He'd kick ass in a Cute-Off

I was talking to my father about their new puppy, Barkley, on Saturday. I've been encouraging my parents to take him to obedience classes, because our last dog was awesome, but not technically well-trained, and my parents are only going to get older, so a well-trained dog is important. Also, dad's main way of dealing with animals is to try and reason with them. This, as you can imagine, doesn't work. He refuses formal classes, though, insisting that he did a good job with the last two dogs and he'll do fine with this one.

 On Saturday he said "I'll tell you one thing, this dog won't get into the newspaper and the wood. He won't be allowed anywhere near the wood." Our last dog, Moby, was trained to bring in the newspaper from the end of the driveway. Once he learned that carrying the paper around gets him a treat, he was constantly dragging old papers, that my dad uses to start fires, out of the bin next to the wood stove. It was common for Moby to walk around the house dragging a sheet of newsprint along with him. He would also help himself to the kindling in the kindling box, whenever he had a hankering to destroy something. So, on Saturday, dad vowed that Barkley would not have these privileges. Cut to Wednesday, and my mom is  emailing me pictures of Barkley, looking just impossibly adorable, romping around on the kindling box. So much for that.