I got a real good haul this Christmas. Listen to this; noise-canceling headphones, 5 lbs of Haribo gummy bears, candy orange slices (certainly NOT bought in LA), and to treat myself got some of my favorite scotch to sip on during my yearly LOTR marathon.

Yes indeed it was a good Christmas.

However I was certainly not the winner of gifts this holiday season.

My parents bought one extra thing in my holiday package, but it wasn’t for me. It was for my dog.

Two full bags of Beggin’ Strips.

And trust me when I say no one on this Earth enjoys their Christmas day haul more than my dog.

It really is an amazing thing. Throughout the entire day, my dog lays on my bed watching Animal Planet, gets up for a lazy walk when I get home, and fades in and out of consciousness the rest of the day.

I try to teach her some words from time to time, like ‘stay’, ‘come’, ‘sit’, ‘clean’, ‘don’t shed’, etc, but on;y with occasional success.

However the word ‘treat’ was learned in one moment.

My dog cannot tell time, mainly because she is a dog. But for some odd reason she always knows when it is 9:00 pm. Why? Well, that is treat time.

Her focus on the world and her surroundings is so sporadic, just the slightest sound makes her turn her head and lose interest in whatever she was doing before.

But when I pull out a Beggin’ Strip, I swear you have never seen such laser-sharp focus, in human or animal. She just zeroes in on that strip in my hand, for minutes on end, until I concede the bacon to her.

And the way she eats these things, with a strange dichotomy of love and voraciousness that only a hungry dog can. I mean I don’t know what these things taste like, but I am sure I have had nothing register such unbridled joy as these things do for her.

So kudos to Arwen; the happiest creature during the holiday season. And all it took was a few strips of faux-bacon.