Exonerated

This week has been a week of ups and downs for poor Oso. Earlier this week he suffered from a lapse in self control and was almost donated to an Chinese meat market after he took a fresh loaf of bread off the kitchen table and left what he couldn't eat in the middle of the living room floor. Yeah, that wasn't pleasant to find. Oso also did his best "I'm sorry I ate your bread" routine as long as he thought he needed to before eating the little chunks off the carpet as I walked out.
Not good. No, not good.
This week has had some other similar moments when I have found various articles that I left in the trash can out in the living room. Oso is not a fan of getting yelled at but he is a huge fan of exploring the interior of the trash can. He also has not quite figured out how to cover his tracks. He pretty much gets busted every time. Cringes that he is sorry every time, then forgets how much he hates getting yelled at within a few days.
So why is this entry titled Exonerated?
First off, I love my dog. I figure that this is just practice for if I ever have kids. Either that or this is an opportunity for my parents to chuckle and be amused that I am having to deal with just a taste of what I put them through. Honestly though, Oso is a great dog. He just has this little issue with digging in the trash...and trying to convert every cat he meets into neat piles of poop.
Tonight I grilled. It has been up in the 80's since Monday. I had already noticed that we had fresh gopher activity while bathing Oso early in the afternoon. Of course Oso rolled in the gopher hills while he was waiting for the shampoo to set. Silly dog. He was sooo happy with himself. He had just had all the dirt that he carefully accumulated over more than a month washed out but had immediately rectified by rolling in fresh gopher hill. The doggy smile was washed off his face as all the dirt washed away with the shampoo. Fast forward several hours (and a long walk around the park) later and I was just finishing up a tri-tip on the grill. I called the dog to follow me into the house and he came out of his pen area at a trot. He was one proud dog and rightly so. In his mouth was a fresh gopher! I actually felt bad as I tried to convince him that he had to leave the carcass outside instead of bringing it in.
Totally exonerated. I have the best dog in the world!