Stanley: The World's Cuddliest ATM

This is Stanley

Stanley is a 2 year old Lab/German Shepherd mix who weighs just over 100 lbs. And as you can see in the photo, also doesn't appear to have bones of any kind.

One of Stanley's favorite things in the entire universe is eating paper. Any kind of paper. Most of the time this is relatively harmless.*

*Except when he tries to eat paper towels, which can really clog up a dogs digestive tract and cause serious medical issues.  Important safety tip, pet owners.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where certain specific pieces of paper have some value attached to them. We call these pieces of paper 'money'.*

*Stanley calls them 'delicious'.

This was inadvertently discovered a few weeks ago when Stanley's Mom and her gentleman friend* decided to order in Chinese food for dinner and left a twenty and a five sitting on the counter in anticipation of paying for said food upon its arrival.

*Someone really needs to start a band called 'Stanley's Mom and Her Gentleman Friend', because I would totally go see a band called that.  I would probably even buy a t-shirt.

When the food arrived the Twenty five dollars had mysteriously disappeared and there was a guilty looking Labherd with Andrew Jackson on his breath.

Now, without being too indelicate about it, this was something of a temporary problem since - as they say in times of trouble - this too shall pass. And indeed, a week or so later while picking up the poop in Stanley's back yard, cash did indeed present itself.  There's a photo below, but it's really not for the faint of heart.

Being a practical sort, Stanley's mom took the cash laden turd in question to the basement sink and washed it down to see whether or not the bills were still viable. She was somewhat surprised however when it turned out that the turd did not, in actual fact, contain a twenty and a five.

It contained three twenties.

Now, we're left with several different possible explanations as to how this occurred;

1: Stanley's colon is magic.

Feed him cold hard cash and somehow his magical digestive system nearly triples your investment. Now, it's difficult to say whether or not this is really what's happening, but it's probably worth throwing him a five spot just on the off chance.

2: Stanley is roaming the streets at night mugging people and hiding the cash in the only manner available to him

He doesn't have pockets, after all.

3: Stanley is some sort of mule for a Mexican drug cartel.

While he would totally be capable of pulling this off, I have to believe that Stanley is too good a citizen to be involved in this sort of thing.   

Without further testing it's impossible to say which - if any - of these is the real answer. All we can say for certain is that Stanley is currently literally pooping money - thus achieving the dream of pretty much every single person on wall street.

Well played, Labherd.  Well played.


Photo evidence of the cash retrieval process below.  You've been warned

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Happy Stanley Day! Now where is the cake and wine?

It gives me very great pleasure to announce today as the first ever

National Stanley Day!

with the presentation of the brand new furry cousin -

Stanley the Lab (mix)

He's a year old and already 80 pounds, so pity the idiot who breaks into Aunt Kerry's house from this point forward because they'll only find pieces of him.

For the official record, celebration of Stanley Day is marked by Wine, Gnawing on Cow Bones, and frolicking*

*Additional wine may be substituted for cow bones.

Tough talk about toenails.

Before I get into the actual topic today, a brief addendum to my rant about the phrase 'Bucket List' from the other day -

In the St. Paul Skyways - covering a wall that blocks the entrance to what was once a bank and then for years existed as a sort of perpetual flea market - there is a large chalkboard.  Like - 40 feet wide and stretching from floor to ceiling.   And on this chalkboard wall is written the phrase 'Before I die, I want to _______' somewhere around a hundred times in nice neat rows.

The intention being that passers-by would pick up one of the pieces of chalk provided and fill in the blank with whatever burning ambition they have to check off before they allow themselves the sweet and merciful release of death.*

*Sorry... got a bit dark there...

 Every time I pass it I'm consumed with the urge to fill in the blank with  "Write on a chalkboard wal...oh crap..."

I haven't yet been bold enough to do it yet, but if you should see it written there it was probably me.

And speaking of chalkboards - let's talk about fingernails.

Or more accurately, claws (as we of the four legs call them)

So, I've got a friend named Stanley - he's a Black Lab.  Nice kid.  A little on the hyper side, but hey- he isn't even two years old yet so that's pretty much to be expected.  

And Labs are OK in my book.  If you can't be a Vizsla you could do a lot worse than being a Lab.  Nice coat, good nose, could reasonably expect to take out a duck if they had to do so.  Yeah, Labs are pretty cool.

So a couple weeks ago, Stanley was going outside to do his business one last time before bed, when he accidentally tripped over the little ridge track thing that the sliding glass door sits on and almost completely tore off one of his toenails.

Once you've finished going 'GGGYYAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!', I should mention that he's doing fine - had to have the rest of the nail surgically removed and now he's wearing a very dapper looking sock until his new nail grows in, which means he is totally missing out on sandals weather, but what can you do, right?

The point I'm getting at here is this - Not enough people are sympathetic to how big a pain in the butt it is to have these claws and be totally reliant on someone else to trim and maintain them.  I mean, sure, you can run back and forth on concrete to try and wear them down, but eventually the two-legged food machine that you live with is going to have to intercede on your behalf and trim them.  And dewclaws - don't even get me started on dewclaws.  It's like somebody in dog history said 'Hey, you know what would be awesome?  If we had opposable thumbs like humans, but without that pesky 'being opposable' part, so they just kind of hang there and occasionally get snagged on things.'

And it's not like we're allowed to do anything cool with our claws in any case.  They're great for digging, but that just gets you yelled at, and as a certain Border Heeler at home finds out on a regular basis, jumping up and scratching the hell out of daddy's arms because you're excited he's home does not make you very popular.

Claws.  Can't live with em, can't live without em.  Am I right, people?

(Hang in there Stanley - and that is one sweet sock you've got on)