The Most Hateful Creature

THE dog

Every day we read how one group of people hates another, cheats one another or lies to one another

But surprisingly, there is a creature even more despicable

—the domesticated pet dog.

My dog will lie, cheat and steal to get an extra treat; his favorite trick is to give the “nobody’s fed me” look, when someone new enters the kitchen.

We used to give him a treat to get him to go to his crate in the evening. Now, he starts begging for the treat somewhere around dinnertime. If he gets one he figures if he gets out of his bed, it restarts the cycle. If we don’t acquiesce, we are treated to a most irritating whine.

And he’s full of hate.

Our dog hates squirrels, and rabbits. He hates the Postal Service carrier, the UPS delivery person and the FedEx driver. He hates the sound of the doorbell, anyone walking by the house, and especially other dogs. And since he’s a hound, when he expresses his displeasure, it’s not just a bark, but that distinctive hound-dog bay.

But of all his badness, the worst is his hate of the vacuum cleaner. After we paid for a top-of-the-line model, he attacks it with bared teeth, intent on ripping hundreds of dollars of engineering marvel to shreds.

He’s a hateful creature, I tell you!