The vulnerable family members

From my many posts, you may already know our family not only consists of people, but of pets too. We have three little dogs, Callie, Tallulah, and Camden, and a turtle named Florence (after Florence and the Machine, that is). I love my pets... all of them. Although Florence can be a bit boring. I don't let her crawl around the house or anything because I'm afraid the dogs would eat her. Honestly, I don't think she would come out of her shell as long as they were sniffing around her.

We do a lot of things for our pets, because we're those crazy people who treat them as if they're babies. The vet looks down on this, but hey, these living creatures are our responsibility, and they're tiny and vulnerable.

Taking this responsibility a little too seriously at times, has me in some silly predicaments. Take the other night for instance. I made baked potatoes for us. When I do this, I coat them with olive oil, and sea salt. Well, this time the sea salt spilled on the floor. I didn't know if sea salt would hurt the dogs, so I was crawling all around the floor, trying to beat the dogs to the tiny granules. Seriously...

Now lets skip to the night of our art party. We left the dogs out, because the boy stayed home. When we got home, I noticed a hole... not all the way through, but a hole just the same, in our breakfast room wall. Cam likes to chew. He chews wood, he chews plastic, he loves to eat the straw off of the wall in the breakfast room, and this time he ate the freakin' wall!! I don't even know why I was so stressed about sea salt!

The dog's work

The girl and I at the Art Party... the wife was there too, but she hates her picture being taken!

Our doggie behavioral therapist (yes, we hired one), said to spray Bitter Apple on the things he tends to chew. My question then, is this... How am I supposed to stop the dog from eating walls? Do they have Bitter Apple paint?

With our dogs and turtle, you would think I had enough pets, but nope, I want another one. I would love a cat, but the kids and I are so severely allergic. I don't know why our Tom Tom didn't bother us, but I do know our asthma prevents us from loving a kitty the way we should. I'd take another dog any day, even with our little wall eater, but honestly, I don't think we need another dog in the bed with us. Nope, I don't sleep as it is. I want a bird. I've always had birds, and last night we saw the most beautiful little Yellow Sided Green Cheeked Conure. He.. or she, was so sweet, leaning her little head against the cage bars so we could rub it. We also saw a Sun Conure, and the best scenario would be to have them both, so they could achieve optimum companionship. These babies need a lot of attention, which would be achieved since we're home a majority of the time. Who knows... that one baby was sweet though. Reminded me of the parakeet we had when the girl was 3, and the one I had as a teen. Parakeets are a crap shoot. You may get one that's trainable, but you may also get one that bites the heck out of you, and never learns.

 Here is the Sun Conure, picture courtesy of Google Images

Here is the Yellow Sided Green Cheeked Conure, picture courtesy of Google Images 

Okay, enough bird babble... I hope you all have a wonderful day. Today is early release for the kids, then basketball for the boy, and then off they go to their dad's!!! I need the break... they've been nuts lately!!