Helpful hooves and busy lips

Gabe is an incredibly helpful guy. If he had thumbs, he'd be right up in the thick of things, getting it done.

Oh. Wait. He already is.

He likes to be right. there. with you, either resting his chin on your back or trying to operate the tools himself.

See how helpful he is, trying to assist Kayleigh in her poisonous weed digging efforts?

Hey, little human, gimme that shovel! I'll show you how it's done! He did try to snatch that shovel from her a few times and try as she might, she couldn't even bodily shove him away.

He's always been a helpful ham. When the run-ins were under construction, he'd casually wander over and steal tools...drills, hammers, a box of screws, whatever he could get his teeth on and take off with. As irritating as it can be, it sure makes hard work a little lighter.

The last big job of getting the fence done involved hand-digging a three foot deep hole to sink and concrete in a 6"x8' post to hang the gate from. I loaded up my little utility wagon with all the supplies: Post hole digger, shovel, concrete, post, level, measuring tape and a 5-gallon bucket of water to set the concrete.

Of course, my big man was over there right up in my business, making a gigantic mess of my neat pile of dirt by digging around in it. He kept trying to steal the post hole digger from me and snatched the level at least once.

Then, that great big snot drank my entire bucket of water. He stood there as I was laboring and sweating and swearing at the hole I was digging and that sneaky, sneaky turd drank all my water! Last thing I wanted to do was trek all the way back to the house to fetch more, but, of course I did. I swore I was going to make HIM do it and called him all sorts of lovely names while giving him neck scritches.

Gate posts must be as straight as possible or the gates hang funny and don't swing right. So, I dropped that post into the hole, dumped a little dry concrete in there to hold it in place a bit better and broke out my level to get that sucker as straight as possible.

And Gabe, once again, had to help. Level against the post I'd shift it ever so slightly one way or the other, intently watching to make sure that magic bubble lined up precisely. I'd get it juuuussttt right and here comes his big nose to shove the post where he sees it more fit to be.

Grrr...what should have taken a 1/2 hour to complete took over an hour because of his oh-so helpful nature.

Don't get me wrong, I love the big guy to pieces, but he seriously makes a simple job so much more complicated! If I'd loved him any less he would have been dodging the dirt clods aimed at his nosy rump rather than seeking scratches and resting his head on my shoulder where he'd sigh deeply and try to sneak the tools out of my hands.