Beware of the Dog

This is Emily. She’s half collie and half blue heeler. I remember once on a hike up the canyon when she was still tiny someone asked us her breed, then rolled her eyes and said “She’s going to be too smart for her own good”. Well, those words haunt me almost daily. While she isn’t quite smart enough to avoid many of the pitfalls of canine existence (ie. butt sniffing) she is still pretty bright. I always know I’m overlooking something when she plants herself in my path and refuses to move. Usually this means it’s time for her medicine, or for her dinner, but lately she’s even taken to insisting I feed the cats at precisely the appointed time. Her internal clock is phenomenal. While she may not know what 4:30 means she knows precisely when it is 4:30 (aka her dinner time). When both Emily and Goth were little Emily thought it was great fun to run around the house with Goth’s shoes in her mouth. So I taught Goth that when she took her shoes off she should put them on the back of the couch out of the dog’s reach. Then one day, while I was sitting on the couch, I told Goth to hand me the shoes she’d left on the floor. She handed me one, got distracted, and before I could say anything Emily went over, retrieved the other shoe, jumped up, and put it on the back of the couch. That was when I knew that my position as alpha female was in serious jeopardy.