We’re dog-sitting again.

Orly has my friends bamboozled into thinking that she’s “perfectly” behaved, even after spending 11 days with them while I was traveling.

They may need to reconsider.

We arrived yesterday afternoon, a gorgeous, sunny fall day. I was sitting on the deck reading and the dogs were playing. I looked up and noticed that Dotty was reclining in the garden box. Odd.

I ordered her out, and she came running over, and I didn’t think anything more about it. Until, several minutes later, Orly loped onto the deck and dropped something. Clunk. Then she started to eat the something, so I got up to investigate. A dirty carrot. Or rather, part of a carrot.

I wandered back over to the garden box, and discovered that no, Dotty had not been innocently reclining in the garden.

She was actively committing mayhem.

I found a tarp in the garage and constructed a flimsy but effective barrier. All was well.

For a while.

This morning, I noticed both girls hiding out at the far end of the garden and moseyed over to investigate.

Dotty was again reclining. Turns out there’s a second carrot patch. Now there are two sites of carrot carnage and two dogs who have stuffed themselves on carrots. (Could be worse. Some dogs I know stalk and occasionally manage to catch and murder small animals. Perhaps vegetables-as-prey is the benefit of raising dogs in a vegetarian home?

Meanwhile, the two resident dogs are off playing in their yard, having, and wanting, nothing to do with the full-on assault on their parents’ garden. On the other hand, neither raised a paw to stop the carnage committed by their buddies.

Dotty was definitely the ringleader, but “perfect” Orly was a willing accomplice and eager eater of the spoils.