Science Teacher Rule #53

Adolescent dogs exhibit many of the same characteristics as adolescent humans. They know exactly what they are not supposed to do. They know the consequences.


They do them anyways.


Like going on the couch or carpet. I say goodnight to my dog when she's sleeping happily on her dog bed (and by say goodnight, I mean turn off the lights and pray she doesn't pee on my carpet). The other day I come out in the morning and see her still sleeping happily. On my couch. I yell and kick her out and she knows she is in trouble.


Does she stop?

No. She's a teenager. This means that every morning, as soon as she hears footsteps from my bedroom, she hops off the couch and pretends she's slept the whole night on the dog bed. I KID YOU NOT! My dog is pulling the same crap I did whenever I heard the garage door open.


She also knows that she isn't allowed on my rug in the family room. She creeps, and creeps, and creeps while we're watching tv until my peripheral vision catches her and I yell to send her back. So to help solidify the fact that she is not allowed on the carpet, we created a little barricade with the giant bean bag and the ottoman. Worked wonders.

For a week.

Then she decided to vault over the ottoman to the middle of the carpet. Since this is not exactly a stealthy tactic, we yelled very loudly the instant she made her leap. She ran around the center of the room in a panic because an escape route was not a part of her brilliant plan. She finally spots the ottoman again amid our firealarm-like volume. The equivelant of an air raid sends her leaping to the ottoman.

But there's that little voice in every teenager that says, "There isn't really going to be a consequence is there? I can still get away with this."

Instead of leaping over the ottoman into neutral territory, she jumps right on top of it. She freezes on the ottoman in a terrible fit of indecision, all four legs crammed onto one square foot. And stares at me.

My dog looks just like a billy goat and and I can't stop laughing. Because really, I love teenagers.



Even when they try to sleep on an ottoman that is way to small just because they know they aren't supposed to..