Doing The Dog Dance
             By Danette M. Scott


        Every night I come home tired from a hard day at work. I look forward to relaxing in front of my computer with a nice hot cup of coffee. What else do I have to look to look forward to at the end of a difficult day? My lovely dog will be waiting for me to walk through the door. Sam, loves to greet me by jumping all over me when I come home.

        Sam is not an ordinary dog. He belongs to a breed of destructive dogs who like to bite and chew on everything in sight. Sam is an Australian Cattle dog mix-breed mutt. I love Sam, however, he's a difficult dog to deal with after a long hard day at work. When Sam isn't jumping all over me, he's crying to go out, or at least that's what I originally thought.

        Sam, it seems, likes to be the dominant dog in a house that has two grown adult humans and one
aggressive male cattle dog. In Sam's eyes, the humans are only cattle which are to be herded here and there by him.

        Some of Sam's stunts start as soon as I get settled in front of the computer to write or surf the internet. He begins to bark, bite and whine while I am busy typing away on the computer keyboard. When I get up from the chair to let him outside he always stops at his food dish to eat first. When he is finished eating he ambles over to the door where I am waiting to let him out. Fifteen minutes after I let him out, I then let him back inside the house and we begin the whole game all over again. The game continues on through the night until Sam gets tired of playing it or I go to bed.

        People have asked me why I continue to keep such an aggressive dog and I answer quite plainly that it's because he really likes me. Sam does really like me and the fact that he constantly seeks my attention with negative behaviors just proves it. I am crazy enough to believe that Sam has a heart as big as a horse despite his bad behavior. Sam really likes me and my mother and he treats us as if we are part of his  pack. A pack is as important to a dog as a family is to humans. We are definitely part of the dog's pack. We are a family.

         Sam is as important to my family as we are to him. Without a family we are nothing. Despite having to dance with the dog every-night, I accept Sam as my friend and as part of my family. We should all have friends and family like Sam that care about us. Readers may wonder what the point of the story is and so I will tell them, family.