The natural order of things: me first

It's pretty hard to move 90 lbs. of resoluteness.

"Who was that walking Tucker the other day?" complained the mailman. "She wouldn't let me give him a treat!"

I'm kind of like a therapy dog: I make people happy. When I let out a good, loud, bay, everyone laughs, and thus they are happy for a few moments. Feeding me makes the mailman happy. But my sister is tough, and what she says goes.

Here's the order of things in my family.
1. Mom is the pushover. She believes she has authority. In reality, she has none. It's so fun to see how far I can go with her—and I can go pretty far! Miles, in fact.
2. I kind of feel sorry for Dad. He doesn't know the first thing about discipline, and I appreciate that. I go along with what he wants most of the time. After all, we guys have to stick up for each other.
3. My sister is an equestrian, and she learned early that sweet talk gets you nowhere with horses. I am the size of a small pony, and, given that I'm bred to run all around horses, must have picked up some behavior tips somewhere along the line.  I spook, I buck, I canter—and in the stubborn dept., I have no rivals.

I've learned that Mom plans to record my sister's voice giving me commands before she heads off to college, then play them back at crucial moments. For example, when I refuse to do something, which is often.

 I'll just play along, as if I don't know the difference between a real person speaking and some tinny recording, and then we'll see, once again, who's really the boss.