Yesterday's Arthur - 2001

Welcome home! Here's Arthur the first month or so after he was adopted – a skinny, bowleggy guy with a little rat tail and a concerned look on his face. He was about six months old.

My sister rolled up the living room rug in case he peed inside, but he actually did pretty well – there were only a couple of accidents, which were so mortifying to him I think he house trained himself out of shame. Good boy!

He did not, however, do so well with the crate – you'd have thought we'd chained him up in a dungeon. Oh, the torture! He would gnaw on the metal bars until his gums bled, and since none of us humans had ever crated a dog before, we had no idea what to do or how to make it better. I was in school at the time and therefore around the house a lot, so he never had to be in there for very long, thank god. He would've worn his teeth down to stubs.

Pretty soon Mr. Man was crate-free, and luckily, the only scold-worthy thing he did was chew the mail for a couple months. But who could blame him for that? The stuff would come shooting through the mail slot every day straight into the living room, practically an invitation for chewing.

I'm so sorry AT&T, my dog ate the phone bill.