MJ

Meet MJ, our long-haired dachshund who sometimes forgets she's a dog.

Haughty and a little bit on the stubborn side, too. But for whatever it's worth, she's never had a boyfriend all her life (and probably won't ever have any).

About a month ago, we almost had a fight.

I don't know why, but she always takes to staying under my bed in the mornings (and not at any other time of the day). And because sometimes she hasn't had her bath yet when she curls up under my bed, she has this certain kind of smell (you know that smell that dogs have? yep, that's the one), and on that particular morning, I was irritated that she chose to stay there again.

So I called out to her, telling her to get out from under my bed (yes, she understands what we say. well, most of the time, actually) and out of my room. While I was calling out to her, I had this slipper ready in my hand, intending to spank her lightly for her bad behavior (read: staying under my bed when she knows I don't like that).

There were some shuffling sounds while she tried to wriggle out from under my bed, but when her head poked out and spied me holding a slipper, the little brat understood that I meant to spank her and returned to her place under my bed, where I cannot reach her.

Of course my blood reached its boiling point.

I had to reach over to the other side of the bed (the side against the wall) and coax her to come out. Only when she understood that I was on the bed and could not harm her did she crawl out from under the bed, run to the kitchen, and hide under the dining room table.

I went after her, slipper in hand and ready to really spank her hard and good this time. When I reached under the table though, she bared her teeth at me and growled (read: don't you ever dare spank me!). Since I was angry, but also afraid she might bite me, I just resorted to banging the chairs around her and swearing loudly what a bad girl she was.

While at the office, I felt sorry for MJ. It wasn't her fault, really, that she didn't want to be spanked. Nobody ever does, right? I became worried she might skulk at me and never come near me again.

So it was with a bit of apprehension when I arrived at our house that evening and went slowly up the steps. Out of nowhere MJ came bounding out, panting heavily and tail wagging wildly. When she got near me, she sniffed delicately at me first, and maybe because she smelt the apologetic remorse on me, she licked at my big toe (that's her way of kissing me).

I sighed. All's well that ends well, I guess.

Note: No animals (specifically one stubborn long-haired dachshund) were harmed in the creation of this post.