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Pouting divas need obedience school

By RONDA RICH
Contributing Writer

Mama was sternly lecturing me the other day about how spoiled Dixie Dew is and how I should correct the problem.

This is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. I think, though, that I’d rather have a pouting dachshund than a pouting mama. At least, Dixie Dew doesn’t sass me when she’s pouting. Mama, though, always has to have the last word in an argument. It’s very aggravating.

“When things don’t go just like she wants them do go, she pouts,” Mama reported after Dew had spent the weekend with her while I was traveling.

That’s when I realized why Mama and Dew are such big buddies: birds of a feather flock together.

I arched an eyebrow, tilted my head and folded my arms. “Where do you suppose she learned that pouting from?”

Mama lifted her chin imperially. “Well, I don’t know. She didn’t learn it from me if that’s what you’re insinuating. I don’t pout when I don’t get milk like she does.”

Maybe Mama doesn’t pout when her bowl doesn’t have milk in it but she pouts about other things. Like when we go to a restaurant that she doesn’t want to go to. She’ll look at the menu briefly, close it, lay it down on the table and jut out her chin. “I don’t see anything on there that I want.”

Unfazed, I will order chicken fingers for her. I know that, just like Dixie Dew, if she gets hungry enough, she’ll eat it.

Dixie Dew and Mama actually have a good bit in common, other than a propensity for pouting. Both love fried pork chops with hot biscuits and cold nights under the electric blanket and both abstain, whenever possible, from any overt exertion. Unless, of course, it’s hurrying to get in the car to go on a trip.

Both of them love new clothes. I don’t know who gets more excited when she sees me pull out a new outfit for her from a shopping bag, Mama or Dixie Dew. The only difference is that Mama doesn’t yip excitedly and run over to push her head through the neck of the garment like the little pouter does.

Dixie Dew, though, doesn’t pout very much around me. Apparently, she senses a kindred spirit in her grandmamma and takes full advantage of that connection. You have to give the little one a lot of credit because she realizes that she should communicate in similar fashion with those around her. It’s actually pretty impressive. This type of cleverness should land her in a clinical studies program at some university.

Still, I don’t want a child who is considered to be difficult by anyone, even someone who is difficult herself. I especially don’t want her nanny to be displeased with her. It’s hard to find a good nanny.

So, maybe Mama’s right. Perhaps I should put my foot down and send Dixie Dew to obedience school with precise instructions to break her from pouting.

I wonder if I could find an obedience school that would take Dixie Dew and Mama, too.

That would solve two problems at one time.