Mischievous

Synonyms include:
damaging, deleterious, destructive, detrimental, foxy, frolicsome, harmful, hazardous, ill-behaved, impish, injurious, insidious, irksome, misbehaving, naughty, nocuous, playful, rascal, rascally, risky, sly, sportive, teasing, tricky
(after deleting some of the overly negative words, that are not quite right for this post)

Mischievous is the best word to describe Tasha at the moment. As the list of synonyms clearly shows, it is not entirely that she is damaging, but that she is also playful and frolicsome.

The biggest comparison that we find is that she is like a puppy in a four year old husky body. She still needs to learn many of the basic rules of the house, and some of it is just Husky stubbornness from what we have learned about the breed.

When we leave her outside, she has lots of fun with Roxie, but this fun includes:
Digging,


(hard to tell, but that is a hole being dug)

getting into the garden,

(not once, but multiple times, with multiple kinds of fencing, so that today Blake is on his way to Lowe's to get stronger, less flexible fencing for our rascally dog)

and playing with Roxie to the extent that a portion of her eye started to open.

(which required an extra visit to the eye doctor, and antibiotics to clear up the infection that came with it, thankfully we didn't have to have her get stitches again).

So, after all of that mischief (with the last one being the worst), we decided we had to crate her for her own good, because that eye has to heal completely before she can go back to playing with Roxie and breaking into the garden again.

Thursday, she was crated, no problem. She didn't love it, but our impish dog only chewed a little bit of the couch that she could get to.

Friday, she was crated again in the morning, and her crate was moved slightly from the couch to prevent that sly dog from chewing it again.

Blake came home at lunch, like he has done since we got her... and guess who greeted him at the door! We still, honestly, can't figure out how she could escape from this:



Every latch but one was still latched too... so somehow, with a cone on her head, she managed to squeeze out through the space created by just her undoing just one of the four latches on this crate. Our foxy dog had decided that she had had enough of this crating thing, and it was time to get out. In her amazing escape, she also moved this crate about 10 feet from where it was before into our kitchen.

Thankfully, after her escape, her damage to the house was very slight, but it did mean that he had to make modifications to her crate before he could go back to work in the afternoon. So, when I came home after work to let her out, I had to undo two metal wires that had been twisted together, and then cut off two zip ties just to open the door. She was still contained though, so I guess they were effective!

All this to say that although we love her, and are happy to have her as part of the family, and have great hopes for the time when she and Roxie can just play and get into trouble that keeps them out of the garden (fingers crossed with the new fence), she is a lot of work right now keeping up with her latest escapades. Also, it means that for the most part, unless we are both at home, all errands have to be run with just Blake or I going, because she can't just play with Roxie because of her eye needing to heal, and we don't think crating her is a good plan either, even if she can't escape, because trying to escape could also cause damage.

Meanwhile, as I type, she just sleeps, which helps her eye heal... so we will be taking turns running errands and watching her to make sure she doesn't play too much.

Honestly, I think she is God's way of preparing us for the time right when our child comes home. If the vast amount of adoption materials are correct, he or she will be quite mischievous themselves, testing us to make sure that we love them no matter what and won't give them back no matter what trouble they get into. Tantrums, power struggles and them reverting back to infant behaviors (like Tasha with her puppy like behavior) are all common in the first months they are with their new family. I wouldn't be surprised if I feel very similar to now when that time comes, where while I love them, they are a lot of work and testing of patience.

But here is my hope: this time with Tasha will pass, and she will learn rules, and proper behavior, and just be a great playmate to Roxie, and our home will be at peace again, and then when our child comes, and turns our world upside down yet again, I will use the peace that eventually came with Tasha as my light at the end of the tunnel with our hard time with our child.