As some of you may know, my house is home to two Weimaraners, an older female named Tess, and a middle-aged male named Dash. We’ve owned Tess since she was a pup, barely five weeks old. Dash is our rescue boy, brought home the day after his first birthday. Tess has always been my girl. Dash bonded with my daughter, and since said daughter bought her own place and moved out, he prefers my husband to me, which is fine, I guess boys attract boys.

It’s been a family tradition for some years that we accompany my husband on his Father’s Day shooting weekends. When I say we I mean the dogs and me. Both Tess and Dash are acclimated to gunfire. Actually, they’ve always been oblivious to it.

In between shooting events, we stroll down vendors row, where anything that can remotely be marketed as relevant to the shooting crowd is for sale. I walk Tess. Steve walks Dash. They’re always good as gold.

The culprit Dash

And so it was that we approached a big box truck with a lift gate, the kind you see delivering fridges and other large appliances. The truck, with rear doors flung wide, lift gate up to form an extension of the truck’s floor, and a flight of wood steps beside the gate, is stocked with purty shotguns for sale that the shooters can climb the stairs to see.

Outside the lift gate, at the truck’s rear, there’s a rickety table—y’know, the kind you store all folded up and only drag out for backyard parties?—only this one’s full of $3,000-$6,000 high-end gun stocks—exotic woods, beautiful graining, burls—about 20 of them all lined up and glowing in the sunlight.

And that’s when my dear husband decides he’s got to go into the truck to see the guns. He hands me Dash’s leash and heads up the stairs. Dash takes one look at dad up in the really cool truck and decides he HAS to be with him, and the most direct route?

You guessed it.

He bounds onto the table to propel himself up on to the lift gate. The table goes flying. The gun stocks go flying. Dash goes flying.

By the time I corral him, and the onlookers stop laughing, and the vendor gathers up the beautiful stocks and assays the damage to them, we owe him $600–not that $600 would buy the two that Dash damaged, no, that money is just to repair the scuffed finishes.

What price love? Clearly it goes for $600.

Happy Father’s Day, dear. <sigh>