Tail in my tennis shoe

There is nothing more excited than a puppy at five in the morning. Buc is ready to go and lets your know it with a few quick barks right about five. I stumble out of bed, take the blender thingie out of the fridge and start whipping the smoothie I created the night before and head for the box. (The box is where Buc does his overnights, time when I am not there, yada.) You can hear his tail whacking the side of the box and as I get within range of opening the little metal gate, his tail is knocking the poor box to death.

He bounds out of the box, his body being wagged by the out of control tail, and does a ears down dance around my feet until I pet him and he jumps to my knees for the first of a couple of thousand daily licks. The jumping starts as soon as I pick up the double dog dish and fill one side with water and the other side with Puppy Chow. How can they eat that stuff?

Normally, the dish is enough of a distraction to give me time to put my, jeans, socks, tennies, and jacket on and be ready for him once he cleans out the dish. With Wal-Mart plastic sack in one hand, and his chewed up leash in the other, he knows it is time to head for the neighbor's grass.

But not today. I was slow. He was fast. He got done eating just as I stood up to slide my foot into my tennis shoe. He was dancing around and I didn't see his tail innocently fall into the tennis shoe just as my foot was going down into it.

Poor guy. He howled and jumped away with my leg in tow. He bit at it. And I hopped after him, trying not to fall and kill us both. I reached to pull off the shoe. He pushed at my hand with his paw. We spun around. I hit the floor. The shoe came off. The tail came out. He ran for the safey of the box.

I would to if I lived with a common abuser like that. I am surprised the neighbors didn't call the cops with all of that racket.

There is an amazing tail to start your day, huh.