The story of Chili

Chili came to me as a Christmas present from a girl I was dating at the time. I came over to her house one night and there he was. Fresh from the SPCA, he was a little black puppy who still had the stitches from being neutered. The folks at the SPCA thought he was around 2 months old, but we've figured out that he was probably born sometime in June of 2004. He's part lab, part something else, part mayonnaise, and part bottomless pit. At four and a half, he still has that lack of body awareness that only a puppy has. He constantly runs into things (including Britten's head a couple of days ago). I used to worry that he might be hurting his head, giving himself a concussion or brain damage, with all the banging, but then I realized that he started out with the intelligence of a potato, so his intelligence could really only get better.

At times, I've called him Booger, Captain Idiot, Bubba, Black Dog, and of course Chili. He generally responds to none of these unless food is present.

He's an attention whore. Really, he just likes to be where the action is, not to necessarily get attention. Many a morning, I've had to tie my shoes with a snout and/or tongue in the middle of the shoelaces.

He likes to eat rawhide chips a little too fast. He'll swallow them well before they will actually go all the way down his throat, and they get lodged in the back of his mouth. This leads to either an immediate regurgitation (with lovely accompanying noises), or 45 minutes of licking his bed before then regurgitating the chip. It's one of his more lovable traits.