Klepto

Thatcher is a kleptomaniac. You would think that a dog as spoiled as he is would have no need to steal balls, toys, construction cones, etc. Not the case. He lives by the motto "finders, keepers". We've accumulated many the random item in our house thanks to this addiction. He's so sneaky about it too. Balls disappear into his mouth and hide safely behind his big droopy jowls. He can look you straight in the eye and be three inches away from you, and it's still impossible to decipher a ball in his mouth. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't kind of impressive. But the stealing part isn't the only problem.

He eats the treasures he finds. Well, first he has to "kill" the object. This involves popping, ripping, tearing, shaking, etc. When the said object has been satisfactorily subdued to shreds, some of those shreds magically make their way into his stomach. Again with the sneakiness. But when we catch him eating something he shouldn't be eating, like leather pieces from a football or string from a torn apart baseball, he quickly responds in one of two ways. 1. Without breaking eye contact with me, he'll slowly gulp down the piece whole, in the most nonchalant way possible. or 2. He'll hide the pieces in his jowls. I will walk over to him and search his mouth, and find nothing. The moment I step away from him, he'll start chewing on it again. If I notice this and start to scold him, we then cycle back to number 1 or repeat number 2. It's a jolly time.