Carol Reiter: Sick, miserable and dogs run lose

Another surgery, another infection, and another three weeks of misery.

And if you think I was miserable, you should have seen my dogs.

For the past three weeks, in the cold and fog and miserable weather, my dogs and I went through hell. I got my boogered-up knee fixed, got an infection, and spent hours in bed, in a daze.

Carol Reiter -

Let me make something perfectly clear. I have four dogs, and one of them was perfect during this time. Kate, who is almost 13 years old, was absolutely tickled to death to have me home to snuggle up in bed with. She ate, drank and went potty outside, but otherwise spent her days stretched out next to me in bed, warm and happy.

But that was the only dog who was the least bit happy. Len, Jan and Peg were appalled. I was home, and therefore we should be outside, hassling horses, keeping cats in their place, and patrolling the five acres, making sure it was safe.

So for the first couple of days, the three evil dogs jumped every time I moved. They were positive that I was about to go outside, it was just a matter of time.

But I groaned and moaned and felt sorry for myself, and the dogs slowly settled into a seething rage. I tried putting them outside, but they barked. And barked and barked and barked. I couldn't stand it, so I would let them back in the house. The three would troop into my room, lie down and start waiting again. They were good for about 15 minutes, and then the trouble would start.

This time, Len wasn't the worst. Peg was. She was horrid. I have never lived with a dog who ended up driving me as crazy as that skinny little needle-nosed brat did. She would jump on my bed and stare at me. If I looked at her, she would furrow her black eyes and glare at me. Then she would woof.

I would tell her to shut up, and she would woof back. If I kept talking, she kept woofing. It was almost as bad as the barking.

But if I thought that was bad, I was in for a big surprise. As the days went by, and I didn't feel any better, the dogs got worse. Lenny took to surfing the counters for food, hassling every cat in the house and eating everything that was the least bit edible. And if it ended up not ed ible, no problem, it came back up. He ate a banana, along with the peel, an apple (came back up, guess he didn't like it), almost an entire roasted chicken (stayed down), and about five pounds of cat food. He also munched on nonfood items, like his crate pillow, my slipper socks, and about three rolls of toilet paper (all came back up, in horrible shape).

Jan was the best of the three, but by the third day, she and her daughter were becoming escape artists. If I opened a door, they were gone. Over the fence, down the field and perfectly happy to ignore me. I stood on the back porch, in the cold and fog, sick and shaking with fever, and yelled at them, pleaded with them, and almost cried more than once. But they came back when they darned well pleased, which could be up to an hour. All I saw was little black and white dots at the back of field, and I refused to get off the back porch, which has steep steps I didn't want to fall on my face.

By the end of the first week, I was ready to pile all three dogs in the car and drive them to the animal shelter and drive away and never look back. They had realized that I was pretty well incapacitated, and they did exactly what they wanted. At one point, I kept hearing a strange metallic sound, it went on for about 15 minutes. I finally dragged myself out of bed, and discovered that Lenny had been working at opening the refrigerator. Thank goodness he hadn't done it, but I was dumbfounded. The dogs were out of control.