I'm Not Spoiled!

We have a habit in our house.  I won't say a bad habit because it depends on what point of view you take.  From the dogs' view it's fantastic!  Somehow or another our dogs have been trained to "expect" certain things to take place when we come home from being away from them.  They, first of all, can hear or sense the sound of our cars before we even round the corner to our house, as they are both anxiously awaiting us staring out the window.  As we approach the door, if we have any sort of shopping bag in hand, we BETTER have a toy inside.  If we haven't been shopping they are still trilled to see us, but they much more prefer to see that oh so exciting bag.  If there is a bag (and with me there usually is), it's very hard to get into the house without Murray's head firmly inside of it as soon as it's within his reach.  What is he looking for??  A "ball" (Murray knows ALL dog toys to be called balls).  Any kind of stuffed dog toy with a squeaker makes him happy for days.  That new toy will go outside, to bed and all over the place with him.  He will search our shopping bags furiously until he finds it.  Five or so grocery bags aren't even enough to slow him down.  Piper, on the other hand, does not care about any fluffy friend to hunt for.  He expects that when Murray ends his scavenger hunt and runs off to his bed with his new favorite ball, that he will get a milkbone.  Murray is toy driven and Piper is food driven all the way.  There is even one year we bought a Christmas stocking as part of a gift we planned to give, and before we knew it, Murray thought it was his usual "mom went out shopping" toy, and long story short, we had to buy another stocking... in secret.  In 5 years have we accumulated lots of toys?  YES, but Murray is one happy dog because of it.

Murray and most of his toys

Happy as can be!