Dear Smith, Wesson, and Steve,

It's apparent that either I didn't adequatley explain what a resolution is, or you just didn't understand the concept. Or, you were being deliberatly obtuse.  If you look it up in the dictionary, you'll see that obtuse means "annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand". It also refers to a degree of angle, but we certainly aren't going to go into that.  Steve, I think we all know which part of that definition applies to you.  

Since you missed the mark so completely, I don't think there's much point in talking to each of you separately as I'd planned; we might as well just go over everything at tonight's meeting.

I will be talking to Peep and Beau about their results.  Maybe they'll let you read the memos I sent to them and you'll have a better idea about what I was hoping to see.

xxoo,

Exasperated Alpha

Dear Dogs,

I know that we had planned on a small New Year's Eve celebration with just us, but I think it's best that we forego any partying for the time being.  We can still go over our resolutions, if you'd like and maybe have a cookie or three before we go to bed, but I'm afraid that's about all I'm up to this year, and I think you all feel pretty much the same.  I know you're all worried about Sam, I could see it on your faces when I was on the phone with the vet.  He has to stay overnight at the hospital, but I'll bring him home tomorrow after work.  I think it would be best to wait until he feels better to have our New Year celebration and year-end meeting.  I'm sure you won't mind, or even know the difference since none of you can ever tell me what day of the week it is let alone what month.  

If you feel like you're done working on your resolution list, just leave it by my bed and I'll read them before I go to sleep.  I'd like to go over your lists with each of you separately and then we can all get together and discuss things as a group. I'm hoping to at least do an initial go through on your lists once before I fall down dead tonight. 

xxoo,

Worn out Alpha

ps: someday, I'll get a group picture with everyone's eyes open but today is not that day

Smith: hey! hey lady! hey hey hey!

Me: that's Alpha lady to you.

Smith: whatever. Listen, I need to talk to you about the meeting we had this morning..... Oooo! What are you eating?  I like to eat, I'm famished.

Me: I doubt that, I fed you before I fixed my own dinner. Just like every day.

Smith: I'm not remembering that, I'm pretty sure you haven't fed me since last Thursday..

Me: was there something you wanted to talk to me about?  I can listen while I eat standing up here at the kitchen counter so that I don't have to keep reminding everyone of their manners when I'm at the table.

Smith: I thought you'd want to know that we all got together and decided that Steve needs to be put down.

Me: That's not an option.

Smith: it should be.  

Me: and if I ask everyone else they'll tell me that this was a unanimous decision?

Smith: don't bother asking anyone else, we decided I should be the one to break it to you.  You know, since we're so close and all; I'm the only one that you let sleep in the bed with you.

Me: Steve gets up on the bed.

Smith: I know you only leave him there because he's too big to move. That's what you mean when you say that he weighs as much as a black hole, right?  I hate him.

Me: I agree that you and I are close, but the reason you're the only one that sleeps in the bed with me is because you're the only one that's willing to put up with my snoring. And I do throw Steve off the bed when he crowds me off the edge and makes it impossible for me to get any covers.  But this is not what we were discussing.  I think you were trying to convince me that everyone thinks Steve should be put to sleep.

Smith: oh yes, we all agreed.  I've made a list of crematoriums that you should look through.  I, um.. we thought it would be easier to have him in a jar so that you don't have to dig a big hole to bury him.  Wesson has actually volunteered to do the digging, don't worry, I'll supervise and keep him on track.  See? It's all settled, you can start making arrangements tomorrow.  Or, I could do it for you, I wouldn't mind. Wesson, come here and tell the lady..I mean Alpha..that everything I said is true.

Wesson: *butt walking across the rug* On my way!

Me: here come Beau and Peep, I'll just verify everything with them.

Smith: *running to the door, barking furiously*  BEAU, PEEP, THERE'S A BEAR IN THE YARD!!! NO TIME TO TALK TO THE LADY NOW, COME QUICK!!!  WAIT, IT'S NOT JUST A BEAR!! I THINK I SAW A COUGAR TOO! AND THERE ARE RACOONS ON THE ROOF!  

Beau: Excuse us Madame, we'll be right back! The bigger of the little short guys says there's danger! Don't worry, we've got this!!

Me: well played Smith, well played indeed.  I suppose we'll just have to wait and discuss this tomorrow when the White Dogs have settled down a bit.  

Wesson: *whispers in Smith's ear* I told you she wasn't going to go for it.

Steve: hi guys! What's everybody doing? What's everybody talking about? Are we playing something? Should I get a ball? 

Me: I'm going to put my pyjamas on now, we'll discuss this tomorrow at the year-end meeting.

Smith: are you done eating? Can I lick your plate? Can we have cookies?  Can I sit on your lap?.....

To: Dearest Alpha

From: Beau

Subject: Behavior report for 12/29/15

I'm very sorry to report that Steve had a behavioral issue yesterday that needs to be brought to your attention.  I've attached a photo that I took in order to document what went on yesterday while you were working. I used your old phone, I hope you don't mind.

As you can see, Steve and Sam have been at it again.  As much as I hate to say it, as before, Steve was the instigator. Although to be fair, Sam allowed himself to be drawn into bad behavior when he could have just ignored the insults and continued to walk away.  But there's only so much one can tolerate.

Madame, this can't be allowed to continue.  It seems to be escalating and I cannot guarantee that Peep and I will continue to stand by without coming to Sam's defense, and as you say, "beat the living shit out of Steve".   May I be blunt?  Steven is a punk.  None of us really like him, we just pretend to in order to please you.  If it were up to the rest of us, we would vote him off the island if you'd allow it.

I'd like to suggest that for the time being, Sam be allowed to stay in the garage while you're at work.  You know this isn't a hardship, we all love the garage and being able to go in and out as we please.  We have our magic collars that bite when we go too far away from the house, and we wear them all of the time.  As embarassing as it to admit, we're scared to death of being bitten by the magic in the collars.  

May we please schedule an emergency meeting for this evening?  All of us (except Steven) would like to come up with a workable solution to the problem.  Perhaps it would be best if we exclude Steven from this meeting and bring him in at another time once we have a working plan.

To: Dogs

From: Alpha

Subject: New Year's

For those of you who bother to look at the calendar, you'll have noticed that there are only a very few days left in the year.  This year, I thought we should all come up with some things that we'd like to work on in the New Year.  We in the human community call these things resolutions and although we tend to only keep them until the second week of January, it's still worth a try.

We'll be holding our monthly meeting on December 31 and we'll incorporate a year end report at that time.  

I'll be leaving out paper and ONE pencil so that you can all start writing down your New Year's resolutions. You'll have to take turns with the pencil and I suggest that Steve goes last; in addition to his plastics and electronics addictions, he's murder on all writing implements.  Case in point: the blue pen/white carpet incident.  

I'm looking forward to seeing what each of you would like to accomplish in 2016, it should be a productive meeting!