Jackie places no credence nor value in the human-constructed concept of self-restraint. Why should he? He dances to the music he hears in his head and it leads him to the wild notion that nothing is out of bounds. Oh yes, he's now aware that what he's engaged in is invariably the kind of fun that will earn him a rebuke. Unlike Jillie, he takes those rebukes seriously. They just slip off Jilllie's conscience, she couldn't care less. On the other hand, Jillie doesn't indulge in the kind of destructive antics that Jackie does; at least not to the same degree.

These two preciously precocious little dogs are still in their puppy-stage, though they've passed their one-year mark of the approach to maturity. I suspect that they will never confess through their preoccupations that they've become adults. Puppyhood is just so much more interesting and to their tastes.

I remember when I was about six years of age how my own conscience worked. My family of parents and three children lived in a second-floor flat that consisted of a tiny kitchen, a large bedroom (parents' bed and a crib) and a smaller bedroom (another crib and a single bed), and a bathroom shared with the entire house. Another bedroom on the second floor was rented out to a bachelor. And the home owner, parents and two teen-age boys lived on the first floor, with a dog. They had a living room, a luxury unheard of among many immigrant families. In that living room was a lamp with an elaborate shade fringed with tiny hanging glass beads. Those beads fascinated me. I slipped unseen into the forbidden living room once, and tugged at one of those strings of glass beads and was immediately rewarded. It wasn't until a few of those strings were in my possession that the landlady noticed her lampshade had been cannibalized. She approached my mother, who questioned me, and of course I denied, denied, denied, no doubt a suitably hurt expression on my face.

Ah, a human child of six or so, lying, dissembling, avoiding the penalty for bad behaviour. So why fault a year-old little dog when he sneaks into a living room or a library, flips up the edge of a rug, and chews happily away at the underpad? Why wish to punish a little dog who finds the spines of books so enticing to chew? What's the purpose of scolding a raffish little fellow who sees someone tapping on buttons on a strange board, who later chews a few keys off the mini laptop that someone forgot to place out of harm's way? Beats me.

That's why we don't beat him with words of overheated anger only to see him retreat momentarily into a fug of puzzlement. He may know that what he's doing is forbidden because it's happened countless times before and the fruit of his disobedience has been our displeasure. But these opportunities to indulge in pleasurable activities appear irresistible to Jackie whom Jillie only occasionally accompanies in these illicit acts.

After all, you're only young once.