Dude. It's too early for this.

St Pauly Boy is out of town this week so I'm up early with the doggers. Right now, Pete is sitting in front of the fireplace, staring up at the mantle, whining at it. Is there something scary up there? Does he want me to take one of our wedding photos down and throw it for him to fetch? Does he want to eat a candle for breakfast?

Well, honestly, it could be any of those. But I'm pretty sure it's just because he is extremely confused at this time of the morning. You see, when he gets a little too rough while we are playing with him, with one of his squeaky's, we take the squeaky away from him and say "done". Or it's more like "DONE". Then we put it up where he can't get it, so he knows that we mean business, right? Well, he fell for it for the first 2 attempts at authority over him. And now he thinks that we are hoarding all of his precious squeakies up on our mantel, even though he can clearly see that there are no squeakies up on the mantel.

I'm thinking I can fake him out. Maybe he really is that stupid. Deep down I know I'm wrong. Everything he does is calculated. If dogs went to college, mine would have graduated from Harvard, Summa Cum Laude. So, I take one of his squeakies from the floor (why didn't he want to play with that one, I ask myself?) and I put it up on the mantel. He's watching. Then I take it down and throw it across the living room, He doesn't budge. Not even a damn flinch.

What goes through his sinister mind? What other cruel tricks is he planning for me while SPB is out of town?

I'll find out tonight.