Eve Archives – Lisa Scottoline

Naughty or Nice?

December 21, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

It’s the time of year when it we find out whether you’ve been bad or good.

Unfortunately, my little puppy Eve has been Evil.

She’s a year old now, so her personality has shown itself, and it ain’t pretty.

Simply put, she’s an total alpha female.

Or more accurately, a boss bitch.

Let’s begin with the fact that she doesn’t like to walk.

In fact, she doesn’t like to leave the couch.

As soon as I get the leash, she throws herself on the ground and refuses to move.

With one exception.

If I ask, “Wanna go in the car?” Then she jumps off the couch and runs over for her leash.

As in, she knows car.

She wants to Uber around the block.

I think a sedan chair would work, too.

She basically doesn’t want her feet to touch the ground.

What woman does?

Don’t worry, there’s nothing physically wrong with her. I took her to the vet, and the diagnosis is that she’s a princess.

And that’s not all.

She doesn’t eat out of a bowl.

At first I thought the problem was her food, so I did the whole thing where you order various overpriced ipsy-pipsy dog meals they ship to you, which involves defrosting, cleaning dishes, and special containers.

But she still didn’t eat.

Then one day I happened to drop some kibble on the floor and she started eating.

Which is when I realized that she likes to eat off the floor.

Now, I have to throw her kibble on the kitchen floor to get her to eat.

This isn’t a problem except that she leaves a fine grit of chicken byproducts.

After every meal, I Dirt-Devil the floor.

Because of my dirty devil.

You haven’t lived until you’ve walked in bare feet and ended up with Purina Pro Plan between your toes.

And if your feet are as dry as mine, you’ll end up with kibble in your heel cracks, which guarantees you’ll be single forever.

The other thing about Eve is that she does not play well with others.

I took her to puppy obedience school, and she graduated, but she’s socially awkward. If she sees another dog on a walk, she barks nonstop at them, which is her way saying hello.

It never works.

Other dogs avoid her.

Yesterday she scared off a German Shepherd.

Or gave him a headache.

As far as people go, she’s picky. She loves Daughter Francesca, me, and a few other of my girlfriends, but she can’t be bothered with strangers we meet. She lets them pet her, but she’ll stand there.

She doesn’t wag her tail.

She checks her watch.

She’s rude.

And it’s awkward.

But randomly, she likes workmen.

Any carpenter, electrician, or plumber who comes over, she flirts like crazy.

Who doesn’t love a man in uniform?

She sees that jumpsuit and she jumps.

Yesterday I had a burglar alarm guy over, and Eve climbed into his lap and wouldn’t move.

Meanwhile she won’t sit on my lap.

She’s supposed to be a lap dog, but evidently it has to be a lap with benefits.

So when it comes to the question whether Eve is Naughty or Nice, I guess I have to say Naughty.

But I love her anyway, which if you ask me, is the point of the holiday season.

Let’s not get all judgy.

There’s too much of that going around lately, and we all need a little more acceptance.

Understanding, even forgiveness.

I love Eve for the little dog she turned out to be.

And that’s Nice.

Happy Holidays!

Plot Twist

September 21, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

My friends, these are plot-twisty times.

Of course I’m talking about my new puppy Eve.

Before I get started, let me thank you for your patience in reading my classic columns while I’ve been finishing my next book. I can’t do two things at once, so I had to take a break in the homestretch of the draft, but now it’s done, so I’m back writing fresh columns.

And you know how fresh I can be.

Also let me say thank you so much for your support of my book The Unraveling of Julia, which came out this summer. Many of you have been reading me for years, even decades, and I’m grateful for you every day.

Okay, back to new puppy Eve.

You may remember that I got Eve a few months ago, for lots of reasons, but mainly because I wanted a dog to take walks with me every day.

My two other dogs, Boone and Kit, are thirteen years old, and they don’t share my enthusiasm for the walk.

In truth, I don’t share my enthusiasm for the walk.

I make myself do it because it’s the laziest form of exercise.

I say that with love.

I have friends who run, hike, ski, and bicycle. I make excuses not to do those things.

Even I can’t find an excuse not to walk.

But we all love a plot twist, and Eve doesn’t like to walk.

As in, Eve will not walk.

If I go towards her with the harness, she runs away.

If I jingle a leash, she scoots under the bed.

If I actually succeed in putting a harness on her, she plants her front end down and her back end up and refuses to move.

I didn’t know why.

Dogs love to walk, right?

And who wouldn’t want to walk with me?

I’m a gas.

Actually I have gas.

Maybe that’s it?

Anyway I wondered if she had something wrong with her, so I took her to the vet, who examined her legs, and at my insistence, even did an x-ray.

Her legs are fine. She just doesn’t want to walk.

By the way, she doesn’t want to go to the car, either.

I jingle keys like the people in commercials, where the dogs jump up and bolt out the door to the car.

