The Princess Warrior

I thought I would provide a quick update on Xena, the Warrior Princess...

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we were fostering a dog that a friend was trying to get rid of because they were moving. We were fostering her with the idea that we might actually adopt her. Yesterday marks the one month anniversary of the day that Xena came to live with us, and I guess that's long enough to call it official: We're keeping her.

She's a pretty good dog. I am NOT a dog person, and I think she's okay. In a month she hasn't used the bathroom anywhere inside the house, which is pretty much the only real criteria I have for calling a dog "a pretty good dog." And she's plenty affectionate.

She does have a couple of drawbacks, though:

• She's not an aggressive dog, but she is a dominant dog. Without strict training and consistency, she begins to act like SHE'S running the show, not us.


• She has pretty bad separation anxiety. If we leave her alone for anything longer than an hour she's almost hysterical when we come back. She comes running in and she starts yelping and jumping up on us. She's distraught.


• She has pretty much zero desire to obey. It's not that she's a dumb dog. You can whisper "sit" to her when you've got food to give her and she'll sit right down. Say it to her when she's got her mind set on something else, and she reacts like she doesn't hear you at all. You could shout it into her ear and the only reaction you'd get would be her briefly glancing in the other direction before going about whatever she was doing before.


• If she gets loose, she's gone. She's only gotten out once, but it was an absolute pain getting her back. It didn't help that there were half a dozen kids (Natalie and some friends) screaming at her and chasing her AWAY from the house.
  

But none of that matters to me, to be honest. I would much rather have a strong-willed dog than a submissive one that pees every time I walk into a room, which was a problem with the last dog we had. It lasted about two weeks before I told Lisa that I couldn't take it any more.