Precious

That is the word we keep using when we refer to our Hank the Tank II, 10-week-old Lab puppy.  He is just that, precious, but a few other words have been coming to mind too.  Ornery, mischievous, incorrigible, pestering, lazy, adorable, I could go on and on.

To date he has chewed through my laptop computer cord, Jay's i-Pod cord and a shoe.  He has made a hole in one pair of Madolyn's good jeans, the bathroom rug and his very plush crate pad...which then leads to lots and lots of stuffing all over the floor.  He has discovered that corners are nice to gnaw on as well as door stops.  He is relentless when it comes to repeating a pattern of behavior.  He chews on something, I take it away, he finds it, drags it back out and the process is repeated.

This morning as he was trying to drag his crate pad out, I was yelling at him from the kitchen a very stern NO and he would stop, look at me for a moment and begin again.  Finally, I gave up.  We pretty much have to take the crate pad out and put it on top of the crate or it will be in the middle of the living room floor and again there will be stuffing everywhere.

I also noticed this morning that somehow, while I was in the shower or bathroom and everyone else was still asleep, he grabbed Lane's school library book off the chair and ate the binding off of it.  So goes a note to school with a check to pay for it.  I must say the book was terrible.  Very difficult to read and/or understand.  I'm kinda hoping they toss it...and that Lane doesn't take an AR test on it.  I told Jay that maybe Hank II did the kids of MES a favor.

Here is a funny from last week.  Jay had to run to St. Louis to pick up a horse so he took Hank the Tank II with him.  They get down there and Jay rolls down the window of his truck, leaves Hank in there and goes to the barn.  He is only going to grab a horse, load it up and head back.  A man comes in the barn and asks who owns the blue Ford...because there is a small puppy sitting on the hood barking at all the horses that go by.  HYSTERICAL...I bet that was absolutely...precious.  On the way home is when the little mishap with the i-Pod cord occurred...I wasn't happy but felt like we were even...I lost my computer cord, he lost his i-Pod cord.  Thank you, Hank, for keeping us on a level playing field.

Last Saturday night, I had just set up our little spot in the end zone for the football field and I got back in the car for a second and left Hank out unleashed with Madolyn's friend who is on crutches.  I hear her yell for me and look...there is the precious Hank the Tank II on the 15 yard line with the boys from the opposing team doing their stretches.  Wonderful.  I ran out to get him, they were petting him and the coach was cracking up.  I told them we were trying to psych them out.  (It didn't work.)

He has learned that if he sits all cute and pretty when he comes in from a bathroom trek, he will get a "cookie" aka dog treat which his predecessor, Hank the Tank I, picked up on fairly quickly as well.  Fortunately for us, as ornery as he is, he is still a very well-behaved fat puppy.  He makes me want to pull my hair out every now and then, but I still love the little fella.  He is just so precious...