Ever since last January when she’d turned two, Zelda had been having an identity crisis.  Although her mother told her  it was typical for teens to live in a constant state of insecurity, she didn’t believe it for a second.  She felt certain that all the other bitches in her pack were confident about who they were, and rarely doubted themselves.   They sure acted like it. Ha.   She saw the way they carried on with the dogs in the park.   Upset about living in what seemed to be a constant state of permanent emergency and utter panic, she continually tried new remedies.  No matter what tool for erasing the active brain each yoga instructor suggested, her anxieties kept dancing around in her mind – especially, ironically, in Shivasana.   She was optimistic about dating as a means of forgetting her hangups, but every time she went out on the town with a Bulldog or Cattle Dog or Weimaraner  they never called her back, and really didn’t seem much interested in mating with her. Her housemate and friend Sparky, a Great Dane, told her that basically the guys couldn’t figure her out.  She was considered to be wonky as all get out.  Zelda wondered how this could possibly be the case.  She was always trying on a different persona, one that she hoped would get attention  and knock the collar off a dog – a coquettish flirt, a barky humorist, a quiet submissive type who rolled around on her back at the slightest provocation, a cocky terrier type, and oh so many others.  Didn’t everybody do that?  She decided that maybe she just hadn’t found the right approach yet.   She’d try again tonight with the new hot brown Vizsla who’d just moved into town.  Meanwhile, she’d read a most encouraging line a Pug had written on the wall of the shelter:  “If you’re distressed by something external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your own estimate of it, and this you have the power to change. ”    It sent a spark of hope running through her tail.