Mark Twain once suggested that the second week of January is a good time to begin paving hell with all those “humbug” resolutions we make on New Year’s Day. This year, buoyed by research that shows that one-third of these well-meaning intentions don’t even last a month, I’ve resolved to be realistic, and I didn’t make any resolutions. So I won’t be out there on the paving crew with the rest of you.

I have, however, decided to translate the goofy New Year’s resolutions of my two dogs. Having lived with them for quite some time, I know just what they are thinking. Surprisingly, they are fairly eloquent, if limited, thinkers (with an apparent appetite for alliteration). So without further ado, here are the Papandrew Pups’ Rover Resolutions:

1. We will win the war of the noses.
We will become more sophisticated combatants in the war of the noses. We’ll devise a way to stick our snouts into areas requiring sniffing without being swatted. This includes the canine Holy Grail, that delectable repository of delight the humans call The Trash. We will never cease and desist, but we’ll try to remember not to be caught with our heads in this tasty troth when the often hysterical human female known as Mom enters the room. Instead, we’ll do our trash trolling in the presence of the wonderfully clueless bipeds called Boys. They don’t seem to mind if we get into The Trash, and they don’t appear at all upset if we smell interesting areas on their bodies. We will not attempt to smell the private parts of the crotchety human named Grandma. The repercussions just aren’t worth it, and, due to excessive use of a nasty people product apparently called soap, Grandma’s bouquet is very boring. Better to stick to the malodorous males.

2. We will take revenge on the rodent.
This will finally be the year we satisfy our hankering for the hamster called Sunset. This rotten rodent has thus far successfully evaded our righteous quest for her hide, mocking us with those beady black eyes and even nipping our noses when we manage to stick them inside her cage. We refuse to give up. We will soon make a snack out of Sunset.

3. We will emulate the enemy.
We will learn to imitate the subtlety of our foe, the neighborhood cat who prances spitefully on our front porch right before our eyes. When we justifiably launch a blistering volley of barking designed to alert our family to this brazen intrusion, the clever cat seems to vanish into thin air, leaving the humans to look at us as if we’re stupid. So we will borrow a page from the kitty playbook and cover our tracks. No longer will we openly drag our backsides across the carpet. This is a perfectly normal act that is very effective in scratching annoying anal itches. But when Mom sees us doing this, she howls like our wolf ancestors and kicks us out of the house for unreasonable periods of time. We will think like a cat and be more subtle.

And finally:

4. We will do a better job of walking the woman.
We will take pity on the inferior joints of our somewhat heavy human and go easy on her during our walks. All bets are off, though, if we get a whiff of another dog, a squirrel, a cat or, best of all, a fragrant splotch of roadkill. Then we will be forced to wrench her arm out of its socket and twist her knees ’til they tremble as we lunge against our leashes in our attempt to investigate. This would not be necessary if our human was in better shape and could run with us. Maybe that should be one of her New Year’s resolutions. We’ll let her know.

Jackie Papandrew is an award-winning freelance writer and editor. Her humor writing has been featured in several books, including the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, as well as in numerous publications in the United States, Canada and India. You can read more of her work at www.jackiepapandrew.com.