Eve bolts to the couch.

I even took her to obedience school.

She was a champ there, like the teacher’s pet.

Literally.

But now Evil is back to her old ways.

Finally I did what any mom would do.

I bribed her.

I carry her outside, then give her treats as we walk along.

You can imagine how comfortable this is, me bending over every ten steps and cheering “good girl” all the way.

Still, I’m into it. I love her and I love walking, so I’m going to make it work.

We parents can’t predict what our children will do, for good or for ill.

I say that because this summer also produced a different plot twist for me, a wonderful one in that my daughter Francesca’s second novel Full Bloom was published. It’s an amazing novel, and thank you to all of you who supported her book with the same enthusiasm you have shown mine over the years.

And because of you, in a wonderful plot twist, Francesca made the USA TODAY Bestseller List, right next to me! In the same week, my novel was the 79th and hers was the 80^th bestselling book of all sold in the country.

Wait, what?

Wow!

We were side-by-side on the list, as in life!

What are the odds?

It’s a harmonic convergence, family-wise.

By the way, I didn’t know Francesca would grow up to be a writer.

I wanted her to be a veterinarian.

For obvious reasons.

But I’m so happy and proud of her, and this summer taught me a great lesson:

You really do not know where life will lead you, or your family.

Sometimes there’s trouble, other times there’s joy.

I celebrate those joyful moments.

With enormous gratitude.

And now, Eve and I are going for a walk.

Good girl!

The Tao of Eve

May 18, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I love sleeping with dogs.

But sleeping with a puppy is a different matter.

Let me explain.

You may know that I recently added a new member to my family, namely Eve, who is now a seven-month-old cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She joins my other two Cavaliers, Boone and Kit, who are almost fourteen now and differ on their opinion of her.

Boone loves Eve.

Kit wishes her dead.

I’m hoping he comes around.

Spoiler alert: He’s not going to.

But so far he’s not trying to kill her.

And Kit has his adorable moments with Eve. Like this morning, I took them out for a walk, and he peed on her leg.

By the way, it was raining.

So I actually got to watch a demonstration of “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

Which is the perfect description of my second marriage.

This is only one of the many great things about dogs.

In any event, I love sleeping with Eve, but she’s very busy all night long.

At this point you’re wondering why I don’t put her in a crate.

Because I tried to in the beginning, but she cried and I’m a big softie.

Luckily she’s never peed on the bed and told me it was raining, but she is an insanely restless sleeper.

First, she loved to bring her toys on the bed and squeak them most of the night.

I took away the squeaky ones, and she started playing with the ball, rolling it around the cover, then on my body.

I took away the ball, and she would jump off the bed and find my socks on the floor, bring them up, and drop them on my face.

Then I picked up all my socks and took away all the toys and she found a way to amuse herself, running up and down the ramp that leads to the bed.

I couldn’t take that away because I already felt heartless.

Plus how else do you get a dog onto a bed?

Where she will disrupt your sleep.

Obviously, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The sensible thing to do would be to put the dog in a crate and a moat around the bed.

But not all decisions are sensible.

That’s why God made divorce.

Meanwhile every single piece of furniture in my house has either a ramp or a set of little wooden stairs, but Eve loves to chews wood, so she makes a meal of those stairs.

She’s on an all-wood diet.

She eats doors and baseboards, and now my place looks like I live with a woodchuck.

Now you’re probably asking, why don’t you spray the wood with that stuff called Bitter Apple, which is supposed to make dogs not chew wood?

The answer is, I do, and Eve thinks it improves the taste of wood.

It’s the dressing on her wood salad.

She would drink Bitter Apple if I let her.

And when she’s not eating wood, she’s running around outside, finding a rock, and chewing that, too.

In the beginning, I started taking the rocks from her and putting them on a pile on the table. Now the table holds a pyramid of rocks, like oranges at the grocery store.

I should sell rocks.

Or I could spray them with Bitter Apple, then Eve would have a rock casserole.

I took her to puppy kindergarten and puppy elementary school, and next week we start puppy middle school.

After that, puppy Harvard.

She learned all her lessons, including Leave It, which I now use forty-five times a day, when she finds a sock, chews wood, or eats a rock.

And she Leaves It.

Until she finds something else.

This is all by way of saying, I love this puppy.

She’s completely adorable, despite all the puppy things she does.

Or maybe because of them.

She’s simply an incredibly affectionate ball of fluff.

When she finally settles down to sleep at my side, she has an adorable snore.

She loves to snuggle and kiss, which is a job requirement for any animal I live with.

Actually she’s a Make-out Queen, but I won’t elaborate.

She loves people, other dogs, and fun in general.

All the time, every minute.

Even at night, but that’s okay.

Life is to be savored, all the time.

And that’s what Eve reminds me.

Sign Up for Lisa's Newsletters!