Quick recap of part one -- I learned to be more suspicious when Mellie is quiet when she created a huge mess by giving Sock Monkey a thorough bath in the water bowl for the free-ranging animals (generally referred to as the dogs' water bowl as the dogs out number the cat AND the cat does not generally drink out of it if she has a choice).
This took place the week before last, when Ronnie was home alone with Mellie. Due to our finances, we could not afford to take Mellie to day care that week, and Ronnie had to turn down several subbing jobs in order to watch her at home. Good news, though, is that this created several good stories for us to share with our friends and family (and eventually Mellie's first boyfriend. And her second one. And her future husband, along with future children, and generally anyone else who would enjoy hearing embarrassing stories about her.)
Clearly, Ronnie had not learned the lesson of being suspicious when Mellie is quiet. Or maybe he was distracted while browsing for potential jobs online.... Despite our continued efforts to keep Mellie away from the dogs' water bowl (including time outs - both in her activity center and her pack and play, yelling, and more yelling, along with keeping it nearly empty - poor dogs), it continues to have a nearly supernatural draw for her. Yeah, that must be it. It's supernatural, not bad parenting on our parts. :)
So, Ronnie discovers Mellie has gotten into the dogs' water bowl. Nothing terribly interesting here. What he discovered however, was NOT a wet puddle around the bowl, or a wet Mellie, or anything as mundane as that. What he discovered was an EMPTY water bowl. Here is the picture of the water bowl again.
I don't know if you can tell, but the water bowl is pretty large. It may not be heavy, but it is large. Mellie has never tried to lift it or flip it or knock it over, and when Ronnie discovered the empty water bowl, the water bowl was not in any unusual place or knocked over.
SHE HAD PLAYED WITH THE WATER SO FRANTICALLY THAT SHE EMPTIED THE WATER OUT OF THE D@MN THING!!!!!
So, Ronnie used the towels that we use to clean up to sop it all up. Unfortunately, he missed a smidgen. Which I found later that evening with, you guessed it, the heel of my bare foot. Causing my foot/leg to go straight up in the air, and I nearly fell. Fortunately, my forearm hit the doorway to the kitchen (causing a bruise that I still have today, nearly two weeks later) and I managed to grab the wood paneling there and prevent a disastrous, not to mention painful, fall on my part. Whew.
Honestly, I wish I could come up with a solution to this problem. I cannot pick the water bowl up, because the animals need to have access to water, especially with the current heatwave/drought (the cat was desperate enough to drink out of the water bowl last night) we are currently experiencing (not that the dogs ever place a PAW outside if they can help it). If I put the water bowl out of Mellie's domain, it is also out of THEIR domain (note that Mellie is a similar size compared to the dogs) and they do not have access to it. If YOU have a bright idea, feel free to share it.
I'm sure this is not the end, and I will not be terribly surprised if I have to write a part 3 in the near future. Hopefully, it will not entail me (or Ronnie or god forbid MELLIE) making a trip to the emergency room.
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