Despite my numerous objections, my wife and children brought a puppy into the house. Our three bedroom house already contains the following: three cats, two hamsters, and numerous fish, with two adult dogs living outside. I'm sure that many of you are now wondering: Are they mad?!? For the record, the answer is yes. We were just all sitting around one day, and someone says: "Hey, I have an idea! We already spend half of our money on pet food and live in a house that contains more animals than people, so let's get an inside dog. And not just any inside dog, but a really BIG inside dog. Yay! Praise the Lord and pass the paper towels!"

Bear in mind that this puppy is not just any canine, but a dog whose father is the size of a pony, and whose mother is more like a Clydesdale. No doubt some of you are wondering, bearing in mind the notable size difference, how this union was accomplished. Thankfully, I do not know… nor do I want to, for that matter, but I strongly suspect that it involved a stepladder. Their issue, whom we call Conner, is at the time of this writing, 10 weeks old and already weighs as much as a Honda Civic.

Naturally, my life has changed drastically. I now get up every morning and immediately step in an extra large pile of doggie discharge even though there is always a pile in that exact same place every morning. Now you see where the paper towels come in. Fortunately, I'm always on my way to the shower when this happens. My wife and daughter are attempting to housebreak him, which means that when he craps on the floor, they say "Bad dog!" and take him outside where he just sits there lookin' stupid until someone brings him back inside.

Also, Conner never throws up anywhere except the room I happen to be occupying at the moment. Just the other morning, I discovered that both my kids and wife were feeding him hot dogs. I told them that they shouldn't do that because it would make him sick, but I got the standard "That's just ol' dad, he don’t know s***!" look and they continued to give him hot dogs.

An hour later, I hear that noise (all of you dog owners out there know the noise I'm talking about, too.) coming from under the computer desk where I am performing my Sunday morning ritual of hurling obscenities at our machine in hopes that it will magically begin to run correctly. I scoot back from the desk just in time to see him honk up what looks to be eight hot dogs, buns and all. "GAH!" I say, unable to put any coherent sentences together. "Dawg! Gah! Call the [edit] dog! He's hurk hurk hurking! Desk! Hurry!" My wife and kids are in the next room and have apparently chosen that exact moment to go deaf.

So here I am, cleaning up the mess while trying to keep the puppy from eating it again. I call for assistance once again, this time managing something along the lines of: "SOMEBODY COME GET THIS %#$*ING DOG!!!!!" My plea causes a lame sounding "C'mere Connor" to issue from the other room, which the dog ignores completely, as he is intent on the steaming smorgasbord under the desk. Finally he grows bored and wanders off.

Then I hear it again… that "caff-caff-caff-caff" noise which is always followed by the "KHACKKK!" noise. OH MY GOD! AT LEAST FOUR MORE HOT DOGS! To my horror, I discover that he is looking down at the mess and licking his chops. Everything goes all surreal and Matrix-ey… as I start to move toward the puppy, a tortured NOOOOOOO escaping my lungs. The horror, o the horror!

"There you are, you bad widdle doggie!" says a syrupy sweet voice, and lifts him up and away from his recycled prize. "You bad, bad widdle doggie! Did you make a big ol' barfy-warfy for daddy? Ohhhh, the poor widdle doggie. Is him tick? Is him? Is him got a bad ol' tummy ache? Awww…. Him needum more hot doggies!" And then he is gone… taken into the next room to be loved and adored whilst I am left to clean up his widdle pukie-wukie.

So here I sit at the computer, writing this silly little story. It's 6AM, and everyone else is asleep, except for me and Conner. He's sitting here with his head on my knee, looking up at me worshipfully in that special way that only animals with very little brain power can do. I have to be at work in less than an hour, so I better wrap this up.

If I hurry, I can manage to feed him a third pack of hot dogs before I go.