Reflections on my “Challenging” Dog
It’s a new year. This is always a time for reflection and resolutions. Today I feel compelled to reflect on my partnership with a certain little dog. Her name is Wakey.

Taylor, Wakey’s mom
(By the way: I promised my husband that I would NOT keep any of the puppies. We see how THAT turned out.)

Wakey (2nd from left) with her littermates
(Side note: Almost 2 years after Wakey was born, I had the privilege of fostering her biological dad! He is a black and white Sheltie now named Webster. He has a WONDERFUL home and I get to see him on occasion.)
Wakey was the fattest puppy. A little butterball. She also escaped the whelping box TWICE. Just so you have a basis for comparison… her littermates crawled out a combined total of zero times.

Wakey, 8 weeks old
While all of her brothers and sisters were using the potty pads, I saw Wakey pee on the blankets where her siblings slept. Multiple times.
(Indeed, this yucky habit had to be remedied during the crate training phase when she was 9 weeks old.)
I was in love with the naughty puppy. And also, I felt like she would be too much for the average pet owner to handle. She was a handful right from the beginning. I didn’t really NEED another dog. But Wakey stayed. She belonged with us.

Wakey practicing “paws up”
Wakey’s life motto is “Eat crayons, poop rainbows.” Seriously. The girl is obsessed with crayons. Her second obsession: chapstick. (What’s that you ask? Does eating chapstick give her diarrhea? Yes. Yes it does.) Thirdly: anything that resembles food. She is always starving. (Not really. I feed her plenty. But SHE will tell you she’s starving.)
Highlights of Wakey’s mischief:
- the day she dumped an entire Dunkin Donuts coffee all over the inside of my car while I stepped out for 30 seconds
- the day she chewed a hole in my daughter’s canvas bookbag to reach a dum-dum sucker
- the day she ate an entire package of dog vitamins that were shipped to my office as samples. (Don’t worry. I called the company and the overdose didn’t pose any health problems.)
You get the idea.

Wakey “placing” in a barrel
But she’s also an amazing dog.
She loves to learn new things. She loves to go new places and have new experiences. She loves to come to work with me every day.
Sometimes the most challenging dogs are also the best dogs.

Wakey (2 yrs) & Emmalin (6 yrs)