The dog ate my...knitting needle

Agreed: this dog child, a.k.a. Lola, is the image of canine cuteness. Utterly belying, of course, her willful nature, which can sometimes be less enchanting than her appearance.

Today we returned from lunch at the Matunuck Oyster Bar, one of our all-time favorite restaurants as much for the view (illustrated above), as for the food (highly recommended: New England clam chowder, the fried oyster plate) http://www.rhodyoysters.com/ . It was then I discovered the following havoc wreaked by a certain Portuguese Water Dog whose name shall not be explicitly mentioned for the nonce: a plastic bag containing a loaf of recently-baked bread had been removed from the kitchen counter, thrown on the floor, ripped apart on a rug, and its contents removed and carried about the livingroom, where crumbs were liberally distributed on two sofas and another rug.

Adding insult to injury, said canine had also snacked on a wooden knitting needle, size number six, that I'd left in a pile of unfinished sweater in the livingroom. She ingested about half of it. Thus I am again reminded (since this isn't the first time it's happened, and for some interesting reason, Lola favors number sixes--are they meat flavored?) that there are advantages to plastic and metal needles. (Check out the snowdrops at the end of the broken needle in the photo! Can spring be far behind?)

The lesson in all of this, I think, is that we should take our dogster with us, whenever possible. She doesn't mind waiting in the car, and she really hates to be left home alone. Q.E.D.