Princess Zoe’s bad habits seem to multiply by the day. Today in her crate after dinner I had to wait 2 hours for the barking to stop. Agghh. She’s also been getting into my drinks frequently when I turn my back for a second - she jumps up on the couch and shoves her nose in my glass and licks up my milk. I’ve been sneaking up behind her and making a loud noise and swatting her rear end (all done to startle her), but apparently that isn’t working yet.

I took both dogs for a walk today, that was interesting. Surprizingly, Zoe was the problem, not Zeeke. Zeeke just plods along beside me, although he was peeing on everything he couch reach. Zoe on the other hand… her tail was up and perky, and she was pulling at the leash. She’d walk in front of me, cut in front of Zeeke (he tripped over her at least once), and worse than all that she wouldn’t just walk straight… she zig-zags back and forth in front of me, which puts her right in the middle of the road. I had them both on their short training leashes, but even still she was all over the road. After getting frustrated with her, I pulled her in tight to my right side. After a bit I pulled Zeeke in to my left. That worked the best. Both dogs were heeling pretty good, even though Zoe was heeling on the wrong side. (I didn’t have much choice, I needed one at each hand.) But that was with me walking on the left side of the road - when I switched to the right Zoe didn’t do so well. For some reason she doesn’t like the side of the road, she wants to be out in the middle. So that entire street she was pressed against my leg and/or trying to cross over in front of me, which made me constantly trip. My shoulder was getting tired from tugging her out away from my body. I like them to be close, but man, there’s a point where it’s too much! I was actually considering Den’s suggestion that I put her on a prong collar as well, because she was SO bad at the pulling. I don’t normally have that problem with her - but then I don’t normally take Zeeke out at the same time. She loses her mind when he’s with her.

Den and I were talking about her today, he just shakes his head every time he gets molested by her. She LOVES it when he lays down on the bed, she crawls all over him and licks him and lays on him and is just SO HAPPY. He just laughs. And we agreed, she has two settings: scared, and happy. There really isn’t anything in between, or anything else. Oreo sulks all the time if she gets in trouble. Zeeke plots how to get what he wants, when he wants it, and won’t let things go. Zoe? If you catch her with something she shouldn’t have, and you take it away and say, “Bad dog!” she sits up and gives a big tail wag and grin as if to say, “Okay mommy!” and then goes and finds something else to do. She’s just so easy-going, nothing gets her down. She doesn’t get upset, she doesn’t sulk, she never even looks guilty. She just goes on to the next thing in life.

Damn, what a great way to live. I vow to be more like Zoe from now on.