhere but Vince isn’t going to be happy that we’ve lost two cords in three days.

This morning Vince told me he was going to buy a few extra lithium batteries for his power tools because they may be hard to get. I think I’ll ask him to order a dozen computer cords while he’s at it.

You can’t blame Oscar . . he’s doing what young dogs do. It’s our fault. I think I’ll glue the new cord to the bed or something so I can’t be tempted to bring it where Oscar can reach it.