I got an e-mail from Sarah in Newton, Mass., this morning, she sent me a photo of her dog, a nine-year-old Boston Terrier she calls “Little Bastard.”

Why the unusual name, I asked? Because Nancy said, even though she loves him, “that is what he is?”

He chews things in the house, terrorizes her German Shepherd, steals food from the mouth of her Golden Retriever, hards all of the toys and treats and sits on whatever furniture he pleases, not matter what anybody says.

“We just started calling him Little Bastard,” she added, and it stuck. “He can be sweet and adorable, but he can also be a monster. He feels he is entitled to anything in the world that he wants.”

Hmm, it did have a familiar ring to it. I like to call Bud the same thing I called Gus – “the Little King,” but Sarah has wider connotations. This afternoon, Budd suddenly took off into the farm where two terror-stricken chickens cams rushing out, indignant and alarmed.

Bud acts as if he was given title to the dogs, the farm, the donkeys and sheep, and me. There is nothing on the farm, from every treat to the other dog’s food to every sofa and chair in the house , but Bud does not believe to be his entitlement. Everything is his.

Even chickens and barn cats.

“You Little Bastard!,” I found myself shouting, “get away from them.” Bud started at me for a moment, sniffed around in a circle, picked up something off of the ground, and then turned around and trotted slowly to me.

“What?” he seemed to be saying.

If the shoe fits…