Ornament plunderer

Carrie has two wonderful cocker spaniel dogs; however, sometimes they get into a little mischief. If we leave a loaf of bread close to the edge of the counter, it's almost guaranteed that it will be gone when we come home from work. On normal days, the boys are happy to greet us by the door. Duke, the black English cocker, has a peculiar mannerism where once he sees us open the door, he sprints back into the living room to find a bogey (that's what we call their toys) and then proudly shows it off to us. We always know something is amiss if Duke is cowering off to the side when the door opens.

After putting up the Christmas tree this year, we have come home to find a few chewed up ornaments on the floor. We've found about ten of them pulled off the tree and lying around the living room. I always wondered if Duke was the only responsible party because of his admitted guilt or if Buddy was somehow involved too. Well yesterday our tree had toppled over so it was time to get to the bottom of our problem. This morning, I set up my iSight camera to capture the scene every five seconds. Within thirty minutes of me leaving the house, the dogs started sniffing around...



The video shows that Duke pulled off a low hanging ornament and chewed on it for a few minutes before sticking his head back into the tree and causing it to lean over a bit. Then he pulled off one more from the other side. While Buddy was walking around next to Duke, it looks like he was smart enough to keep his paws to himself. I'm not sure how we're going to stop Duke from messing with the tree, but I am tempted to set up more video surveillance traps because it's a lot of fun reviewing the footage to see who has been nice and who has been naughty.