Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

My dog Roswell has obsessions.

For instance, if you move furniture, he will attack it. If you sweep, mop, or vacuum you can be sure he will go after the handle.

When my wife brings in anything from her shopping adventures, he has to sit at the entrance of the kitchen and watch her unpack everything.

Those are just the inside obsessions.

However, of late he has found a new one: the mail.

It started off with him jumping to look out the window when the mail carrier stopped in front of our house. As she left packages at the front door, he was hooked.

He would sniff at the door, as if somehow he could breathe in hard enough and the package would be sucked under the door so he could investigate.

And once the package was brought in, he had to see what it was, or no one got peace from his whining.

This eventually escalated to the mail in general. He has to sniff the mail or he is upset.

Now, Roswell is not an overly destructive dog. His problem is his insatiable curiosity. It has gotten him into trouble on numerous occasions.

He tried once to unplug the Christmas tree from the wall after seeing us do it. Nearly got electrocuted.

Roswell wanted to see what my Mother-in-Law was cooking on the stove top once and almost set himself and the house on fire.

Did I mention he was overly curious?

We know its crawfish time because he will start digging up the backyard to get to them.

But, back to the mail.

I decided to have a little fun. I would give him junk mail we received. I didn’t want another offer of a free car or something meant for “current resident,” so I gave it to him.

He would run around with it and then shred it.

This week I decided to try something new. I found an unmailed Christmas card and mailed it to my house addressed to Roswell. Figured maybe he just was as annoyed with junk mail as I was.

Today the mail arrived and in it was the card for Roswell.

I showed the unopened envelope to him and said he got mail.

He stared at it. Sniffed it. He got the grin he usually gets when he thinks he is going to have fun.

Roswell grabbed the card and ran off. I expected he would go in the corner and shred it.

Instead, everywhere he has gone, he has taken it with him. Just looked at it, there are some chew marks on it from where he clamped down on it.

But for the most part, all he has done is carried it around and stayed next to it.

I guess all Roswell ever wanted was someone to mail him a letter.

He is a good boy, and is now barking because he feels I need to pay attention to him and his letter.

Michael Cole is a syndicated columnist that when he is not writing, he is plotting global domination or entertaining his dogs. You can follow him at www.storyoveracup.com