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beginning to thinkMom and Dad had been right. Maybe she
couldn’t
walk five dogs at once. Fortunately, Dottie was good on the leash—but she did not get along with the other dogs as well as her owner had said she would. She seemed to like Scruffy, but she growled every time Tank or Atlas came near her, lifting her lip and baring her teeth. “No, Dottie,” Lizzie yelled every time Dottie growled. But since Dottie was deaf, that didn’t do much good. Lizzie just had to try to keep her away from the bigger dogs, which was not easy. All four dogs wove back and forth, tangling their leashes and nearly tripping Lizzie with every step.
    Lizzie must have looked frazzled by the time she knocked on the door of the house where Maxx the mini–Doberman pinscher lived. “Are you okay?” asked his owner, Ms. Federico. “Maxx can wait until later if you want to drop some of those other dogs off first.” Lizzie assured her that she could manage. “Okay, try to keep him frombarking and jumping up,” Ms. Federico said as she handed Maxx’s leash to Lizzie. “Those are two habits of his we are trying to change.”
    “Sure,” said Lizzie. But Maxx was like a jumping bean. A noisy jumping bean. His feet barely touched the ground as he boing-boinged all over the sidewalk, barking nonstop and jumping up on Lizzie and the other dogs.
    Lizzie walked back toward Sunset as quickly as she could, stopping every few feet to untangle leashes, clean up poop, wipe drool off her pants, or let a dog sniff or pee. It was a relief to drop off Atlas, then Scruffy. Tank and Maxx barked at each other for three straight blocks after that, but Dottie, being deaf, didn’t seem bothered. By the time Lizzie made it back to Maxx’s house, she was exhausted. As she walked up the steps to her own house after dropping him off, she shook her head. Tomorrow, she would have to do things differently.Walking five dogs at once was much harder than she had expected.
    Lizzie stopped on the top step. Five dogs? She had six clients. She smacked her forehead. Ginger! She still had one more dog to walk.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    The owner, founder, and only employee of AAA Plus Dog Walkers had a long, hard week of work. But by the end of the week, Lizzie had to admit that she was learning a lot.
    On Wednesday, the second day of her dog-walking business, she had tried giving each dog a separate twenty-minute walk. That made things a lot easier—no more tangled leashes—but it took a lot longer, too. Six dogs times twenty minutes, plus pickups and dropoffs and walking between clients’ homes: that added up to well over two hours of dog walking, not exactly what she had bargained for. It didn’t leave much time for homework, let alone playing with Bandit.
    On Thursday, Lizzie had tried different combinations of dogs. She discovered that she could walk Atlas and Maxx at the same time, and Dottie and Scruffy were a good pair, too. And once she found Tank’s halter, she could walk him with either of the other two pairs of dogs.
    Ginger was a different story. Ginger had to be walked all by herself—not because she didn’t get along with other dogs, or pulled too hard, or barked too loudly. No, Ginger was just plain slow. It took the whole twenty minutes just to get her around the block. She ambled along, stopping every few steps to sniff. When Lizzie tried to hurry her, Ginger stood her ground, planting her feet and stiffening her short, stocky legs. Sometimes, no matter how hard Lizzie tugged, she could not get Ginger moving.
    “Did I tell you what Ginger did on Friday?” Lizzie asked Maria. It was Sunday now, and she was at her friend’s house. She had brought Banditover, and the two girls had been playing with the puppy all day, giving him lots of love every minute since they knew he would soon be gone. Lizzie could hardly stand to think about it, but any minute now Uncle Teo would stop by to pick up the puppy. He and Bandit would leave for Boston before dawn the next