Dog Feathers

Back in 1967 Russ and I bought a Great Dane puppy.  Her name was Bridget.  She was a really big puppy too.  When we brought her home at six weeks old she was already bigger than my miniature poodle, Pierre.  Bridget grew so fast you could almost see her getting taller by the minute.  


As most puppies are, Bridget was quite the chewer.  Anything left on the floor was fair game to her.  We learned to put our shoes, socks, clothes, toys and anything else up high enough so she couldn't reach it.  We did lose a few things along the way though.


Once when I was getting dinner I put the food on the table and went to get Russ and the kids to eat.  Kristin was only two and Jeff was four.  We sat down at the table and I started to fill plates when I noticed the roast was gone.  I knew I put it on the table because the plate was there.  Oh, cripe! Bridget!  I went into the living room and there she was enjoying our roast. We ate vegetarian that night.


We had a faux leather swivel rocker that was my favorite chair.  While we were gone to I don't remember where Bridget had a good time with my chair.  I came home to find the arm of the chair completely un-upholstered. 
Right down to the wood frame.  I did get the chair reupholstered and Bridget was restricted from it's presence.  


Another time we were at a holiday gathering at my sister's house.  Since we had cows to feed in the late afternoon Russ came home to do that.  He came in the house to change into his coveralls to go to the barn.  Bridget had been in the family room while we were gone.  We had a huge, oversized, overstuffed pillow that my mom had given me.  This pillow was heavy and stuffed with real feathers and was old.  You can see this coming, right?  Russ walked in the door and was greeted by feathers everywhere.  It was like a snowstorm in there.  Feathers were even sticking to the rough plaster of the ceiling.  They were on pictures and anything else they could cling to.  It was so bad that Russ got a 55 gallon steel drum to put them when he cleaned them up.  And he filled it up, pressed it down as much as possible and the drum was still filled to capacity.  My brother-in-law had come with Russ so at least he had some help containing the feathers.  You know how it is when you try to sweep feathers.  They just want to fly everywhere.  The two of them got most of the feathers swept up and the rest went into the vacuum cleaner when I got home.  Too bad I didn't get to see the feather storm.  But I did find feathers for many months afterward.


After that Bridget we made sure Bridget was where there wasn't anything to really destroy.  But that's the way dogs are.  They just want to have fun!  We still talk about the feather storm.