Chelsi.....Part Deux

Chelsi (tiny isn't she?)

Measuring Chelsi (7 weeks old)

Chelsi was not happy in the basement. I talked to friends at work and they suggested that we get a crate and put her in the kitchen so she would be able to be with us more. She was with Charlie when he was working on the computer in the basement, but then when he came up, she cried and cried. We felt so bad about leaving her down there.

We went out and bought a crate and read all kinds of books about crating a dog. We’d never done it before. Two weeks after getting Chelsi, we brought her up to the kitchen to stay. She was not housebroken, so we still had to do that.

Isn't she adorable?

Charlie took her out in the morning before he went to work. I took her out before I went to work. Charlie came home at lunch to feed her and let her out. She had wet her bed. We were told that puppies wouldn’t wet their bed. Wrong. Chelsi wet her bed. I came home and took her out. Washed her blankets. We took her out during the night. The next morning she had wet her bed.

We set the clock for 2:00 a.m. Charlie got up and took her out. The next morning when he got up to go to work, he fed her and took her out. I took her out before going to work. Same thing that day. She had wet her bed. We made her crate smaller so she had a bed and her water. She still wet her bed. We really didn’t know what to do. She did her #1 and #2 when we walked her.

So, we did the laundry and thought we were bad parents. She was happy and frisky and we just loved her to death and she loved us. Poor thing. She had only known snow on the ground. It started snowing in Pennsylvania on December 5 and when we brought Chelsi home on the 22nd, snow was still on the ground. It stayed on the ground until April when we moved.

Chelsi in the snow (3 or 4 months old)

At night when we were home and could watch her, we let her out of the crate. We were standing in the kitchen one night talking. Chelsi went to the kitchen door and barked. We both looked at each other. She wanted out! After that she was housebroken. She still slept in her crate at night and when we were gone (we rented), but with caution, we let her out of the crate when we were at home.

She never chewed up shoes or table legs or anything that wasn’t hers. We supplied her with toys and rawhides and she knew her toys from our things.

We were supposed to transfer to San Diego in April 1993 when Chelsi was about 6 months old. The movers were expected in a few days and we had been packing at night because we were both working during the day.

One morning I was getting ready for work and had let Chelsi out of her crate before I had to leave. I was in the bathroom finishing my hair or makeup and I kept coming back to the diningroom where she was playing with one of her toys on the rug. Our house had hardwood floors and each room had a large carpet, but not wall to wall. When I came in to check on her, I was horrified to find that she had pulled the pile of the carpet up and had made a perfect bare circle about the size of a silver dollar! I was more shocked than anything because she had never done anything like that.

Our landlord was always very nice, but his wife was such a shrew. She probably had the first quarter she had ever made. Well, I knew we would pay dearly for that little place that Chelsi chewed up and most likely would have to buy another whole rug. I wasn’t about to do that.

At lunch time I went to the fabric store and bought some hook needles, the kind you use for rugs and canvas, etc. I got some strong thread and that night I sat and hooked every one of the pieces of pile back into the carpet bed. When I finished, no one was the wiser and it passed inspection!

Theda did get some money our of us though, but it wasn’t Chelsi’s fault. One day I was in the basement packing and the light bulb was out. I climbed up to change it. It had one of those glass coverings to remove so I removed it, changed the bulb and when I was trying to put the cover back on, it slipped and broke into pieces. That cost us $35 from our deposit.

More later..........