My son's English golden retriever, Charley, has been boarding with me and Cassie during work hours for the past two days.

At about two, Charley still has some puppy manners. Oh, what the heck. Let's just admit it: this is a beast for whom "training" has never been a very operative term. One of his favorite antics is counter-surfing. Meanwhile, it's worth noting that my son is truly a great cook, and that he likes to entertain his friends with wonderful food.

Over the weekend, he -- son, not dog -- prepared fried chicken for a small party of friends. The food on the table, he carried the pan of hot grease out to the laundry room, set it on the cold concrete floor, and closed the door on it, by way of keeping it out of reach of small children and large dogs.

Sunday he brings it inside so he can do his laundry and clean up the house. Sets the pan of now-congealed grease on the counter, as far from the edge as it will go, where he leaves it to warm up enough to  flow into a container so he can dispose of it.

Now he goes on about his business. Pretty soon he walks back through the kitchen and thinks, "That's odd. Looks like there's about half as much grease in the pan as there was a few minutes ago."

LOL! As that thought crosses his mind, he hears "hork hork hork hork HOOOORRRRKKKK!"

This would be the sound of a large dog barfing.

Charley had managed to stretch all the way up to the back of the counter to reach the puddle of grease, which he happily scarfed down and less happily woofed up.

Charley, who IMHO is the product of remarkably poor breeding by a not-altogether-honest backyard breeder, has a sensitive stomach to begin with. My son is very careful about what the pooch eats and feeds him only ultra-premium dog food. That notwithstanding, Charley gets a stomach upset at the drop of a hat. As you can imagine, half a pan of frying oil did not agree with him...

Seven o'clock Monday morning: the phone rings.

"Mom?"

"Yesh." Who else would it be at this hour?

"Would you watch Charley today? He has diarrhea and he's throwing up."

Oh, goodie! "Uhm, well...sure. Bring him over."

Hence, Charley to the Funny Farm, here to be chased around by the Queen of the Universe, who thinks he's a strange-looking sheep.

She could be right: Charley's IQ is about that of a sheep. Just between you and me and the lamp-post. ;-)

It took Charley two days to recover from his latest exploit. By yesterday evening he was OK. Presumably...it's only 6:30 as we scribble -- the kid doesn't leave for work until 7:45, so there's plenty of time for him to decide to show up here with the dog again. Let's hope the gluttonous hound is cured, for the nonce.

One vast benefit of a dog with short legs is that she can't reach the counter, so you don't have to exert yourself to demand that she stay off the counter!

LOL! I've offered my old Scat-Mats, which I used to communicate the counter-surfing ban to the late German shepherd, but my son thinks they're cruel.

Cruel? They have all the ferocity of a static charge from a doorknob after you've been shuffling around on a nylon carpet. I've stepped on them bare-footed and I've handled them when they were plugged in and, while they're annoying, they're not especially painful.

At any rate, Charley doesn't climb on my counters because when he was growing up and staying at my house for puppy day-care, I taped one of the things across the edge of the tilework and left it there for a few days. Slightly inconvenient, it was, to have to cook and clean around it...but a lot less inconvenient than having to knee an 80-pound dog off the kitchen counter every ten minutes.

Cassie is the first short dog I've had since, as a young girl, I escaped my mother's house and her crazy-making chihuahua. I've always felt you shouldn't have to bend down to pet your dog.

So wrong!

The inconvenience of bending down and of having to lift the dog into the car is so outweighed by the glory of a dog that can't get up on the counters, can't easily jump onto the sofa, and does not knock you to the ground if she takes it into her mind to jump up on you.

Ah, the benefits of a short-legged dog! Rabbit pellets instead of Everest-sized dog mounds to pick up. A dish of food each morning and evening instead of barrels of pooch food. No counter surfing. No sofa-hogging. Vast speed. And amazing cuteness.

Boss Corgi supervising retriever play