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him keep it. At dinner Mom said we should come up with a name for the dog. I wanted to name it something cool like Shredder or Ripjaw, but Mom said my ideas were too "violent." Manny's ideas were a whole lot worse, though. He wanted to name the dog an animal name like Elephant or Zebra. ZEEB FOR SHORT! Rodrick liked the animal name idea, and he said we should call the dog Turtle.

TURD FOR SHORT. Mom said we should call the dog Sweetheart. I thought that was a really terrible idea, because the dog is a boy, not a girl. But before any of us could fight it, Dad agreed with Mom's idea. SWEETIE FOR SHORT! I think Dad was willing to go with anything Mom came up with if it meant he didn't have to take the dog back. But something tells me Uncle Joe would not approve of our dog's name. Dad told Rodrick he should go to the mall to buy a

bowl and get the dog's name printed on it, and here's what Rodrick came back with— SWEATY I guess that's what you get when you send the worst speller in the family off to do your errands. Wednesday I was really happy when we got our dog at first, but now I'm starting to have second thoughts. The dog's actually been driving me crazy. A few nights ago a commercial came on TV, and it showed some gophers popping in and out of their holes. sweetie seemed pretty interested in that, so Dad said—

WHERE ARE THE GOPHER, SWEETIE? WHERE ARE THEY, BOY? That got Sweetie all riled up, and he started barking at the TV. Now Sweetie barks at the TV constantly, and the only thing that gets him to stop is when the commercial with the gophers comes back on. But what really bugs me about the dog is that he likes to sleep in my bed, and I'm afraid he'll bite my

hand off. if I try to move him. And he doesn't just sleep in my bed. He sleeps right smack in the middle. Dad comes in my room at 7:00 every morning to take Sweetie out. But I guess me and the dog have something in common, because he doesn't like getting out of bed in the morning, either. So Dad turns the lights on and off to try to make the dog wake up.

Yesterday Dad couldn't get Sweetie to go outside, so he tried something new. He went to the front of the house and rang the doorbell, which made the dog shoot out of bed like a rocket. The only problem was, he used my face as a launching pad. It must've been raining outside this morning, because