Small blue crab sepia V

Whew!
This has been a day of love and worry.

Surrounded by love and care by the people that are here. Feeling the love from home and that people are missing us there.

Worry because of naughty dachshunds rifling through things they should not, and eating things they shouldn't.  The pups have not been angels since we left home and we will have some retraining to accomplish. We will also have a gate to build that I have wanted for over a year now. No ordinary gate, it will have to be a collapsible one that will fit against my cabinet on the end of a peninsula in my kitchen. The reason for the gate, a naughty girl or boy perhaps? A naughty girl most likely! I mean there are 4 girls to one boy in our house.......

One in particular has my heart, Divya. She loves everyone and will love on all who come her way.
Unfortunately she also loves food, things she thinks is food, and things that smell like food. This penchant for food comes with her ability to get up on things! She has been caught more than once on the counter in the kitchen, which requires a jump up on my banquet, then another one to the counter. Hence the need for a gate. Why do I know ? How do I know it's her? Because the sneaky little devil gets caught red pawed with her stolen goods in the kennel! She is also protective of her ill gotten gains when confronted with her mischief in plain sight.

Then there's Bandit, maybe it's him!
He usually not completely innocent in the food racketeering.  We've found him on the counter as well, although he runs when he sees us coming! I would not be surprised if this brother and sister daring duo weren't working in tandem. Bandit is much more agile than his overweight sister and I could see him taking advantage of the sitter's momentary lack of an eagle eye on them. I would also not be surprised if the greedy sister wouldn't take the spoils of his efforts away from him!

But wait! There's Trixie, the dynamic duos mother. She's been caught doing the counter dance as well.

There are two others in the house, Frida is almost 14 and too smart to get up there. She's smart enough to let the others do the work, but take advantage of the spoils. Tut, she'll take the blame for everything, she puts Gollum to shame with her groveling when we're actually fussing at someone else!

They have managed to get an entire loaf of whole grain bread that was all the way at the stove. Mind you, it's not a mile but it is up a banquet, onto a counter, past the coffee pot, through the sink,on another counter to get to the prize. Then a reverse trip to take it to the kennel.  This time, my poor sitter was subjected to them hauling her purse off a load of laundry on the banquet, then hauling said purse into the kennel. I've held this woman's purse, its large and heavy! Both the sitter and I were concerned the little devils had gotten ahold of her iron pills. Fortunately when it was all said and done, it was expensive multi vitamins that will have to be replaced.
Hopefully they won't become ill from their adventures!
Yes I contacted a vet, fingers crossed!

One thing is certain, there's never a dull moment at the Raccoon Retreat Studio!

Small blue crab sepia, acrylic on canvas 8x8
Day 81 Of the 100 days-100 paintings 2018