I got you, you little bastards.

It’s amazing how good I feel when I finally get one over on the Damn dogs.  They have had me so long in the grips of their plot to drive me over the edge of sanity that I forgot what it feels like to get a slash mark on my side of the score sheet.  The Hooligan boys are right up there with Archie and the garbage can. They play catch me if you can with the kids who refuse to play so they just leave them where ever they are when they start the game.  Now that is in my room……  the game as it were is played out when the girls get home from school and let all the dogs out of the kennels and let them outside to take care of their business.

This is a good thing now when it gets out of control is when they open the door to let them back in the house.  Every one shoots into the house from their invisible cannon at the door.  It shoots them either way coming or going and if you’re in the way you’ll get run over. Now they all run straight to the kitchen except the hooligans.  They make a sharp left as soon as the cannon is fired and they blow down the stairs and over the gate as if it were not even there.  Once they are in my room they turn into guard dogs and will not let the girls near them and bark the whole time.  The girls quit playing this game with them months ago.  So they get in my room, girls go upstairs and they stop barking the others settle into a lap and girls get a snack all is happy.  Now when I get home they have done every unspeakable thing to my room.  I have tried to dog proof my room but the bets are off when it comes to their body functions. They were just out, but that makes no difference; and then times it by two. If they find one little piece a paper or heavens for bid I leave the box of Kleenex where they can get to it, I have a shredded mess and one if not both will have to poo or pee on the shredded mess.  And let us not forget about the sticks they have in their mouths when they run back in. I yell at the girls and they say they can’t get them and they just run down there.  I found that they will not jump the gate in the hallway because it is too close to the steps going down.  Now the gate at the bottom of the stairs they jump because they are on the stairs and jumping on to the floor, but they have not tried to jump over the gate when they are on the floor and the stairs are on the other side. So I made the girls leave the gate in the hallway up and they just need to step over it and not move it: let the dogs in and out in the study room then they won’t jump the thing and go down into my room.  Now this has worked again until I get home and the gate comes down the first thing they do is head for the basement and they cry their butts off because they can’t get back up stairs.  Now my choices of how quickly I will go insane and the route the dog send me down changes daily, as if one thing has just got to work.  The mornings go the same I send them all up and out first thing in the morning.  I put the gate up behind me and go upstairs to start my day.  I make my coffee and go back let dogs in.  Again the hooligan boys get shot straight down the stairs and over the gate and on my bed.  By the time I get there to get them out they have already tore up my bed I just made.  I gave up on that mess and let them tear it up.  But then if I ignore them they will cry they want up stairs, until I want to strangle them or rip out their noise makers myself.   I thought if I put the gate up higher they wouldn’t jump over it, wrong.  They just went under it.  I mostly just gave up because this battle was going to last a lot longer than I cared to fight it.  So this morning I it came to me if they don’t like to jump down on the stairs move the damn gate in the middle of the stairway.  I’m not sure how this epiphany came to me but I am damn glad it did.  So I let the dogs in this morning and waited and sure enough they ran down to the gate and came right back, but I needed to test this a little more. I through a little kibble over the gate and they just stood on the steps and wiggled around and cried. I started to do my happy dance and yelling that I finally got them.  Yes it is a good day.  The girls just looked at me like it finally happened and I completely lost it.  I licked my finger on the end made the number 1 in the air in front of me and yelled "I got you, you little bastards". It has been a wonderful day indeed.