The best bad dog ever

This morning, Cooper and Lucky got into a love-fest of giggling, doggie slobber, rolling around on the floor, and general cutest kid and dog behavior ever. I can't tell you how adorable it was, because nothing could do justice to how dang loving and sweet those two are together. He's the best dog in the world.

And then after lunch, I was reminded of the dark side of loving toddler-dog relationships. Cooper was quietly settling in for a nap in his darkened room, and Matt was heading out to grab a few things from the hardware store. I heard whispered up the stairs, "Bye hon- I'll be back in a little bit." And then the door closed. And a few moments later, I heard this odd sort of smacking wet sound from downstairs. So I peered through the slats of the stairs to see what on earth was going on. The dog had his paws up on the counter and was gnawing on the rock hard stale loaf of neglected banana bread that I was intending to give to the chickens. He knew I was upstairs and that Matt had left, so the coast was clear. He'd clearly been plotting this for a while, in my opinion. The timing was too impressive to suggest anything less.

What has this to do with Cooper? Well, when Cooper was learning to eat, he spread food far and wide and we depended on Lucky to do a lot of the cleaning. This was Lucky's really first taste of "people food" on a regular basis, and he's learned to like it. Not like it, actually. He learned to love it. And steal it. Find it and eat it. We've had to totally change our food storage behaviors as a result of this, and we are still making mistakes more than a year after this all started.

Sigh.

He's the best dog ever.

Bad dog!