The Dog Ate My Homework

It’s that time of summer when I start thinking about getting the kids ready for school. Instead of thinking about supplies, physical forms, and sleeping habits, something reminded me about the time when my older daughter was in fifth grade and our dog ate her math homework.

Really, he did.

He’s an adorable, yet precocious, Portuguese Water Dog with all the manners in the world (after A LOT of training) and as long as there are witnesses. As soon as he’s alone and sees an opportunity, he’ll scrounge for anything he thinks might be yummy.

He is allowed to stick his head in his own bags. He loves presents.

On this particular day, my daughter may or may not have had probably did have something that smelled edible in her book bag.  It wouldn’t take much for this scavenger to think something smelled good.   Heck, this is a dog that will eat a roll of toilet paper like corn on the cob when the mood strikes him.

When we returned home from an errand, we found math homework strewn all over the floor.  It was mostly shredded.  Teeth marks and slobber were evident.  My daughter’s “little brother” had put his muzzle inside her book bag and pulled out the paper to get at whatever it was he was looking for.  (Portuguese Water Dogs are smart!)

My daughter stood in the middle of the room and stared at her destroyed, half-eaten math worksheet.  “What am I going to do?” she cried.  “No one will ever believe that my dog ate my homework!”

It was pretty funny seeing the cliche excuse in action. But I was a good mom and didn’t laugh out loud until later.

The dog put himself in timeout in his crate.  He knew when he was in trouble.

We collected the homework–every last shredded piece–and put it all in a zip bag to take to school.  The evidence clearly showed that a dog attacked the paper. I emailed her math teacher and explained the gory mess we found and that she was terrified that he wouldn’t believe her.

He sent the nicest note back.  He owned four dogs and wouldn’t be surprised by anything a dog did.  No worries.  What a relief!   Fabulous teacher, too–one of my daughter’s all-time favorites. Now, it was safe to laugh.

In sixth grade, her new math teacher told the class that “my dog ate my homework” was a stupid (his word), non-viable excuse and that they should think twice before using it.  According to my daughter, the students who had been in her fifth grade class started laughing.  They knew that a dog really could eat homework!

What about you?  Do you have a funny pet destruction story to tell?  Do you have to do certain things to keep pets out of trouble, such as keeping toilet paper rolls off the holder? Share it in the comments below.  I’d love to hear about it.  🙂

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