Tucker or Hamilton?

My poor dog.  He seems to have a split personality, which my family is actively reinforcing.

His real name is Tucker.  Actually, to be entirely correct, his AKC name is Sir Tucker of Berthoud.  I never had an AKC registered dog in my life, so when it came time to name him it only seemed fun to give him a regal name with a title.  That's what all the dogs in the the Westminster Kennel Club show seem to have, so we went with it.  Usually we simply call him Tuck.  Sometimes my husband wants to call him a bad word that rhymes with Tucker, but he usually refrains from yelling that word in the backyard.  Usually, I say.

I, of course, love everything about him and can hardly raise my voice to him.  He has me wrapped around his big paw.  

He is an eight month old destructive chewing machine.  He is also unbelievably cute, loyal, and my constant companion.  He still has that long and lanky puppy gallop where his feet and body don't always match up perfectly.  He has an enormous head and gigantic paws and a goofy smile.   

One day I noticed that the brand name of his collar is "Hamilton".   I thought to myself, "what a great dog name that would be."  Somehow this idea morphed into my dog's evil twin name.  Before I knew it, we all ran with it.  Whenever he is bad, we call him Hamilton in the same manner in which all of Seinfeld's characters yelled "Newman!". When he's being a well-behaved dog, we call him Tucker.   

A week or so ago when we went camping and left him in the backyard with minimal supervision (the two older dogs didn't keep him in line) he literally ate the label off of our propane tank on our grill and the igniter switch for the grill.  Now, we could have covered the grill with the grill cover and tried to keep him out of it, but he ate that a couple months ago.  Hamilton! We can no longer sit on our patio furniture because he has systematically removed all of the stuffing from all of the chairs. 

Earlier this morning, Hamilton made an appearance.  He pillaged the trash can in the bathroom and when I heard the familiar wet chewing sound coming from the other room and apprehended him, he was gnawing on used Q-tips and make-up remover pads.

But, a couple hours later, as I write this, sweet Tucker is sleeping at my feet.  His face is angelic and his sleepy expression is calm and peaceful.   Life is good with a puppy head lying on my foot while I sit at the computer. 

As he gets older, we hope that little by little the Tucker side of the personality takes over and we can bid Hamilton farewell.

Of course, he's a lab, so this could take years.