Good thing I hid the matches

We're testing Big, leaving him out of his crate while we're gone for longer periods of time now -- an hour here, two hours there. Today, we left him alone for what was about four hours of being cage-free. If he were an egg, we could charge a buck more for him now.

He's not for sale.

But, anyhow. We puppy-proof the house each time before we leave, making sure to not leave doors open upstairs or balled up napkins on top of the computer table. We'd heard the horror story of a dog who'd jumped on a counter and ate a bag of Kisses candies. Food was all but locked up.

We even hid the nails, the guns and the thumb tacks we like to have lying around the house. We're talking really, really safe here.

So why, someone tell us, would the dog jump from the couch to the coffee table in search of a candle, a decorative candle we've had since before he was probably conceived and has until now never even acknowledged? Why, tell us, would he eat it and leave the candle screaming for help in a trail from the living room to the back door?

Why?

It doesn't appear he actually ate, ate it. More like tore it apart and left it for dead. But I was Googling "dog poison control" for about 10 minutes while he acted like, "What? I eat wax all the time, woman. Chill. You must chill."