Sparky. He’s so smart it’s unsettling.

So I’m folding clothes in my living room today when Sparky walks up with a pair of boxer briefs in his mouth that I’d dropped in the kitchen. He then hands them to me and casually walks away.

All I could manage to do was sit there holding them, staring at him in awe as he left, presumably to go study the Theory of Quantum Entanglement or something.

Sparky. He never ceases to surprise me.

The Latest: I may have a Super-Brained Genius Dog. Seriously.

He’s looking into your soul.

Just a few more updates regarding my ever-growing suspicion that my dog may be a freak of nature . . .

A few weeks ago at Oak Island he and I were taking a walk, just strolling down the beach. Spark was looking for a possible seagull, crab or sandpiper kill and I was checking out the . . . seashells. Yeah, that’s what I was doing. Anyway, as we’re walking we come upon a group of vacationers just finishing up a game of Bocci Ball. You know, the game where somebody throws a little white ball somewhere and everyone then tries to see who can come the closest to it with their Bocci Balls. So the group had completed the game and were back in their beach chairs after having put all the balls in a little circle in front of them. However, just as we were walking by the little white ball blew away and was rolling down the sand towards the ocean. One of the guys begins to chase it, but right then Sparky makes a dash for it and grabs it before it gets to the water. He then takes it past the guy, up to the group, and places it gently in the circle with the other balls, precisely where it had been before. After a few seconds of stunned silence the group begins a slow golf clap, shaking their heads as they do so.

As Sparky re-joined me, I just smiled, shrugged and walked on.

A couple of days later, just before I was going to depart Oak Island for the Outer Banks, my sister (I was staying in her beach house) told me if I wanted anything washed to throw it in a pile in the hallway and she’d take care of it before I left. I did so and walked down the beach to visit friends by myself. She told me later that Sparky then took my clothes, one by one, put them back in my room, and laid on them. He then proceeded to growl at anyone who tried to get them.