When it comes to the trash cans, she won't stay out of them. Pretty much anything will peak her interest - tissues, dental floss, cotton balls, napkins, bags, cans, Chapstick tubes...you name it and Rigby has probably pulled it out of the trash. Her need to do so has lessened as she gets older, but it does still happen on occasion.
Over the last few weeks, Rigby has been obsessed with the art room/office's trash. I've been painting again recently. When using the acrylic, I use paper towels to wipe down bottles or clean/dry the brushes after swishing them in water, etc. The towels are used until they need to be tossed. There is something about these paint covered paper towels that Rigby just can't pass up. If that office door is open, she makes a beeline to the trash, pulls out ALL the towels and tears them up. Usually when she has something she's not supposed to have, I can tell her to "Leave it," and she'll drop it and walk away - usually pouting. With these paper towels though, telling her "no" makes her shred them even faster...right in front of me! It worries me a bit that she is pulling them out to eat the paint, but I'm "hoping" that it's the act of shredding them and making a GIANT MESS for me to clean up that is the motivation. Regardless, she's driving me nuts!
Awww... bless her heart - and she looks so sweet and innocent there!! We've had garbage eaters in the past (Betty was the worst, tissues being her favorites), but thankfully neither Alice nor Mabel are. Oh, that's not to say they haven't gone for the odd styrofoam food box discarded in the wrong can (meaning one without a lid), but not in general. The outside seven are a different story, but we won't go there right now.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what it is about the paint towels that attracts her? Maybe the smell? I wouldn't think it's taste if she's just shredding.
I know it's not funny, but you do paint (pun intended) a funny picture with your description of her frantic, shredding defiance! ;)
It is very funny when she does it, but it isn't either, if that makes sense. :) She's a stinker! It could be the smell because she doesn't seem to eat it just tear it to pieces. And she has to do it before I take it away from her, that's how fast it happens.
DeleteI meant to add, this morning I got out of the shower and she was lying on the carpet just outside the bathroom. Around her was a Qtip, a torn tissue, the empty chapstick bottle and the plastic cap cover all which had been inside the bathroom trash just minutes before. When she got up, the other half of tissue was underneath her, ripped to shreds. Gah!
DeleteMaybe not the best solution, but you might just have to get trashcans with lids for the rooms you don't want to close off. Unless, of course, she'd knock one over and defeat the purpose. This morning's episode sounds like an "attention getter". I'm still smiling. :D
DeleteSometimes it's really hard to know what motor is running the little darlings. The refusal to move when they are in my spot in bed a case in point. Mind you that one I think I've figured out, well almost.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is my one, two morning ago, Monday, a bank holiday here, came out of the bedroom with a sock in her mouth. She had been out ready for her walk a few times earlier and I think the sock was her going all in, in an attempt to get me out and going.
Here with Rigby I can only surmise she's looking for attention, active attention. Or she might find the smell of the paint something she needs to remove. You might try getting a bed for her to lie under your feet. They are very quick that way to get that you have made a prime special place for them. Not a time out spot but one making them special. Little brats.:-)
Oh Vince, Rigby has two dog beds (one down and one up...just across from my desk where the trash can is) and my bed. She's got plenty of beds and the funny thing is the one she is on most of the time is the guest bed...the one I DON'T want her on. Typical right!?!?
DeleteShe takes my shoes and/or my socks all the time. She doesn't do any chewing on those anymore, but just takes them out to the landing and rolls around on them. But I get that to a point as they smell like me. The paint is odd. It could be smell though, something attracting her to it, like you both said and even an attention getting thing. It's never when I'm in that room. It's always when I leave and she sneaks back in and digs the paper out.
This evening I went out and kicked her soccer ball around the backyard for her to chase and bring back. She plays hard. But about midway through our time, she walked over to a spot on the grass, dug at it with her paw a few times, and then rolled around on that spot. She got back up and went for her ball again. So silly.
Rigby, Rigby, Rigby. Hilarious story. Especially since I don't have to clean it up!
ReplyDeleteRIght?!?! It does make me laugh when I watch her...but those little shreds of paper are hard to clean up.
DeleteI wonder if it's the smell of estrogen. You know how men need to be careful about drinking water from plastic bottles, it's very likely that the paint has no requirements for care. She could be seeing the pee of an interloper.
ReplyDeleteThe grass is easy. That's rolling in scat. The number of times my one arrived home to be bounced to the shower hanging smeared herself in poop isn't funny.
Maybe! I didn't know that about plastic bottles. I was also thinking that some paint colors carry a "toxic" warning, depending on color. I wonder if that smell is some dangerous ingredient. I just need to remember to empty the trash after working. It's a big trash can, so it seems wasteful to empty it before it's full. :) But that's probably the best solution, because she's not stopping anytime soon.
DeleteYes, we have rabbits multiplying like rabbits right now. They are everywhere, so I'm sure there smells are all over that backyard.
My dog before Rigby used to do that to anything gross or smelly - pond scum/mud, old gum embedded in the street, decaying seaweed, the worse it smelled the better. She'd start at her nose, drag her entire face in it before falling to the ground and rolling all over it. She'd get up with whatever she rolled in streaked from her cheek to her tail. They're so weird!
Of course it might be like her version of popping bubblewrap.
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