The Neighborhood Dog Whispering Bitch

I was walking down the street today when I saw the cutest little brown chocolate lab. He was so sweet and squishable. What was really amazing is that he was completely well-behaved.

When my Scout was a puppy, she was a problem child. She was the craziest thing on four legs, I could not walk her at all because she would pull so hard, she was practically walking on only her hind legs. Cute, she was. But she behaved badly. She chewed up my dining room table, destroyed my couch pillows (along with my sister's fleece pullover), and ate half a spatula. (When I took her to the vet and showed him what she ate, he looked at it, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Don't worry, she's fine.") She also ripped open a bottle of Advil and licked the orange coating off of 150 Advil tablets.

I praised the puppy's behavior to his owner, and told her how crazy Scout used to be. She said:

"You have to show her that you're the pack leader, or she's going to treat you like dirt."

It wasn't what she said, but the way she said it. She was so smug I wanted to kick her in the head and steal her puppy. I took Scout to a dog trainer, who admitted to me that Scout was her "challenge dog." I think, dogs, like children, come in many different flavors, and I just happened to get one that had a bit of crazy in her.