Petite canine gets the best of us

The text message read: "Gonna ill Du e."

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I looked, then looked again. I still couldn't make heads or tails out of it. But then it's somewhat difficult to type a readable text message on a cell phone without a "k." Just ask my husband.

It's also hard to play an Xbox game with tooth marks around the edges. Just ask our 14-year-old son.

And it's a little tricky wearing flip-flops without the toe holder. Just ask our 17-year-old son's girlfriend.

You guessed it. We've got a puppy.

As cute and adorable as "Duke" is, he's eating us out of house and home. Well, it's more like chewing us out of house and home.

A miniature pinscher, Duke is 5 1/2 months old. He is about 10 inches tall and weighs a little more than 6 pounds.

So far, he has demolished a pair of prescription eyeglasses, a cell phone, four music CDs, two shoes (from different pairs), six socks (also from different pairs), four pairs of earbuds, his food bowl, a throw rug and a pillow. I think that's most of it.

The problem is that he knows he's cute, and he exploits that fact ruthlessly.

He looks just like a baby deer, except for his coloring. He's black and brown and has humongous ears. He also tries, successfully I might add, to boss our 45-pound border collie and our 95-pound Labrador. He acts like he is bigger than the Lab, and she appears to believe it.

He's just so darn cute that one can't possibly stay mad at him longer than it takes to clean up the mess.

And before you suggest providing him with chew toys, we've been there, done that. He has actually dropped his toy to chew on a wooden coat rack instead.

It's been a couple years since we've had a puppy in the house. Our other two dogs are old enough that we had mostly forgotten their mischievousness.

Ha.

Now, each time one of us complains about the latest of Duke's teeth marks, another one of us says, "Oh yeah, remember when [insert the name Maggie or Brandy] did that?"

Ahh, we forget so easily.

I've actually learned to tell when Duke has done something he shouldn't. He'll come bounding into the room wherever I'm at and leap into my lap. He's so incredibly joyful that his entire body is quivering. He'll lick my cheek, then curl up and go right to sleep with his head on my arm.

He knows how much I like to cuddle. His devious little brain surmises that if he does that then I won't get up to go and see what he has done. So then, later, when I do finally discover his misdeeds, I'll be feeling so warm and fuzzy that I won't get too angry.

And he's usually right.