Maggie is a social climber.

Back in December, Mike and I adopted a rather lovely, well-behaved, sweet-natured shiba inu named Maggie. She's about 29 pounds, low to the ground, and 8 years old. We (reasonably, I'd say) assumed that most of her rebellious days were behind her. Shibas are known for their strong-mindedness, but she seemed to be amiable. She took well to the cats, letting them claim a place higher in the social hierarchy than she, and settled in to the routines of the house. Mike and I were pleased all around. I even remember boasting after a week or two, "Maggie sleeps through the night! It's great!"

Oh, how long ago those days seem.

Slowly at first, Maggie began demanding things--to be pet, for instance, or a toy, or just some good, old-fashioned, wrestling time. She'd demand things with a snort, or a wag of a tail, or a paw. Then came the bark.

Shibas aren't known for barking, and Maggie is not a barker the way you think of troublesome dogs barking, incessantly and distractingly. Maggie barks pointedly--one short, staccato bark that pierces your ear. She snorts, you don't respond, she barks. She would do this while we were awake--irritating, but we were happy she was communicating, and it was good to give her what she wanted. Then came one night when she barked in the middle of the night. I got up and let her out, but she didn't go. A smidge of dread set roots in my stomach; if she didn't have to go out, what did she want? Was this just going to get worse?

My dread has become full-fledged resentment at this point. Maggie barks multiple times a night now, for no good reason I can figure--no emergency, no need for a bathroom break, no burglar. She seems to bark because she's bored or, worst of all, because she wants food. Maggie is the most food oriented dog I've ever known, and I've come to believe that she feels slighted because she gets two meals a day that she scarfs down immediately, while the cats have access to food all day long. This is because the cats are completely neurotic about food, which is another story in and of itself. 

The real issue however, I learned yesterday as I spent another sleepy morning trying to get my head into the game after being woken up multiple times: Maggie does not respect us, and is attempting to leverage her power over us into a greater social position in our pack! Who knew that all the time we spent trying to make sure she was well taken care of, we were actually feeding into her power-hungriness? Looking back, I remember her foster family mentioning, "she's very dominant," but she showed no signs of it at first. I'd decided life was to be easy going with this pup. How wrong I was.

So now, I have to start exerting my dominance over her, proving myself to be the alpha; which is pretty funny, because she seems to have already accepted Pocket (the crankiest of the two cats) as the alpha in the group. I think in Maggie's head, our hierarchy goes like this: Pocket, Me, Mike, Her, and Skelly, and she's attempting to work her way up. 

You know what they say about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks? I really hope they're wrong.