Pati, Pati, Pati, What Shall We Do With Pati?

I rescued a puppy down at Tony's, which is a local restaurant, after church one Sunday.  She was there with two identical puppy siblings in front of the place where most of Sealy eats after church on Sunday.  It was pouring down rain, she was wet, cold, shivering, and covered with fleas.  She wasn't even begging for food.  She just sat there with her brother and sister, being so still and docile, all imploring big brown eyes. With great skill she pulled off the "I am just a baby something, without a mama anywhere in sight, please take me home, I will be so good."  I love a baby anything.  Also, I will not leave anything which is helpless, wounded, or hungry.

I named her Patriot, and I call her Pati for short.  She has developed into quite the character... a little toot to be exact.  From childhood, I remember my little dogs following me everywhere, it was sweet.  All of my animals do that now, but it isn't the same, she trips me, follows so closely I often step on her paws, etc.  She is an outdoor dog.  She runs in every time the door opens, and when I try to get her out, she rolls over on her back and pees in the floor.  I have to drag her on her back out the door.   

I don't have any cable T.V. this week, Pati chewed through the cable line... to be exact, two cable lines. They can't come to repair it until next week on Thursday.  I like to watch the news, and often keep the T.V. on just for company, but oh not now.  Not until next Thursday.  It is going to cost a pretty penny too.  

You see, one of the main problems is, Pati eats things, lots of things, some edible, and some, not so much so...  She chews up things from all over the yard, including all the chew toys I bring her from the store.  (She watches me get the bags out of the truck when I go for groceries, and follows me until I find the bag with her toy in it and throw it as far as I can so I can get the groceries in the house while she is momentarily occupied with the new toy.  She soon figures out, "oh yeah, I can fetch this to the mama," and she winds up right behind me with the new toy to drop at my feet.  She wants me again to throw it as far as I can, and I do, so I can get the second load of bags in.  The second time I throw it in the pond, and she is delighted, she loves to swim! 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            She also eats things, like tomatoes from the vines in the garden, but last night... and I wouldn't believe it unless I had seen it..., she decided to eat a jalapeno pepper out of my gardening basket.

Last night I went out to plant some of the fall garden, and I had my basket, and some of the seeds I had soaked overnight.  Before I started, I picked some peppers and some okra.  Then I made the mistake of sitting the basket where "the Pati" could reach it.  She started sniffing around the contents of my basket and very quickly and deftly, she stole a jalapeno pepper.  She knew she was not supposed to get that pepper out of the basket I garden in.  She knows those things are mine.  Having raised a whole bunch of teenagers over the years, I decided, "I am going to really teach her a lesson... I am going to let her have that pepper, one crunch down on that and she will stay out of my garden, and out of my things.  You know that parenting technique of natural consequences... I knew it was going to work, just like that "Super Nannie" girl says on T.V.  Just as I was often wrong when raising the teens, I was wrong when I thought that one up too...

She also took my little hand spade out of the basket, and then she laid down to "eat" her pepper, and I thought, o.k., any minute now... so I watched, and clicked my camera away, hoping to catch another "viral video."  I could see the title now..."Crazy Cajun Dog Eats Pepper, and Has a Really Bad Reaction, and Learns Her Lesson!"

Then I waited and watched some more, thinking any minute now, it will kick in...

 

She laid on her side and chewed.

 



              







She sat up and chewed... and I waited...                      
She ate the whole thing, her eyes never even watered....

That was when I really put my foot down.  She went back for another pepper.   Didn't happen.  Guess I won that one!  I really showed her, taught her not to eat any and everything she came across, because, clever woman that I am,  I picked up the basket, and sat it where she could not reach it!  Guess I showed her!  Well, truthfully, I may be losing some of the skirmishes, but I am winning the war, to quote someone who liked to make excuses for losing wars!