The House The Dog Built: Distruction, Induction, Graduation

I felt kinda bad this last week because, due to a number of things, I had not had time to take Bailey to the dog park or for a walk in our neighborhood. She hadn't been kenneled very much, she just didn't get to leave our house and yard... But Friday afternoon, the weather was great and I was able to take her to the dog park. We spent 2+ hours playing and running and jumping, etc.

So that night when we crawled into bed, I figured she would sleep great. I had been asleep for a couple of hours when I woke up to find the bed empty... so I jumped up to find Bailey to let her outside... she had been playing with one of her toys in the living room so she hadn't been getting into any trouble... or so I thought...

As I walked back into the darkened bed room, I noticed a light spot on the dark carpeting. I thought maybe Bailey had vomited or something... when I turned on the light, I found this:

Here it is next to a dollar so you can get an idea of the size:

Now, Bailey is not a distructive dog. She did eat my husband's cell phone once but it had been left on the bathroom counter and my guess is that he got a text or a voice mail and it vibrated or beeped and she thought it was one of her toys. But other than that, she pretty much keeps to her toys. And her "digging" (in the yard or in the house) consists of a few seconds of superficial scratching, and then she is off to find something else to do or play with, not causing any damage to the digging spot.

So I am confused by the extent of the behavior and I am shocked that the scratching needed to cause that kind of damage did not wake me, considering my head was less that 10 feet from the site. I am not nearly as upset as one might think because we were planning to replace that carpet before the end of the year anyway. But I don't want her to do it again...

So how do I correct a behavior when I can't catch her in the act?

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Saturday, I attended the first birthday party for a friend's little boy. While I was there, their dog, Bella (Bailey's playmate in the 2/8/2008 post), was found eating the grease left under the grill after they made the hamburgers for the party. My friend knew from experience with her mom's dog, Harry, that this can make a dog very sick and can even kill them if they eat too much, so we called the vet ER. We were able to induce vomiting with peroxide and all was well... It's amazing how little peroxide can produce such a body wrenching reaction... poor Bella will hopefully never eat that stuff again.

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Bailey graduated from her puppy class today. She got a diploma and everything.