If you have ever read, googled, listened to a podcast, or been advised by the “experts” on dog behavior, you’ve probably heard the same lecture over and over: dogs do not plot, scheme, or act out of revenge or malice.

“Dogs live in the present. They lack the cognitive ability to plan or plot for the future.”

— Dr. Stanley Coren

Clearly, Dr. Coren never met a dog like Maybe.

At that time, I had Maybe, Brick and a feisty little foster dog named Lady. Both Brick and Lady were less than a year old, neither yet neutered so, in the interest of proper foster dog etiquette, they both had to be in crates when I was not actively watching them, lest I find myself fostering a whole litter of puppies.

I would come home at lunchtime, midday, and give everyone a potty break. Maybe had just earned her 4 hours of freedom so when I went back to work, I would trust her in the house. In hindsight, a fool’s errand.

One evening I came home to Maybe greeting me at the door with unusual enthusiasm. I don’t know if she was happy to see me, but she was certainly insistent! Balanced on her hind legs, she tried pushing me around with her front feet. When that failed, she went full cattle dog, nipping me in the heels like I was the… cow. I just wanted to get to the puppies to let them out, but she was adamant I go anywhere else… like to bed or… to hell… anywhere but the family room.

It was so out of character it immediately set off my internal alarms, so I bulldozed my way into the family room and there I saw it.

Lady, still securely in her crate, was no longer against the wall where I had left her. Instead, she was now in the middle of the room. Even more confusing was that the crate looked as if it had been intentionally sat in the middle of a shredded throw rug.

I lived alone. The doors were locked. No windows had been broken. The only living creature that had access to Lady while I was in the office 11 miles away was Maybe.

On further inspection I discovered the towel, Lady used it as a blanket until she was mature enough to have a real blanket that she didn’t tear to ribbons, was pulled almost all the way through the bars. Lady was frozen in the middle of the crate, not making a sound; no cries to get out, no pleas to go potty, she just stared at me as if she were waiting for an escalation.

Was I going to judge and jury her without a fair trial and send her ‘up the river?’ She must have been worried, if not completely baffled, on how she found herself in the middle of this crime scene.

A lesser human would have thrown the book at her.

Given Maybe’s repeated attempts to bully me from the room, I had my own theory on what happened on that wild fall afternoon:

A certain Miss Maybelline noticed a thread hanging from the rug. Perhaps it was misshapen, possibly the wrong hue, something about that single thread gnawed at her, egged her on, it taunted her until she had no choice. She attempted to remove it, punish it, put it in line with the other threads, but alas, it mocked her. In a fit of provoked rage, she attacked. She tore at that thread, and every thread that sprang forth to defend it, until, one fiber at a time, the corner of that rug had been dismembered. She was guilty, she had decimated that lowly rug. And she had no alibi.

Fearing for her very freedom, in a panic she did the only logical and rational thing she could do, she framed the foster dog. After all, Lady was a temp, she’d move on and have a happy life someplace else, but Maybe, she was stuck here with her adopted mom, she risked a life of confinement. She didn’t want to lose those 4 precious hours of freedom and go back to a full day in solitary!

She pawed at those bars until she got just a corner of the towel Lady was napping on.  Once she had a firm grip, she pulled. She dragged.  She heaved and she jerked until that forty-pound crate shifted.  Inch by inch, she dragged poor Lady to the center of the room. Left her stranded there, in the wreckage to face the law, the fuzz, the mom.

Perhaps the guilt hit there at the end.  She heard the garage door open, and her little heart thumped wildly against her chest. It was too late, it would be impossible to push Lady back against the wall before the boss walked in… but maybe, just Maybe, she could distract the human enough that she didn’t notice the rug.

There is no question that Maybe knew what she did was wrong, she had never before tried to keep me from the family room, and I don’t believe she’s done it since.  She deliberately tried to ‘hide’ her mess from me, and she very clearly set the foster dog up to take the fall.

I’m no scientist, but to say dogs don’t scheme?  I wouldn’t be surprised if Maybe’s got an attorney on retainer!