Help! cant remember the name of elementary school book series!?

ok, this has been killing me for WEEKS. cant rememeber for sure, 3rd, 4th, 5th grade. i read a series of books about a farm. there was an old hound dog at the farm who acted as the patriarch. there were some other young dogs and other barn yard animals. the premise of the books was how the animals were always trying to figure out what the humans were talking about. the one instance that stands out to me is when "sandy clothes" was coming to the farm. it was actually santa claus. i want to say that the dogs name was hank. there were several of these books. can anyone help me remember what these books were called? i would be eternally grateful if you could.