Dear Moonshine,

You’re a good dog, you really are.   You are affectionate, playful, and gentle with the kids.  You bark when people come to the house, but not when squirrels walk across the yard.  You even know how to do a few tricks and do as you’re told, most of the time.

But we have a problem.

You’re addiction to baked goods, especially those that I have prepared from scratch, is getting to me.  This morning, you ate half a 9×13 pan of banana spice bread, even though you’ve been fed and had several treats this morning.  Instead of having banana bread for several days to be used as a side, dessert, or treat, I have enough for tomorrow morning’s breakfast and maybe lunch today.

You took advantage of my soft heart in keeping you indoors today when a hard, cold rain is falling, and my need to keep the baby gate on the kitchen open so that I could go back and forth while doing my weekend housework, to filch over a pound of homemade banana bread, and this isn’t the first time.

If you keep this up, you’re either going to find yourself as a permanent outside dog, regardless of weather, or you’re going to find yourself in a stew pot.  Figure something out and change yourself, or I will change you myself.

We all love you, and want you to be a welcome member of our family, but the rule is that no-one but me touches my wife, my kids, my guns, my booze, or my banana bread.   Learn to live by it.

DB