Since we got our puppy a few months ago, he’s learned a few things. He’s learned, for example, that he can interrupt dinner by ringing his bathroom bell as soon as we’ve taken our first bite. He’s learned that the hamper is a treasure trove of dirty socks. He’s learned that nothing in life is more fun than grabbing hold of the toilet paper and sprinting away, thus unraveling the whole roll and making Deserae scream.

The discovery that I think he’s most proud of, however, is that Sundays don’t have to happen unless he allows them to.

Nugget hate, hate haaaaates Sundays. Sundays start like Saturdays, which he loves more than anything. When the clock ticks past 6 a.m. and nobody has left for work yet, you can see the wheels in his furry little brain start turning. Wait, Saturday? A second Saturday?! Can it be?!! Oh wow, OK this is a pleasant surprise! Let’s see, I’ll have to move some things around in my schedule, but we should be able to spend a few hours playing, then we can snuggle and then go for a nice long walk and…wait. Why are you dressing fancy?

At some point every Sunday morning, you can see it click. Nugget figures out that this is not Saturday. This is Sunday, which means he will spend much of the day in his pen while we are at church and Chipotle and my parents’ house having what he must assume to be a super adventure without him. At this point, he puts his ears back and makes the saddest sad puppy face you’ve ever seen.

Once he realizes the sad puppy face won’t make us stay, he kicks off Operation: Sunday. In Operation: Sunday, Nugget uses his size and speed advantages to elude capture for as long as possible and make us embarrassingly late for church.

“You’re an adult human,” you might be saying right now. “You know that you can just make the small animal go into his cage, right?” Thank you. Yes, I know. Unfortunately, I have blown my opportunity to make the dog go anywhere, because of a little game we play called “Chase the Dog All Over the House.” In this game, instead of simply saying, “Come here,” when I want Nugget to come here, I chase the dog all over the house. Both of us enjoy this game very much.

Well you know how it’s not a great idea for humans to treat everything with antibiotics because we’re slowly creating an infection that will be impervious to all of our treatments and kill us all? I just realized that I’ve unwittingly created a small, furry Super Germ.

Trapping Nugget used to feel like taking candy from a baby. Just get him to run between the couch and the ottoman and scoop him up. But then he discovered the haven of the bed. If he could make it under the bed, he learned, he’d be safe. And that worked for a while, until I started using socks. Nugget can’t resist socks. All I’d have to do is hold a dirty sock under the bed like a worm on a hook. Nugget would immediately bite, and I’d drag his flopping body out from under the bed.

He looks so catchable, doesn’t he?

But then Nugget became sock-resistant. So I started juking left and scooping right. He caught onto the fake-out, so I had to do a double fake-out, then a double fake-out reverse, then a double reverse with a twist, etc. etc. etc.

Nugget used all this as training to become the Ultimate Sunday Warrior.

This past Sunday, Nugget seemed extra convinced that it was Saturday. He spent the morning galloping around the house and gleefully putting everything in his mouth. But sometime around 9:15, he sensed something was amiss. At 9:20, my tie went on and his ears went back.

“Hey Nugget,” I said as I bent over. “It’s all ri…Nonono NOOOOO!!!!”

Nugget sniffed out the Sunday pick-up and dove under the bed just in time.

“Hey buddy,” I said as I looked under the bed. “You wanna come out?” Nugget retreated further. I sighed, squished my body under the bed and started to crawl. I made it to my shoulder blades before getting stuck. As I squirmed back out, though, I found a roll of wrapping paper under the bed. I grabbed it and used it as a broom to shoo Nugget.

The good news was that I succeeded in shooing him out from under the bed. The bad news was that he ran to the guest room and hid under that bed. We went through the broom routine again and – nonono NOOOOOOO! – he ran under the bed in the third bedroom. Deserae, who had gone downstairs, heard me screaming and running through the halls and came up to see what the commotion was all about.

“What’s going on?”

“CLOSE THAT DOOR!”

“Huh?”

“CLOSE THAT…NOOOOOOO!!!”

Nugget squirted out from under the bed and bolted back into our room. I glared at Deserae. “Close all the doors while I get a treat.”

When I went back upstairs with the treat, Nugget was under our bed, out of reach of even the wrapping paper tube. I held out my hand with his favorite treat.

“Oh look!”

He stayed put.

Yummmmmmm!!”

Nope.

“I give up,” I said turning back to Deserae, “I guess we’ll just leave him to poo and pee all over the house.”

“I got it,” Deserae said.

“I don’t think you do.”

“Just leave.”

After I walked out the door, I heard Deserae use her sternest mom voice. “Nugget. Come.”

Five seconds later, she walked through the door with a furry, little dog in her hands. “Take this,” she said.

“How did you…”

“I don’t play games.”

I brought the dog downstairs and started clipping on his leash to go to the bathroom. “I don’t play games either,” I whispered to Nugget.

He stiff armed me and almost got away.

LIFE LESSON #104

Don’t play games with dogs. They’re better athletes than you.