CONNIVING CANINE

I've posted this story before, but it makes me so happy I decided to share it again.

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell.

On a cold winter evening I like to have a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows.

The first winter that Faulkner consented to live with us, he was a little more than a year old, and the first evening that was chilly enough to send me to the kitchen for cocoa, I returned to the family room with it, sat down in a comfy green chair, and placed my cocoa, complete with marshmallows, on a tea table.

As luck would have it, Faulkner chose that moment to announce that he wanted to go out to his fenced-in yard. He did this by standing at the door to the garage, which was in the family room.

So I got up to let him out. When I reached the door, he made a mad dash for my cocoa and ate the marshmallows off the top.

And I have to admit that the very next night he fooled me in exactly the same way.

That's how Faulkner taught me not to leave my cocoa and marshmallows.

Faulkner's middle name was Boo for Boo Dogley, a play on Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Boo evolved into numerous nicknames such as Boodles, and he answered to every nickname, including Sir. His name was Joe when we adopted him. He wasn't a Joe, and he paid absolutely no attention to that name.

Faulkner was the King of Collies.

What a dog. Every time Favorite Young Woman and I talk about him, we end up at the marshmallow story, laughing and missing him.

Infinities of love,

Lola