Naughty Kona

I love my dog. I love him absolutely, unquestionably and adoringly. He was, however, a very bad boy today and I’m going to tattle.

Grandmother Wentworth – most of you know her by now – sent me home on Monday with a wonderful German chocolate cake. My family likes cake but they don’t eat it quickly. They do eat cookies quickly and on a good day would make Napolean’s Ziggy Piggy look down right weak and slow. I digress; we were discussing cake. I share their cake eating speed so that you will know and understand – by Thursday, we still had a large portion of that cake left. It had been sitting on the counter, unharmed and happy. Until today.

I had my teeth cleaned this morning, which left me in a dynamite mood. I’m not joking – I like getting my teeth cleaned almost as much as getting a massage because it feels good and allows me to take a nap during the process. Yes, I am a freak. I share this to let the reader know my day started out on a good note.

After said teeth cleaning, I moseyed on over to Grandmother Wentworth’s house, where we giggled over how sweet Eddie was behaving. He was tuckered out after the hospice nurse’s bath and, much like me when getting my teeth cleaned, somehow managed to sleep through an entire bowl of oatmeal. Grandma would say “Eddie, open your mouth!” and he would open his mouth, eyes still closed, chew up his food and swallow, all with a peaceful curve to his lips.

I left there laughing and content and headed to Houlihans where I had lunch with my favorite cousin Sarah, who I call with deep affection “Baby Saffa”. She used to hate it as a child, when it was said with annoyance, but has accepted that it is a deep and enduring term of endearment now. Say that five times fast. After failing to resist the warm chocolate chip cookie they give you at the end of the meal, I told myself it would still be absolutely acceptable to have a slice of German chocolate cake after I got home. The cookie was, after all, absolutely puny in size.

I should’ve realized there was a problem the minute I opened the door. Kona slipped by me without so much as a lick, and sat down at the end of the driveway. Sideways. With his head held low, peeking at me. Normally, he races out of the door, runs back for licks and pets, runs around the side of the house and does several circles in a spastic show of energy. When I called to him (I’m a little slow on the uptake), he then proceeded to lay down on the driveway, still peeking at me. It was then, as they say, that the light bulb went off.

I didn’t have to wonder WHAT he had eaten. I’m schooled in the art of making sure there is never any bread on the counter. He is partial to carbs. I’m quite accomplished in the art of making sure there is never a bag of chips on the counter. Again, he likes carbs….and oil. Fruit is safe. Canned goods are safe. Boxed goods are safe. Not that he hasn’t tried to eat cereal before, but he’s rather lazy and after finding several boxes on the living room floor with teeth marks in them, we discovered he lacked the intestinal fortitude to do what had to be done to get them open. Kona is very partial to casseroles, we discovered. He once broke my Pampered Chef deep dish baker after somehow pawing it to the end of the counter, and then onto the floor, while we were in the basement watching a movie and letting the turkey tetrazzini cool off before putting it in the fridge. Yes, he exhibited the same “what, I didn’t do anything, I’m just sitting way over here in the corner looking at you out of the corner of my eye” behavior. This time, he continued acting as if he’d done nothing wrong. I thought about giving him the benefit of doubt, even after finding the pan on the kitchen floor licked clean. I was willing to consider that maybe that damn Christmas Elf we paid $30 for at Barnes and Nobel had come back to life and been misbehaving, even after finding a shmear of icing on the living room carpet next to the licked clean piece of tin foil. I was even willing to keep the incident to myself and not involve Brian, who’s OCD truly comes to life when he finds out the dog has been licking our kitchen dishes, until proof positive left me no other choice.

Once I had cleaned up the carpet, the kitchen floor, the kitchen counter, and the cake pan, I invited Kona over for some love….after he felt safe enough to come in from the drive. Seriously, one would think we beat him with a belt or something, as dramatic as he was acting! The invitation involved some gentle talk and assurances that I wouldn’t tell Daddy about this incident if he promised to never do it again. As if!! Then I noticed the “stuff” on his ear. And on his chin. And on his neck. All it took was one smell and I knew there was no way I could protect the poor little puppers. He’d been caught red handed with his proverbial paw in the cookie jar. Sorry Kona, there is no mistaking the smell of coconut. My beautiful black goldendoodle had somehow managed to flip pieces of icing all around his furry face and I’m still finding stray gooey slivers of coconut in his beard. He’s always been a messy eater, sigh.

I could try to wash it off, but it smells pretty good. Brian has a nose like a bloodhound and there’s no way Kona is going to be able to get out of this one. That’s okay, though. He can keep snacking on coconut icing in lieu of dinner. Little shit.