My Best Friend Ate My Couch
Have you ever put $700 in a blender? No? Me neither. But imagine coming home to see that your best friend has shredded seven hundos. That did happen to me. My lovely angel dog, Merlin, turned demon for a morning and ate all of the most visible corners of my couch.
My couch, when I first brought it home to my Charlottesville apartment. Pre-dog-hair and dog-slouchiness.
As a very young puppy, he ruined some chaco straps and bra straps (thank God for a grandma who knows her way around a sewing machine), but nothing too terrible. He house trained quickly and comparably, caused very little damage as a puppy.
Alas, it was too good to be true. Maybe this is my fault. After all, it was I who allowed the dog on the couch. Growing up, our giant chocolate lab was not allowed on furniture. And when I first brought Merlin home to my parents' house, he learned this rule, even though his older smaller Schnoodle brother, Willy, was allowed on the couches. It was hard, but I was very careful to enforce it, as I didn't want him to damage my parents' leather couches.
But on the first night after Merlin and I moved into our awesome historic apartment in Richmond with two lovely roommates, we sat on my couch (which I had bought before Merlin was a glimmer in the a bitch's eye) and looked at Merlin on the floor. "I mean, it would be nice to cuddle with him ..." I remember saying to our roommate Lena. "Well, it's your couch, so I say go for it," she said. And that was that. Merlin found his spot on the couch, which happened to be on top of the back cushions, perched like a cat.
For a year in that apartment, Merlin chewed on a couple of throw pillows, but never the couch. And soon, I assumed he was over that stage. I crate-trained Merlin, coming home during lunch as often as possible, and soon he graduated to staying in my giant room during the day. And when we moved into the new house, he graduated from my room to the majority of the house (with a couple of rooms blocked off). Most days, when I get home, it's quite clear that Merlin's been sleeping on the bed or the couch all day. Until I came home to this ...
I was so shocked. I happened to come home during my lunch that day for the Verizon guy and in a short morning the couch went from excellent condition to this. It's not like he was cooped up for a longer day than usual - I mean seriously, what happened!? And of course, there's not a lot you can do after the fact. Scolding a dog when he's not in the act of the bad behavior does no good.
First I considered patches, but then decided to just pull tight and stitch up the holes with an embroidery needly. It only took a couple of hours of TV watching and a cramped up hand to achieve this Franken-couch.
Then I went about finding a slipcover to protect my new Franken-couch from my demon dog. Turns out slipcovers are expensive. And finding something that looks nice is downright impossible. I ended up picking this tan one up from Walmart, but it still put me out $50. I sprayed the couch with a bitter spray from the pet store for good measure.
And for weeks, that worked well. Just a couple of days ago, I washed the slipcover of its dog hair and dirt, re-covered the couch, and re-sprayed the bitter spray. This time, when Merlin once again became possessed, he went right for the jugular.
I'm honestly not sure what I'm going to do now. Crate Merlin again? I'd hate to do that as it's a lot more difficult for me let him out at lunch now and that's a LONG time for him to be in a crate. He has access to plenty of chew toys and I've been taking him to the dog park most evenings. I'm open to suggestions, fellow dog owners!
For now, I'll assuage my anger with some dog shaming.
