By Hobo Hudson

When I ambled into the kitchen this morning to get my treats from Dad while he was waiting for his coffee to brew, Dad handed me two pieces of the same kind of treats instead of the usual variety of two different ones. He said we were out of the one flavor of treats, and he had to give me two of the one we still have until he had time to go buy some more.

This was certainly not my idea of the perfect way to start another day, and letting me run out of a selection of my treats was rather annoying. To make it clear that I was not happy, I jumped on the kitchen counter and put my nose in Dad’s face and barked with a toothy smile, “You’re going to have time to buy my treat as soon as you finish your breakfast, aren’t you?”

Without hesitating, Dad said yes, Hobo, and he quickly sat down at the table to eat breakfast while I planted myself next to him, nipping at his leg to make sure he hurried up. After Dad had finally swallowed the last bite of toast and washed it down with the drops of coffee left in his cup, he got up, grabbed his car keys and told Mom he and I were going over to Pet Supermarket to get my treats. I pricked my ears. Going to Pet Supermarket here in town? This wasn’t really what I had in mind because a vision of the clear boxes of tasty peanut butter cookies only available at PetSmart had popped into my head.

Thinking fast and relying on Dad’s usual befuddled morning condition, I casually mentioned I had seen a sale of my treats at PetSmart, and they were ten cents a pack cheaper up there. If we buy three packages, we can save a whole thirty cents.

Since Dad is pretty tight with a dollar, I knew he would jump on my suggestion, and I was praying that he hadn’t had drunk enough coffee to realize it would cost $10 in gas to get to PetSmart while driving to Pet Supermarket would only cost about $1 in gas.

Luckily, Dad’s mind was still a little fuzzy, and he didn’t pick up on that point, so we were soon off on our great safari. After about 40 minutes of driving and having passed Pet Supermarket soon after leaving home, we arrived at PetSmart. On entering, the cashier who wasn’t busy at the moment gave me a great ear scratch and directed us to the aisle containing my treats where another employee handed the treats to Dad. I gave her one of my business cards, and she promised to read Newsandtales.com to see what I was going to bark about her.

When we were walking back toward the check out counter, I pulled Dad to a shelf display and showed him the see-through boxes of delicious peanut butter cookies, and Dad couldn’t resist buying a box for me.

“Mission accomplished,” I thought as I was leading the way out of the store.