Last night while eating a block of cheese, crackers and then finally cheese grated on top of chips - our version of nachos - Max, Vinnie and I were conducting a discussion that has become quite common up here, and that's the dogs and their personalities. Before we'd even arrived the boys had come up with literary counterparts for them: Lucy - Candide, and

Cecilia - Oliver Twist

It was unanimously decided upon Mina's arrival that her obvious role was the role of Napoleon.

But it's not in our nature to stop there. We conduct daily discussions on the dogs. We watch them play. We torture them, but gently. And we talk about their moral fiber and attributes. Unfortunately for me (because I feel she can hear us, and this somehow could make her depressed) we often talk about how Cecilia is not the smartest of the bunch. Vinnie goes so far as to say she is mentally challenged, which is nonsense.

After we had our share of nachos we saturated some of the chips with hot sauce and began feeding them to the dogs and Vinnie started in again on precious, obedient Cecilia. Of the three, he and Max said, Mina would be most likely to survive in the wild, because she would take what she needed with no regard for anyone else. Lucy would be smart enough to follow her. Cecilia, however, they said, would be found, perished - her only goal in life to love - and so she would have forgotten to eat and hydrate herself and do anything else necessary to life.

After getting sufficiently angry and trying to refute the claims, I explained to Vinnie that I didn't care. That maybe my dog is not the smartest but she has learned things that make up for her lack of natural intelligence. Like to never, ever have an accident in the house. That, I said, Lucy and Mina are still working on. And sure, they may survive in the wild, but I'm not cleaning it up if they take a dump in here.