[Dailydrool] Our Elsinore was naughty yesterday

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

Yesterday I heard a bang in the bedroom and went to investigate,  
thinking I'd find that a bird had flown into the window. I got there  
in time to see our Elsinore backing out of the narrow space between  
the bed and a tall chest of drawers. The bang I'd heard was a thick  
hardback book falling off a box by the nightstand. The book had been  
chewed at the top of its spine, a condition I was pretty sure it  
hadn't been in that morning.

Of course I looked around for young Charlie, whose day isn't complete  
unless he's accomplished at least one naughty act that usually  
involves destroying something. But Charlie was on a bed in the living  
room. I felt the book, and the chewed part was quite damp. In  
disbelief I asked Elsinore if she'd done that damage. To my surprise,  
her tail went down, her ears went back, and she refused to meet my  
eyes, all the while hurrying to get out of the small space we were  
in. It sure looked like a confession of guilt to me.

I followed her out of the room, holding the book where she could see  
it and asking her as she crept further and further away from me in a  
half-grovel crouch, Did *you* do this? I can't believe it! *Why*  
would you *do* such a thing? Whatever *possessed* you to chew up a  
*book*? You've *never* done this sort of thing before! *This* is what  
I expect from *Charlie*, not from *you*! *What* were you *thinking*?  
I'm *so* disappointed in you! *How* could you *do* something like this?!

Either Elsinore doesn't care for high-pitched accusations in which  
random words are stressed with audible asterisks at even higher  
pitches, or she was truly ashamed of what she'd done, because she  
sought to escape me by disappearing through the dog door. Charlie  
wisely stayed put on the dog bed in the living room.

A few minutes later, Elsinore reappeared in the house, but I still  
had the book in my hand and I wasn't done. I couldn't believe she'd  
actually chewed something up. We've had her for almost five years  
now, and in that time she hasn't destroyed anything, nothing at all.  
She hasn't even shown any interest in tearing up anything other than  
wrapping paper on Christmas Day, which is a group activity and not a  
covert solitary act. She's always shown perfect respect for and even  
disinterest in our belongings. To have willfully chewed the spine of  
a book is so out of character for her that I simply couldn't get my  
head around the idea that our Elsinore had behaved like that.

Then I realized it was a book my father, dead ten years now but still  
missed every day, had given Ken. Boswell's London Journal, a book my  
father had enjoyed for many years before his death. How *could* she?  
It was so beyond my imagination that I returned to following Elsinore  
around the house, shaking the book in her direction and expressing my  
disbelief and disappointment in her for what she'd done. She escaped  
through the dog door again and sat at the far end of the backyard, in  
the cold, for a very long time. I hoped she was eating worms. A lot  
of worms.

Eventually, Elsinore came back into the house and found me in my  
office. She rolled over on her back on my feet, showing me her tummy  
and carefully not looking at me. All right. Apology accepted.  
Grudgingly. But I never thought there'd be a day when I'd have to put  
up a puppy gate for Elsinore's benefit, and I told her so. She's  
forgiven, but her inexplicable crime will be remembered.

Then Ken came home. Look what our Elsinore worked on today, I told  
him with false cheer. His jaw dropped just as mine had when I first  
saw the book, and the first words out of his mouth were, No! Not  
Elsinore? Oh yes indeedy, I assured him, Elsinore. The fact that it  
was Elsinore who was slinking apologetically around and around his  
feet, and not Charlie, confirmed it. If Charlie had chewed up the  
book and been scolded, he would have tossed his head and twinkled his  
eyes cheekily at us as if to say, so what? Young Charlie never shows  
remorse over the things he chews up. He's very sorry on the rare  
occasions he's caught pooping or peeing in the house (he doesn't like  
to go out in the rain), but he's never sorry for chewing on things.

We can't figure out why our Elsinore would do something so out of  
character and completely out of the blue like this. I asked Ken if  
there was any chance he'd left food or food wrappers in or around the  
book, but he swears he didn't. She's never shown any vindictiveness,  
so the fact that I took Charlie out for a walk yesterday and not her  
couldn't have set her off. She chewed the book hours after I  
returned, and it was a book she'd associate with Ken, not me, so  
surely she would have chosen something of mine to chew if she were  
angry with me. But she's always had an even-tempered and forgiving  
nature that doesn't dwell on past hurts or the crimes of others.  
Maybe there was something in the glue in the book's spine that  
attracted her? She has been known to be rather weak when it comes to  
finding a way to get and eat things she thinks smell good. I don't  
suppose we'll ever know why she did it.

My mother says that someday my father's book will be rather like the  
record album covers or glass Christmas tree ornaments my childhood  
dog Penny chewed up during her fits of separation anxiety--we'll look  
at that book and say with warm fondness and nostalgia, Ahhhhh, our  
Elsinore did chewed on that, remember when she did it? Perhaps. But  
that's not going to happen any time soon.

The book is still readable, but I don't think we'll ever be able to  
look at Elsinore the same way again. Her sterling reputation in the  
area of exemplary behavior has been severely tarnished. I just can't  
believe she'd do something like that. What *ever* was she thinking?

Elizabeth