Priss and Lucky
I know that there are lots of folks out there who are total suckers for their pets. I'm not one of them. While there are many types of animals out there, I only cooperate well with ones who are beneficent and not annoying. During my youth I was only exposed to depressing cats and the like so I had poor expectations of future animals. Fortunately, Priss and Lucky were brought into my life. These two lab-mixes are the best animals I've ever been in contact with.
Lucky is a roadside rescue project from 2000. This dog, who smells like stale Fritos chips, would arf-bark and growl at the folks who rescued her, but Lucky (AKA Miss Piggy) was easily bought off in a few days with food and a place to stay. Initially Lucky was very scared of people, so she would never show any signs of submission to anyone. Anyone except me, that is. After I agreed to take care of the dogs it was time to show Lucky who the boss really was. After a few failed attempts to get her to roll on her back or sit in my lap, I knew that it was time to turn up the heat. I suppose my reason for wanting to get the dog to comply was that she visually appeared to be the perfect lap-dog for me (this was my rationalization, anyway). The way I taught her to sit in my lap was by brute force. In retrospect I guess doing that was a good way to get bitten, but I'm too stubborn to listen to my own common sense. Nowadays, Lucky will often run up to me and sit in my lap on her own. She likes it and I do too. Unfortunately, the previous month of Lucky's life has been devoted to sniffing under my washing machine in a vain attempt to eat a rat that she will likely never actually catch. I think Lucky is behaving in an obsessive-compulsive manner, but it's "instinct" to her.
Priss is also a roadside rescue project from 2004, but she was even more fun because she was covered with fleas. After a dip in the good ol' toxic chemicals, she was good to go. This dog started out approximately half a foot in length but now she dwarfs Lucky in size. It was easy to enlighten Priss of how life was going to be. Priss has a warm nose and is an obedient dog who will fetch the ball. I have even trained her to hand the ball to me instead of dropping it on the ground because I don't feel like bending down to pick it up. However, Priss has an obsession with eating cat crap. She once ate some and then barfed it up in my kitchen. It stunk really bad. After that she wanted to go fetch the ball.