A baffled dog owner couldn't believe her eyes when she returned home from a family dinner to find her two naughty labradors had ripped her £500 sofa to shreds. Julie Saunders had left the mischievous duo Rocco and Poppy in her home office room so she could attend a family dinner and says she was only gone for about an hour.
When the 38-year-old returned, she was greeted by the sight of Rocco and Poppy caught in the act, lying about quite contentedly in the pile of duck feathers that had been torn from the sofa. A photo shows seven-year-old Rocco sprawled across the remains of furniture, the stuffing acting as a sort of "camouflage".
Another pic shows four-year-old Poppy looking a little more sheepish, squinting guiltily into the camera and appearing to offer up her little duck toy as a sort of peace offering.
Julie, who lives in Huddersfield, believes the silly pair had been playing with a ball that ended up getting stuck on the sofa. While trying to retrieve it with their paws, she reckons they began to smell the duck feathers inside, causing their wild instincts to kick in.
Although the scenes of mayhem left her positively speechless, the mum-of-two just couldn't be angry with the pooches, "because they're too cute".
Teacher Julie recalled: "When I walked in I just thought 'oh my god'. There were duck feathers everywhere. Poppy came to the door with a toy in her mouth but Rocco was just lying on the sofa and didn't move.
"It was so funny. We took pictures of it straight away but we couldn't shout at them because they're too cute to be angry at. We just had to laugh."
She continued: "I think one of them was playing with the tennis ball and it got stuck on the sofa so they tried to scratch it off. Then maybe they scratched it too much and a couple of feathers came out.
"Perhaps they've smelled the duck feathers and played with them. They're gun dogs so it could be their instincts, at least we'll be able to fix it."
According to Julie, she'd recently removed the blue cover usually placed on the sofa to give it a wash, meaning it would have been much easier for the dogs to destroy the furniture.
Having now learned her lesson the hard way, Julie now intends to lock Rocco and Poppy in the kitchen going forward, rather than her comfy home office.
Fortunately, this is apparently the first time Julie's dogs have been destructive, although she has specified that Rocco is "the naughty one" out of the two.
Julie has since stuffed as many feathers as she could back into her ruined sofa and now plans on sewing it up. She's also posted about her hilarious ordeal on Facebook, sharing pics of the guilty pair with the caption, "I only nipped out for an hour! Who's the culprit?"
One tickled Facebook user wrote: "This is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. I expect you will find feathers for months. Thanks for sharing."
Another chuckled: "Good grief that is so funny!!!! I didn't even see the lab camouflaged under the feathers at first I was just laughing at the guilty looking one with the duck in his mouth! Best pics I've seen of labrador destruction for ages. Sorry for laughing!"
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