Movin’ On In

Flacko had been living in this house for eight months now, and he decided it was high time to get himself officially adopted.

By now, he’d convinced Mina that he was fun to play with. In fact, maybe he’d done too good a job convincing her, because sometimes when he was napping, she came up to him and stuck her paw in his face. If he pretended to be asleep and let out a fake snore, she just batted her paw at him again and barked imperiously in his face. With that kind of challenge, of course he had to get up and chase her around!

Paco hadn’t been so easy to win over. For one thing, Paco was, well…he didn’t like to say bad things about an almost-brother, but quite frankly, Paco was a wuss.

Paco shrieked and wailed when anyone other than Mommy was near him, and he was very suspicious if Flacko dared approach The Mommy while Paco was nearby. One time, Mommy had taken just him for a walk and Paco had scratched at the baby gate and started crying before they even got out of the house!

“Listen, buddy,” Flacko said to him. “Confidentially speaking, walking’s no fun. Hey, I’ve seen you drag your feet on walks. And wearing this string around my neck isn’t doing much for my rep. But believe me, you’ve got a better deal than I’ve got, so count yourself lucky.”

Paco’s response had been to growl at him, between two whimpers and a bark. Sheesh, try to do a guy a favor!

But at least Paco had learned one thing from him — how to bite the noses off the stuffed toys. Flacko made it a habit to dig out at least eight new toys from the toy chest per day, and he shared his booty with the gang. Mina wasn’t interested unless someone was working the toy for her (typical of a woman), but Paco had started imitating Flacko’s method of flinging the toy to himself and then pouncing on it. And a good nibble on the nose was just icing after that. As a matter of fact, the three of them had made quite an impressive collection of noseless toys, and Mommy was so proud of their work that she’d even displayed them on top of the TV.

At any rate, Flacko made up his mind that he wanted to stay here. The food was good (and he was a whole pound heavier to prove it) and the toys were plentiful. Flacko waited until Mommy and Daddy were settled on the couch, and then he made his move.

He grabbed his stinky bunny, and leaped onto the couch. Sitting quietly between them, he clutched the bunny in his mouth. Just before he fell asleep, he heard Mommy hiss, “Look at Flacko! He’s so cute!” and Daddy said, “He is, the little stinker.” Flacko smiled privately, and knew he’d be there to stay.