So I was running a little late this morning. I have to be at work by 9am, and I was just putting Homer in his pen at 8:40. It takes me 20-25 minutes to get to work, depending on traffic.

As I locked the gate, I noticed that his water bowl was turned over and, thus, empty. I didn’t want my poor little pup to be dehydrated today, so I grabbed the bowl and filled it with delicious, crisp, and refreshing garden hose water. After unlocking the gate, I bent down to put the water bowl in its place. And that’s when the opportunistic prick decided to make the next 10 minutes a track meet.

I swear to you, he had no more than 6 inches of daylight between the gate and the side of the house, but he was hell-bent on making it through to the relative freedom of the backyard. And he did. And I unleashed a string of profanities, several of which would have made George Carlin blush.

He ran out to the middle of the lawn and got into The Crouch. You dog owners know exactly what I’m talking about: front elbows on the ground, butt high in the air, tail wagging uncontrollably. The, “Haha, you slow, immobile bastard! Catch me if you can!” crouch. This is hardly a fair game, and he knows it. The whole time I’m verbally threatening him, and he thinks the appropriate response is to bob and weave and run away from me. Just when I get to within two feet of him and I think the ordeal is finally over, he pulls evasive maneuvers and is at the opposite side of the yard in 0.3 nanoseconds.

I tried everything. “Homer want to go inside?” “Homer want a biscuit?” “Homer want me jerk him off?” Well, okay, not the last one, but the point is, everything up until then had been an exercise in futility.

I wish this story had some great climax about how I used my genius to outsmart him and trick him into willingly going back into the pen, but sadly, no. He must have taken pity on his less-than-fleet-of-foot adversary. Or perhaps he was tired; he last weighed in at 95 lbs, and we have since cut back on his portions. Fatass. Anyway, he eventually just gave up and let me catch him and put him back in the pen.

We both learned something this morning: he, an extensive list of new words that mean to him, roughly, “Oh crap, he’s pissed. I’d better have as much fun as I can before he catches me”, and, “Wow, look how easy it is to make an ass out of this guy.” Me, I learned that my little quadruped is really only in this for himself. He fronts the loving, doting, family pet, but he’s really just a selfish hedonist.

Good dog!