By Jennifer Lai

When the new dog arrived in the middle of obedience training, we were immediately intrigued.

It had a brown coat, perfect teeth, and was taller than any Shih Tzu we’ve ever encountered. Miss Shelley, our trainer, placed it on the sidewalk where everyone who passed by the school could see.

We wagged our tails and barked three times. It didn’t answer. Just stared straight ahead. At what, we weren’t sure.

We approached cautiously and sniffed around, looking for its butt. But it didn’t seem to have one and didn’t smell like anything at all, which we thought was really weird.

“Isn’t that cute?” Miss Shelly said, while our owners laughed.

What’s so funny? we wondered and turned to Miss Shelly, cocking our heads.

Miss Shelly pointed to the dog. “This?” she asked. “You like this?”

We barked once. Like, of course, stupid. For a trainer, she wasn’t very smart.

She shook her head then got down on one knee and pointed. “Sign,” she said, slowly. “It’s only a sign.”

We’d never heard of a sign dog before. So, of course, we growled.

“Stop it,” our owners yelled, wagging their fingers.

“Arooo,” we whined, and made puppy dog eyes.

“It’s okay, girl,” they said and handed us treats.

When they patted our heads, we lolled out our tongues but made a mental note of which pillows we would tear apart when we got home.

Miss Shelly clapped her hands for attention. “Okay, let’s start. Shall we?”

Our owners pulled us to the field, and we tried to stop them, digging our hind legs into the ground. “What’s wrong with you?” they said, pulling harder at our collars.

We turned our heads toward the sign dog and barked for its attention, but it was looking away.
“Stop it,” they said again, but we continued. If the sign dog didn’t have to attend training, why should we? Why should we have to sit in the hot sun? Stop when our owners said to stop. Go when our owners said go while the sign dog stayed put. It wasn’t fair. We continued barking.

“Sit.” Our owners clapped, then motioned with their hands. “Sit!” But we didn’t give up until they threatened to withhold our treats, something Miss Shelley told them to do. So we finally sat, but thought of all the places we would shit inside the house after they fell asleep.

For the next week, we kept a close eye on the sign dog while we learned new tricks. No matter what we did—bark, howl, sniff—the sign dog wouldn’t move. It didn’t even blink. We thought it so unfair that the sign dog didn’t have to train.

One day, Daisy and Nala thought it’d be funny to pee on the sign dog, and I agreed. When our owners said “sit,” we sat, but as soon as they released their grip, we ran to the sign dog, lifted our legs, and let the stream flow.

The next day, the sign dog was gone. We sniffed around for its presence but couldn’t find a scent and after a while we woofed in unison, reminding ourselves we were the queen bitches here, and that the sign dog didn’t belong anyway.