I'm trading Rocky in for a hamster

When I got home today, Rocky wasn't himself. He greeted me at the front door but he seemed overly enthusiastic, almost frantic. I was concerned so I gave him a once over to see if there was anything visibly wrong with him. I was so involved with trying to figure out his behaviour that I didn't notice the beeping coming from upstairs.

I didn't find anything obviously wrong with Rocky so I figured it might just be that he had an urgent need to go outside for a washroom break. I walked with him towards the back of the house to let him out into the yard. Stella had come downstairs by now and was follow along. At about this point, the beeping finally began to register in my brain but I still didn't think much of it. It was probably just the fire alarm upstairs telling me it needed new batteries.

I think I've mentioned a couple of times before how Rocky has a real fear of squeaky noises. I was just starting to put the pieces together, Rocky's erratic behaviour and the alarm beeping from upstairs when Stella pushed past me and reached the back room. And then she saw something and she stopped.

I'm not sure if dogs can gasp, but I think Stella gasped. She turned around and ran back to the front of the house and went straight to her bed and lay down in it with an expression on her face in anticipation of something terrible.

Then I saw what had happened.

The back room looked like a hurricane had stormed through, a hurricane with teeth and claws. The furniture had been pushed around, some of it toppled over. The curtains had been pulled off the rod. Rocky's water and food bowl had spilled. Dog towels and bedding were soaking wet and thrown all over. The armchair was ripped apart, stuffing scattered around the floor. A big bag of dog food had been pulled off a table - though it hadn't been ripped open. The bookshelf had been shoved over and its shelves had been pulled off their studs and all the dog paraphernalia that was on them was now on the floor. The walls on either side of the patio doors had been heavily chewed on and damaged. There were flecks of blood here and there - a sure sign of the desperate measures Rocky had taken.

(click on images to enlarge)


The alarm's beeping must have driven him literally - but not permanently, I hope - crazy. He had been trying to get out of the house to escape the sound of it even if it meant chewing and clawing his way through a wall. I'm just glad Rocky's teeth were worn down from his previous life to little nubs otherwise who knows how much more damage he might have done. Not succeeding at chewing through the wall, he must have started pulling everything away from the walls to find an alternate escape route. The mice get in from behind the bookshelf so perhaps he could get out the same way. Rocky might not be too smart but at least this shows there are some thought processes, though admittedly dim ones, churning away in his brain.

The beeping was still going on in the background and Rocky was beginning to get anxious again so I walked him through the junked room and let him out into the backyard. Stella, still not sure what had transpired, stayed in her bed far from the wreckage.




There's still a mess downstairs. It's not fully cleaned up yet. There's going to be a big load of laundry to do. I'll have to bring up some tools to put a few of the things back together. I don't know what I'm going to do about the torn apart armchair and the ravaged walls.

I'm thinking I should be a bit more peeved at the whole thing but mostly I'm just wishing I could have gotten Rocky's momentary lapse of sanity on video. Fruitcake.

Hi, my name's Rocky. I'm a natural disaster