People with Labs are usually familiar with toilet paper bandits.

When Labs get bored or anxious, or pissed off, they look for things to chew. Usually, Zinnia goes out with Maria and Fate to feed the animals in the pasture.

During the ice and snowstorms, Zinnia was slipping, and there was no room for her to run; she was aggravating the sheep and the donkeys and eating manure, so we put her in the backyard while everybody else went out into the pasture.

This upsets her.

She sits and watches and barks; sometimes, we just leave her in the house with Bud.

Lately, we’ve noticed toilet paper lying around the house in shreds. We keep it in an open cabinet in the bathroom.

I doubted it was Bud; he’s too small to get his mouth around a toilet paper roll. Today, I caught Zinnia in the act. When Maria and I came downstairs, we found seven or eight rolls of toilet paper shredded and chewed underneath the dining room table.

I went into the bathroom and caught her with some toilet paper rolls. She was punishing us for leaving her behind or just getting bored and anxious. She looked mildly abashed but not especially troubled. She wasn’t hiding, she didn’t imagine she was doing anything wrong.

I didn’t scold her; she was just being a Lab. I did point to the toilet paper and shook my head. That is usually enough to get her not to do something again.