Spiro T. Agnew

My mother wasn’t much of a critter person. She didn’t pull the wings off flies or kick cats or anything. She just wasn’t cuddly with critters.

I had a hamster and a chameleon as a kid but until BigBrother brought a dog home from college we didn’t have any ‘real’ pets.

My father named him Spiro, after our then governor Spiro T. Agnew, because he always had his foot in his mouth (just like the Governor.)

My mother wasn’t very happy about this new addition to our family but she allowed him to stay.

With certain rules.

He was only allowed in the kitchen and family room.

It was really very amusing.

  

The way the house was configured the kitchen had two doorways.

One led into the dining room and one led into the hallway.

Spiro was quite bright. He soon learned the rules and would walk right up to the edge of the doorway, but never put a paw into either the dining room or hall. He would stand there and stick his head out and peer around the corner looking longingly to where he wasn’t allowed.

We never put any barriers across the doors. He knew his limits and stayed within them.

Or so we thought.

The house had a long gravel driveway.

A loooong gravel driveway.

There was no way anyone could sneak up. It made too much noise.

Spiro soon learned that when we left he could hear us going down the driveway. He also learned when he heard the crunching noise again it meant we were coming back and that was his signal to get back to his bed in the family room.  

We would have never been the wiser except…….as he got older he must have started to lose his hearing.

One day as we came into the house here came Spiro, down the stairs, hell bent for election, into the family room and towards his bed.

Busted!

Turns out whenever he was left in the house alone he would go upstairs and hop up on BigBrother's bed for a nice comfy snooze while we were gone. As soon as he heard the crunching of the tires on the gravel he knew we were fast approaching and that was his signal to race back downstairs to his own bed!

Did I say he was bright????? I think that may be an understatement.