Happy Birthday to Hank!

Today is our little dog's birthday - he's four years old today!!!



Hank is another "pound hound" - we found him at the Copperas Cove animal shelter in March of 2004. We were looking for an adult dog as a companion for Sam. We had been to another local shelter to see a black lab mix, but it turned out he was mixed with pit bull and was NOT friendly! *EEK* We decided to swing by the Cove animal shelter on the way home and, well, while I was perusing the available pooches, my dear husband fell in love with this little mutt. I had to admit that he was cute in a "muttish" kind of way, but I reminded Ed that we did NOT want a puppy! In the end cuteness won out over logic and we came home with a five month old pup. *sigh*

Hank is named after Hank the Cowdog. If you aren't familiar with this character, you MUST check him out. He is HILARIOUS, and SO much like our Hank. My dad started reading the Hank series of books about ten years ago and we all fell in love with the series.

Somewhere along the way Hank's cuteness gave way to just an odd goofy look. He has lots of nicknames - Rocketman (I swear the dog can fly), Little Bit, Bug-eyed Bat-eared Boogerhead, Spanky, Spankers, and the list goes on and on. He'll answer to just about anything. His oddest quirk is that he smiles. Really! He does this goofy grin thing that is impossible to capture with a camera. It almost looks like he's snarling at you, but he's not. It's just his goofy grin! I've never seen another dog do this, and it is SO funny looking! Very fitting for Hank - he's just a little freak!



Some of Hank's quirks (besides the goofy grin)- he's terrified of thunder and fireworks. He LOVES to clean out a Blizzard cup after you've eaten all the ice cream. He'll eat anything - to include the plastic insulators that hold the electric wire around the fence out back. He prefers being outside to inside most of the time. He puts himself to bed as soon as it gets dark out, and will hide his head under the bed if the light from my reading lamp bothers him. He can run like the wind and chasing Sam is his favorite game. Our vet thinks he might have some coyote blood in him (this SO wouldn't surprise us at all!).

He and Sam play well together for the most part. This morning I saw Hank dragging Sam into the living room by his ear so that they could play! Sometimes Hank can get too rough considering that Sam is an "old man" in dog years. I really think that their rough play was a major cause of Sam's knee injury this past spring. Overall they are good buddies and I wouldn't trade either one of them for anything!



Note: Remember last week when I claimed that all pound hounds are "lab mixes"? Case in point - our boys are VASTLY different, but both are classified as "Lab mix"! Go figure! :)