To call it a difficult decision is an understatement

It is quiet this morning. The dogs are asleep — Rosie in her crate with the door open, Sophie in the hallway by the kitchen. I have a gate blocking off the office where I’m working and where the crates are located.

It seems odd to me to keep the two of them separated. They are sisters, puppies from the same litter, and they’ve spent nearly their entire lives together. But, for now, we have little choice.

What we’ve learned in the three-plus years that we’ve had Rosie and Sophie is that owning two females, especially two from the same litter, is a bad idea. It presents a constant struggle as they both strive for dominance and attention. There have been fights — some pretty nasty — and while we have kept it under control as best we can, it appears that there is little we can do to ensure that they won’t go at each other. We’ve done everything our trainer has said: removed toys from the equation; started using the crates again; exercised them as often as we can. We are vigilant (with some unfortunate goof ups on our part) and, yet, the possibility of a fight continues to hang over our heads.

Last night, we were watching television. We were giving the dogs access to their beds — which we had taken away a while back — and Rosie was in one of them. Sophie seemed afraid to pass her and tried to go around the couch, was in a tight spot under a table when Rosie pounced. She made it across the room in a second and we were lucky to pull them apart just as it began. But it was terrifying and we had to keep them separated the rest of the night and now feel like we have to keep them separated and only give them access to each other sporadically.

Pat, our trainer, told us to keep Rosie on lockdown and that is the plan. But it appears that we have a difficult and painful decision ahead. Have we reached a point where we need to break up the Rosie & Sophie Show permanently? How could we live with that decision and, yet, how can we go on living this way?

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet