This is Jack.

He’s our 9 year old toy poodle who grew up to be a miniature poodle. We went to pick him up on our very first Christmas as a married couple. I was so excited and he was so tiny and cute.

We went in to get a white toy poodle and came out with Jack. I loved how spunky he was.

Those words have come back to bite me several times. I just had to choose the spunky one.

He’s been part of the family for a long time and we love him.

Especially this guy here.

He sleeps at the foot of Luke’s bed every night.

Jack has always barked an extremely loud, shrill bark that makes grown men jump. It annoys us, but we try to get over it. We have tried several bark collars and nothing has worked.

And he has always been a total embarrassing grump around other people and especially other dogs. We can’t take him on walks without him embarrassing us with his crazy fits. He loses his mind if he sees other animals. Like when the beautiful dog came for a visit the other week.

Jack attacked him. Full on barking, biting, foaming at the mouth attack! Thankfully the dog held back on him or Jack would have been a mid-morning snack for this dog.

Dan wrote a good post about this on his blog.

Well, now my spunky dog has taken to a few new habits that are really getting to me.

1. He’s a garbage digger.

We’ve always known this – had to buy a really expensive garbage can so that he can’t get in it. Well, if the lid isn’t completely closed, he sticks his nose in, grabs the garbage and takes it to our brand new carpet and shreds it.

Now, my house is full hardwoods. There is only one room with carpet. Where does Jack go every single time he gets a piece of messy garbage? The new carpet! It no longer looks new. L

      2. He wakes Luke up in the mornings.

I mentioned he sleeps with Luke. Well, if I have to get up to go to the bathroom in the night or say 4 or 5 in the morning, Jack hears it and jumps off the bed. Loudly. And scratches his collar. And wakes up Luke.

Not good.

       3. He gets out of the gate and runs away.

This one is the worst one lately.

The other day the boys were playing in the backyard and I was starting dinner. Daniel came running in and says, “Jack is all the way at the park. He got out of the fence and I have figured out how he gets out. There is this place in the fence in the corner and he can get out. Oh, and Luke went after him….”

Uhmm….. what????

So, I bolted out of the house frantically screaming Luke’s name. He was nowhere to be found. The gate was wide open and I had no idea where my child was.

To say that I was in a panic would have been an understatement!

I ran a couple of houses down screaming Luke’s name and he came walking around the corner.

I scooped him up and marched him home and sat him in timeout. Daniel too, because Luke isn’t tall enough to unlatch the gate. My boys got a serious talking to by me and then Dan when he got home.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t go looking for the dog after that. I was so angry and scared and I figured he would find his way home. And he did. With a dead bird in his mouth.

I mean, seriously, he is really not scoring points with me lately. Dan, for whatever reason, had some sympathy and bathed the dog, because he wasn’t coming in my house after rolling around on a dead bird!

I’ll tell you, the little dog is lucky that he has been part of our family for 9 years. And is loved an awful lot, especially by my kiddos. Because he is really not on my good list lately!