Growing Pains

So sorry for the lack of posting. Here's the update on Porter:

• On Friday, he ate 9 chocolate chip cookies and 1/3 of the plastic container they came in. The vet (surprisingly) said he'd be fine, because the chocolate-to-lab ratio was still low. He threw up once or twice (almost normal for Porter these days), pooped some plastic (served him right), and was fine.


• On Monday, he got into the lower kitchen cabinets and ate four rolls of paper towels and shredded some poop bags.


• Yesterday, he ate an ice tray, a refrigerator magnet, and part of a sparkly picture that my little sister made for me (formerly attached to the fridge via the magnet). I found incriminating glitter on his snout.

As you can see, Porter's lately grown rather tired of his favorite daytime soaps and misses his Uncle Jake (who spent almost every day, all day with him this summer) terribly. All of the damage occurs in the kitchen, where he is still secured via baby gate. We've considered re-crating him, but hate to take a step backwards unless we just have to.

We're working on the issue by being even more vigilant about what Porter could possibly access (a learning curve... who knew he could open the cabinets?!), and making sure he gets plenty of "us" time and play time and exercise. Really, he's still the world's best baby. He is mostly mellow, affectionate, and adorable. He's just adjusting to being by himself more than he'd like again.

And he has yet to eat a single pair of mommy's (or daddy's) shoes. We'll keep him.