Mahogany
When Midnite first came home, she was an energetic puppy. Our other dog was an aging Irish Setter, named Mahagany ("Maggie"). Maggie was Midnite's best friend in the world and she would constantly be pesting her...jumping all over her while she was trying to sleep, etc. About a year after Mahogany passed away, a new little pup came home in a stocking. Midnite was almost two years old and had become very settled down. The new puppy, Holly Berry, treated her just like she had treated Maggie -- constantly wanting to play games and run around.


Black Wallpaper
In our house in Chicago, Midnite's very favorite place to rest was under the desk in the kitchen. Here she wouldn't be bothered by Holly or us kids when she was trying to rest and she got the attention from Mom when she was working at the desk. After a while, the wallpaper underneath the desk where she would always lay was starting to turn black from her rubbing up against it.


April Fool's
As an April Fool's joke one year (even though she was a day early), Midnite waited until we were all sitting in the TV room and she went in the bathroom (right near by) and grabbed one end of the dangling toilet paper. She ran with it into the kitchen and the TV room, TP-ing the inside of our house.


Really Thirsty
Most dogs will drink out of the toilet if they one available and don't have a bowl of water. Midnite was no exception. But, when we would try to keep the toilet seat lid down to prevent her from drinking from the toilet, she would use her nose to lift the seat and stick her head in and drink. From the other room, you would hear her drinking then SLAM! the seat would fall when she was down drinking.


Clever Nose
When we moved to Cincinnati, the dogs had their own little room next to the kitchen. We had a homemade gate (a.k.a. plywood stuck in the doorway) to keep them in there (mostly Cupid because she was the puppy). When nobody was home or she felt like she was being left out of the action, she would use her paws and her nose to move the gate out of the way and escape. She got really good at it and could also get the gate on the porch when it got too hot for her. Well, if nobody was home when she snuck out, she would raid the pantry...grab any good smelling food from the bottom two shelves and bring it back into Holly's cage. She was thinking that Holly would get in trouble, but we knew it was really her doing it.


The Dock
Black labs are water dogs and Midnite loved the water. One weekend, we decided to take her on our boat (Mahagany, named after our dog who passed away). Midnite loved the idea and was excited about being able to swim in Lake Michigan. She was running around excited, ready to go, until she got to the edge of the dock. She couldn't walk on the wooden planks of the dock so we had to carry her down the dock and into the boat. When we were out on the lake and swimming in the cold Lake Michigan water, she decided she wanted to join us. She jumped off the swim platform of the boat into the water. She swam around a little bit and tried to get out, but she couldn't get back up. Three of us had to push her up out of the water and onto the boat.