Calvin the Hamburglar

This was Calvin this morning... sprawled out across the kitchen floor, one of his new favorite plop spots.

Usually, Calvin spends his mornings staring out the front door looking for squirrels. But today he was tired from running around the dog park yesterday and probably had a bit of a stomach ache too. At least he deserved to have a stomach ache. You see, Calvin is the most opportunistic dog in the world and a gifted counter surfer. 

After almost two years, he's still training us not to leave food within reach. Don't let the long eyelashes and innocent gaze fool you... this is the face of a world class food thief!

Yesterday afternoon I was in the middle of making burgers for our cookout and took a break to step out and talk to the neighbors. Chris let Calvin in and less than a minute later when I remembered the burger situation and ran in, he'd already eaten three of the seven burgers. That's about a pound of uncooked ground beef mixed with egg and onion soup mix. No wonder he spent most of the day today like this:

Needless to say, he didn't get any dinner last night. A pound of beef equals dinner in my book. This isn't the first time he's eaten something he wasn't supposed to and I know it won't be the last. Fortunately for us, he's a big dog with a supernatural digestive tract. To date, he's successfully stolen and eaten the following:

• 2 packages of Fig Newtons
• 1 bag of hotdog buns and 1 bag of burger buns
• 1 block of cheddar cheese
• 5 angel food cupcakes, papers and a toothpick decoration included
• 1 loaf of french bread wrapped in foil (he managed to eat around most of the foil)
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter
• Countless sandwiches, crackers and cookies

Sometimes (like today) he's a little lethargic after a binge, but usually he suffers no ill effects at all. After the neighbors heard about the beef incident, they told us their bulldog Sugar once ate an entire uncarved pumpkin, stem and all. They thought it had been stolen until evidence started showing up in the yard piles. Yuck!

Any other naughty pets out there? I'd love to hear your stories!