Perfection and Failure or I have a dog who eats dumb sh$#

I have a dog. (Actually we have three dogs, but that is another story for another day.) Her name is Ginny, because when you live on a planet with a series like Harry Potter there are things you simply must do. Ginny has a problem. She is going to kill herself someday by eating some dumb thing! This dog will eat anything. I mean it. ANYTHING.
A sample list of things Ginny has eaten in the eight months we have had her:
Apples off our apple trees
Blackberries, thorns and all, off the vines
Raspberries, thorns and all, off the canes
Half a cantaloupe
Half a bag of grapes (Yes, the are toxic to dogs, and yes she was very ill, and yes she has eaten grapes since.)
My daughters doll (poop should not have a face)
Three whole raw potatoes
Most of an onion
Two rubber Minions
Fruit snacks still in the bag
A peppermint tea bag still in the wrapper
Paper napkins
My entire lunch off the counter (I answered the door.)
The frosting off my son's friend's birthday cake (Seriously, no answering the door.)
A full ostomy bag, sealing ring and contents and all (THE WORST.)
The same ostomy bag again (I tried to stop her, I really did.)
A ziplock bag of dates
Seven or eight wooden magnetic letters (Not all in the same day, so don't worry about her gut. She pooped them out, believe me.)
A whole rainbow of crayons (She knows the secret to becoming a unicorn!)
Three ballpoint pens
I think you get the idea.
When she was new to our house, you couldn't leave anything on the counter and even turn your back or she would eat it. It drove me CRAZY. She is a little better these days, but not by much. The tea bag on that list was eaten yesterday.
I am a wee bit high strung, if I am being completely honest, and the constant eating of every blasted thing not nailed down has worn on me terribly. I really thought I might not be able to cope with keeping her. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was losing my mind. I felt that she was failing at fitting in to our household. I felt that I was failing at teaching her how to fit in; she is just a dogger after all. The idea of sending her back to the shelter broke my heart. My husband had fallen deeply in love with her, and I knew he might never forgive me if we had to send her away. So, I could feel like a failure at being a good wife too! The whole thing ate at me waking and sleeping. (I can have anxiety like some people run marathons: slow and hard, with risk of throwing up, and a side order of physical pain.) It felt unsolvable and my fault and my failure.
Somewhere in this soup of failure, to my surprise, I found something else. I found a space in myself where forgiveness, grace, and mercy can grow. I hear these concepts talked about as something ethereal that can be given by god if we ask nicely, but what if we learn to give them to ourselves and to each other?
The standard we hold the people in our lives to is very high, and of ourselves we expect near perfection. What if we didn't? How would the day be different if... A lady in an SUV cuts me off in traffic, and I think "Oh goodness! I hope she is able to pay better attention now. I'm worried about her safety rushing the way she is today. I hope everything is ok." The guy in line behind me at the store is short with the checker, and I think "Man, he must be having a poopy day to be so irritable. I hope it gets better from here."
What if when Ginny eats the apples straight out of the grocery bag while I run to the bathroom I think to myself, "Poor baby. We still have a lot of work to do to help her trust that there will always be enough food."

You see, Ginny came to us as just about half the dog she is now. She had been terribly neglected and starved. We rubbed her filthy fur, pretended not to be grossed out by the scabs and missing hair from demodexic mange, and told her she was the sweetest toast rack we had ever known. She was two, but had clearly not been socialized with either humans or other dogs. She got stuck under chairs because she simply didn't know that one should go around. She would try to sit close to you, but would twist her body in awkward pretzels because she didn't have any experience in snuggling. At night she growled and cried out in her sleep, started awake, and clung to us for comfort. It took two whole weeks for her to really believe that we were going to feed her every day. She thought this was the best idea anyone had ever had! She has so much to heal from.
I have a lot to heal from too.
Ginny and I both need the same thing: space to fail and still be loved. We need to try, blow it completely, be forgiven, and try again. And fail again. In that place of safety, she and I both need to forget the concept of perfection. It needs to evaporate. It needs to lift and thin like the morning fog and let the sunlight back in. Ginny and I are not going to find perfection, but maybe we can do a little better each day.
In the wise, wise words of my seven year old daughter: Practice makes progress. Perfection is not a reasonable goal.

PS: While I was editing this post, my son called with this message, "Hey mom? Ginny ate the wax from my Baby Bell. Is that ok?" Sigh.