He's mine. Michelle Blanchard takes a liking to Doggy Dan. Gilda is not so sure.

Oh, sweet relief. It's back to bonkers business as usual for Auckland's most famous "housewives". And in their world, that means backstreet cat-feeding, a posh shooting event, and competing book launches.

After the disastrous Port Douglas getaway, during which Julia made a racist remark and everyone else tried to figure out which 1940s storybook she'd just jumped out of, the Housewives are back home.

Julia's apology to Michelle is "on the table" and the ladies are "moving forward", says Michelle, who is more invested in repairing her relationship with Marley the disobedient dog at the beginning of episode 7 of The Real Housewives of Auckland.

supplied Doggy Dan. Woof.

Enter Doggy Dan, the poodle-haired "hottie" she hired to sort Marley out. For such an ordinarily composed and elegant woman, Michelle is oddly discombobulated by his arrival at the mansion. "Oh my god, Doggystyle Dan. I'm Missionary Michelle — just thought I'd get that out there."

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Outside by the pool, where Dan tries to teach Michelle how to properly stroke her dog to encourage relaxation, she says, "I'll stroke you."

supplied Gilda Kirkpatrick: "Doggy Dan is not my cup of tea."

Phwoaah, ooh er? Or just ew?

In Herne Bay, Lou is meeting Ang after an audition for a television drama role she really, really wants. "It is bloody well my time," says Lou, who is in need of a cup of tea and a debrief. Ang is the only Housewife "to take any interest" in Lou's potentially rekindled career, so here we are.

"I look good for my age," says Lou, while Ang nods and makes supportive noises. "Sometimes if you're going for a role in your 50s you need a more worn-in face."

supplied Anne shows Julia what it takes to be an animal activist, on one of her stray pussy-feeding runs.

Ang offers her a vial of some mystery substance to spray on her hands and wave around her aura. "Breathe it in," says Ang.

"Of course I think that's a load of crap, but I go along with it," says Lou, ever a good sport.

In Parnell, Julia is helping Anne on her stray-pussy run, during which our favourite fur-wearing animal activist ducks behind bushes and clambers onto cliff ledges to distribute Jimbo's cat food. Julia, dressed in leather pants and a cartoonish pom-pom scarf, seems to have assumed all the stray pussies hung out at the art gallery or Cibo.

supplied "These are my shootin' clothes."Gilda and Lou are ready for a magazine shoot about clay bird shooting.

"You can keep your little nails clean today," says Anne, unimpressed, "but next time you'd better come prepared."

To further provoke, Julia ("I've got three guns") reveals her plan for a girls' clay bird shooting outing — "over the heads of all these poor ducks and swans", as Anne soon discovers.

At the Simunovich Olive Estate, the women regather as a group for the first time since the Ugly Incident on the Yacht. Michelle is not sure she wants to be near Julia and guns. Gilda, on the other hand, is "so excited to get my hands on that weapon... I have shot an M16 and AK-47. I grew up in Iran during the Revolution. You become obsessed with guns and weaponry, basically."

supplied Don't mess with The Real Housewives of Auckland. They'll shoot you.

Lou just about "knocks out her dentures" when the gun kicks back and hits her on the jaw, but Ang soon gets the hang of it. "I've got good hand eyeball co-ordination," says Ang.

Michelle and Anne watch the others for a while, then head off to drink Champagne. Anne's toast: "Here's to the little ducks and swans".

At lunch, Ang reveals that she is about to shoot the cover of her new book Being Real, about, um, how to be real. Gilda says that she is about to launch her second comic book to teach kids basic cosmology and astronomy.

supplied "Here's to the little ducks and swans."

"You two are writing such different books," says a sly Anne, who surely must be close to signing a contract for an etiquette book co-written with her high tea-loving nephew Rohan.

"Even the title sounds a bit flaky," says Lou of Ang's book. "It sounds a bit dancing farting yoga or whatever we did."

"I'm not going to be overshadowed by someone else coming out with the book," says Ang, who nonetheless looks fairly appalled at the prospect.

supplied Julia didn't win the clay shooting event and she's not happy about it. She owns three guns, you know.

Next, we are at The Jefferson, a lounge bar in central Auckland, where Gilda and her friend Mark are nailing down details for her book launch party. Mark, a "single man about town" who will MC the event, is after "a high-end celebrity feel", and is all about installing a red velvet rope for corralling his high-end celebrities as they wait to be photographed.

Mark is also into creating a cocktail for the event called Uranus, tee hee hee, and spending $100 a shot on whisky that has travelled to the moon and back. Plus, he wants to hire his florist for the event, the woman who "is in charge of all the flowers" he sends to his girlfriends.

"Think high-end Gucci and Louis Vuitton," Mark says of the flowers, but Gilda is thinking planets and star systems.

supplied Michelle Blanchard. "Ang's book, so real."

Mark plans to "keep it funny and naughty" on the night, and promises Gilda's launch will be superior to Ang's book launch because, duh, moon whisky and high-end people!

Meanwhile, Ang is "surrounded by love" at her book cover shoot. "I'm just going to reveal who I am," she says happily. French PA Lea is making tea while spiritual healer Karen is on hand to ward off any stray invisible daggers.

Although Ang says she is "very, very happy" to surrender her cover look to the two morose young men in hoodies who are trying to style her, she baulks at their suggestion of a simple white shirt.

supplied Louise Wallace on Ang's book Being Real: "Even the title sounds flaky."

"Too casual", she says, although photographer Norrie is into it, because it's, um, real. "All the supermodels wore white shirts," says Norrie.

Then he suggests she take it even further, make it even more real, by wearing nothing! In a bath of bubbles!

"As a model, it's really important to do as you're told," says Ang. "I'm so comfortable exposing myself. I don't have to hide behind smokes and mirrors."

BRAVO Angela Stone, being real.

Karen and Lea help Ang into the bath and, let me tell you, it could not be more real. Taking a handful of bubbles and blowing them, Ang remarks, "I'm not a Playboy model. I'm a fashion model."

Also an author? Or is that the moon whisky talking?