Walking Cookie and Peewee at the same time is a lot like being drawn and quartered. In my right hand I have Cookie's nylon leash wrapped around my fist three times to keep better control of her when she twists and barks and whirls around in psychotic ecstasy. In my left hand I have Peewee's leash wrapped once so it doesn't get too slack and so I can haul him off his butt when he decides the middle of the street is a nice place to sit down and let the breeze ruffle through his fur. If walking Cookie is like trying to control a brain-damaged particle in a turbo-charged cyclotron, walking Peewee is like dragging a forty-pound stuffed animal around the block.
Seriously, Cookie, what the hell? With the new spiky pinch collar you have been 72 percent of the time awesome to walk. And yet now I see there's still work to be done. For you are, at heart, an overexcited beast who nearly gets poked in the eye with a collar spoke every time I slip the thing over your head, with the bounding up and down the stairs because OMG it's time to go pee on fifteen different places somebody else has already peed on. I know I'm not supposed to open the door until you're in that mythical, mystical "calm submissive" state, BUT WHY ARE YOU NEVER IN THAT STATE? Bulldogs aren't supposed to be like this. I'm surprised that wasn't covered in your employee handbook. Peewee obviously got the memo. He can barely be bothered to lift his head half the time, or break into anything more than an apathetic trot. That's the kind of behavior one expects from a bulldog. You want to be able to prop one up in a corner and find it there two hours later, snoring.
Cookie, you know how lazy we are. Why can't you be more like Peewee?
There I was this morning with my two-week-long, low-grade exhaustion/cold, dragging your barking carcass back home so as not to reward you for the atrocious way you were behaving. I'm sure anyone passing would have been appalled to see me reach down to adjust your collar and risk putting my hand anywhere near your frothing mouth. They didn't know that when we got back inside you'd immediately calm down and make me a cup of tea, run me a bath, and then tuck me in for a two-hour nap.
So thanks for that. I guess we'll keep you. Because I'm not done with you yet. Not by a long shot, missy.