Forecast at five.

I used to have a great dog.

Years ago I decided I had to have a Yorkshire Terrier. I knew the puppies were around $600, and we couldn't afford one, so I started praying for one. Yes. For a dog. And you know what?

God GAVE me a Yorkie puppy. A breeder 3 hours from our house sent me an email telling me she had a puppy who was already three pounds (at eight weeks, that's really big for a Yorkie), so she wouldn't be able to sell him or breed him. She said if I wanted him, I could HAVE him. I told her we'd be there in three hours.

Spanky turned out to be an awesome dog. He was happy and sweet, never nasty and yappy like some little dogs can be. He was easy to housebreak and train. The perfect dog, just like it says over there in my sidebar.

But you know how you always hear about "a boy and his dog"? Well, we have the boy, but the 11-pound Yorkie wasn't what he had in mind. He wanted a REAL dog.

Help me.

That's when Petey arrived. I won't bore you with the details of how Pete came to be ours, because Ben would just get on here and refute the entire story of his coming home with this brindle bulldog he just HAD to have.

At any rate, we now have Petey (to go along with Spanky . . . as in Little Rascals).

Pete's a pretty good-looking dog. He's half American Bulldog, half who-knows-what. His mother was obviously a lady-of-the-night. He's brindle with a white stripe down his face. He, too, is pretty happy and friendly. He's just dumber than dirt.

Yesterday around 5 pm, we noticed Pete was kind of anxious. I thought maybe he wanted his dinner. When I put his bowl of food on the floor and he walked away, I knew immediately what was wrong.

He could hear the far-off thunder that we couldn't hear.

Bless his heart, he is quite neurotic when it comes to thunder storms. By this time, he was running through the house, panting hard and slobbering everywhere. When it starts, there's no stopping it, so we just put him in the laundry room and close the door. Poor thing, that storm went on for hours last night. He never would eat, wouldn't take a drink, wouldn't even go out. Have you seen the movie, Marley? That's Pete.

We don't need the weather channel. We have a neurotic bulldog.

Be thankful ~

Karen