Would you please stop doing that

It's a rare bird dog that doesn't have at least one annoying habit.  Mine collect them like cockleburs or beggar's lice, oblivious to efforts at breaking them and at times reveling in my irritation.  One liked to ride in the front seat, no, loved to ride in the front seat.  Remember the guy in school who always called shotgun at the first mention of going anywhere?  The guy who was simply too good to ride in the back?  Cover him with fur, make him walk on four legs and juice him with an overdose of persistence and you'll know what I suffered.  Over, under, around, and he never stopped trying.  Grab him by the collar and drag him over the console into the rear and he'd beat my arm back to the front.  He pounded me into submission every single time.

One snatched food off of the kitchen counter, a standard feature in about half of all canine models.  He'd let enough time pass between episodes to make me think I'd cured him and then, without any fanfare, he'd do it again.  No shame, no apologies, not even a hint of disguise.  He was the unrepentant prisoner telling the parole board, "Yep, I did it.  Nope, I don't regret it.  Yep, I'll do it again if I get the chance."

My latest edition is really excited when I get home in the evening.  This is a habit I never want to take out of a dog, so pleasing is it to know that regardless of what's happened over the last eight or ten hours I'm still the greatest thing in the world to at least one being. There are limits, however.  He used to jump up and plant both paws squarely on my shirt and even on the driest of days managed to stow dirt in them just long enough to transfer it. A trainer showed me a trick to get him off my chest which, unfortunately, didn't kill his desire get his paws on me somewhere, somehow.  Now he gets within a few feet and, bouncing up and down like the front end of Julio's low rider, stretches his paws toward me.  One of them always finds its way to my pants, and always has mud or dirt on it when it does.

No matter what, you can't seem to break them of these habits.  It's what makes them individuals.  Otherwise they'd be perfect, and perfect dogs only exist in legend.  Strangely, so many of the things that in the beginning annoy - knocking over the water bowl while I put food in the dish, climbing on the couch only when soaking wet, that look over the shoulder just before taking off in the other direction, completely removing the flowers and potting soil my wife just painstakingly put in the flower pot - become of part of the package that you can't separate from the rest and you just kinda come to accept.  And then one day the package is gone and you miss all of it.