Red pawprints, tears and a broken door

We got home one night after having been away for about 8 hours to find wide blood stains on the inside of the kitchen door glass, where we had left poochie, as usual. We panicked and quickly opened the door to find lots of red pawprints covering the floor.

Don't worry, this scary story has a happy ending. This photo was taken today.

But let me tell you how this all began...

A couple of days ago, poochie was left alone in the kitchen, like we have done for about a year now.

That was the room we could close properly and also without things she could distroy very handy. Since we both work, she has to be alone several hours a day. So far, no incidents, beyond making confetti out of plastic bags...

That evening though, she must have had an indigestion or something else upsetting her, that she scratched at the door until she opened it. We found her sitting happily in the living room. She had scratched a bit of the paint off the door, but nothing that couldn't have been repainted.

The second day, she must have become a bit bold, since we found more scratches in the wood and the door open again.

We thought we should try to keep her from opening the door. If we bolted it with a chair, she wouldn't be able to open it and should get discouraged after a few attempts. Unfortunately, that is not what happened.

She probably really needed to go outside, although I take her for walks right before leaving her alone, because she scratched and scratched until she reached the glass edge in the door and hurt her paw.

When we got home that night, a very meek poochie greeted us from the kitchen, with a bloody paw and muzzle from trying to lick the paw. We all had a group hug on the hallway floor and I inspected the paw closely.

I must say we were lucky.

Poochie only had two split nails, to the quick (hence the blood), but otherwise she was fine. Phew!

I took her for a walk, we got back in, she had some water and I washed her paws and disinfected the nails with some camomile tea.

I'm glad to say she is back to her old happy self now and we will not be closing the kitchen door anymore.