Nicholas loves our pets.

Nicholas has been knows to feed Gunther whole hamburger buns directly from the bread drawer. So now Gunther lets him do whatever he wants. Except step on his nose.

Nicholas also loves the cats. He runs after them, shrieking and laughing. He also calls out "Guk! Guk!" Which is his way of calling Puck, our fluffy white kitty not pictured here. This is kind of sweet because Puck will not have anything to do with anyone, especially not Nick, who has been known to try to sit on him, as he is sitting on Gunther in this picture. Nick also loves to chase Frank, pulling his tail, and Frank will actually let him get close and pat him a few times.

It makes me smile when Nick laughs just because there is a cat on TV or in a book. But nothing makes me happier than seeing just how far Gunther will let Nick go. Gunther may be hyper and he may be hard to control. He may jump up on strangers and bark and he may growl at me or at Steve when we yell at him for eating a whole chicken or tell him to go outside after he licks all the cheese off the pizza we specifically put high up out of his reach... but he is always nice to Nick. Nick is the only one he leta close to him while eating, even letting the kid dig his hands into the bowl and scoop out handfulls of dog food nuggets.

Hey - I guess he figures it will come back to him in hamburger buns.