@sshole Dogs

You know it's going to be bad when you arrive home from work and notice that water is flowing underneath the door that leads into the house.

Olive and Bernadette have their own doggy bedroom. It includes fittings for a sink, should we choose to install one in the future. We've never given much thought to the two metal arms jutting slightly out of the wall. 

Olive and Bernadette stay inside their room when we're not home...for reasons that are now obvious.

Photo of the exact moment our girls lost their run-of-the-house privileges.

The hallway was full of water. Power cords were submerged. I'm no expert, but this seemed a tad dangerous. Concerned about what would greet me on the other side of the dog room door, I nervously pushed to open it...but it was stuck. That had never happened before.

Throwing my weight against the wood door, it eventually burst open into a cloud of steam, revealing both dogs staring at me. They were soaking wet and actively being sprayed in the face with a jet of hot water. We seemed to be equally dumbfounded.

During their endless roughhousing (which I just realized must be named for how rough it is on your unfortunate house), one of our little darlings must have turned the valve for the hot water. 

No problem! SN and I have invested a bunch of money in a top-of-the-line leak detector for our home. In fact, if you follow me on Facebook (you do follow me on Facebook, right?), you may recall how well this gizmo works. 

From Facebook:

It's so tragic, it's funny...ARE YOU KIDDING ME, NEW HOUSE?!

I'm sick with a cold and have been looking forward to taking a hot bath. Old soul that I am, I added lavender Epsom salt to the tub, made a cup of tea, and put a deep conditioning treatment in my hair. I have resisted reading my new magazines all day so I could enjoy them while soaking.

The tub filled a quarter of the way with water and shut off. The anti-leak plumbing feature WE PAID EXTRA FOR is an overachiever! I don't know how to reset it and Derek is not home and is not answering his phone.

Oh, and the best part? The house has shut off ALL OF THE WATER. I wanted my hair to be deep conditioned, but this is ridiculous.

Our leak detector is so overzealous when policing our water usage that it has rendered our clawfoot tub to be strictly decorative. An actual leak though? It throws up its electronic shoulders and says, "I'll allow it."

I shut off the valve and went to get our mop. No mop. 

Calling SN, who is conveniently out of town and is therefore unable to help with any cleanup, he initially claimed not to know what mop I was talking about. We never had a mop. When the conversation turned to, "Oh, that mop. That's right. I took it apart," (BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT ENGINEERS DO) I hung up and began sweeping the water with a broom.

No problem! We cleverly had a drain installed inside the dog room. I would simply sweep all of the water down the drain and be kicking back with a cup of Tension Tamer tea in no time. Side note: you can most likely tell why I keep this variety of tea on hand.

Oh...

The reason the water flooded to begin with (you know, to begin with after the crazy dogs and after the malfunctioning leak shutoff) is that Olive and Bernadette have packed the drain absolutely full of crap.

It's mostly little scraps of wood, but there are surprises too. Pebbles, bits of plastic, some drywall, and actual, literal crap. Little darlings.

A message appeared on my phone from SN:

Does the valve look like they were chewing on it or did they just bump it?

Even in times of crisis, I am a smartass:

Bumped it, although we probably couldn't tell if they'd been gnawing on solid metal... except perhaps that all of their teeth would be broken. Poor babies.

At SN's insistence, I found a screwdriver and used it to remove the handles from the wall, lest we repeat this fiasco again tomorrow. A minute later, my phone alerted me to another message:

Thinking it might be best to leave the handles on. I think the stems underneath are plastic. I could only imagine them chewing up the stems and turning on the water at the same time. 

I opened the nearby guest bathroom door to survey the water damage. At least, I tried to open it, as that door was also swollen shut. When forced open, the baseboard came with it.

Another side note: I swore when building our house that there would be one consistent floor tile, not a mix and match from room to room, but here we are. There comes a time in every construction project where your mind turns to mush.

My cowhide rug was not nearly as soaked as I'd feared. I actually just placed this rug in the bathroom one day ago, removing it from the closet it has lived in for the last year. What are the odds?

Now, I know what you are thinking. Olive and Bernadette turned on the water by accident, so it's really not fair to title this post @sshole Dogs. Oh, we haven't even gotten to that part yet.

After checking on the guest bathroom, I returned to the dog room. Something was different. I squinted at the floor, certain that what I was seeing could not possibly be there.

While I'd been momentarily a few steps away, 16-year-old Biscuit had entered the dog room. It was cold outside. Biscuit does not like to go out into the cold. She much prefers to be a jerk. She pooped inside, leaving the icing on the cake of this situation floating across the floor.

Bernadette wants to be sure I know that she had nothing to do with any of this.

@sshole dogs.

UPDATE: NOW LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE!