(John and I split a bottle of wine at dinner tonight (Today is his birthday!), so please forgive any typos. Or rambling. Or nonsensical rants. But I’m sure there won’t be any of those.)
It’s easy to forget that our neighbor has a dog. He’s just so quiet most of the time. Every once in a while, we’ll hear him scrabbling across the floor (maybe playing with a ball?), but he doesn’t bark and we rarely see him outside. (That could be because we’re rarely outside.)
We heard him all day today, though. I don’t know what was going on over there, but this poor dog HOWLED all day. It was adorable at first, and it inspired me to howl back. That resulted in a minute or so of silence, when I imagined this dog staring at the wall that connects our houses with his head cocked to one side. “Did I really hear that? Is someone talking to me? I didn’t quite understand it – maybe they’re from another country.” Then he’d howl again. And really, I’m not sure why. Some days we have emergency vehicles rushing down the street all the time, but not today. No ambulances, no fire engines, no police cars, no sirens of any kind. It passed adorable (although it circled back to adorable once an hour or so) and became lonely around midday. Why is this dog howling? Does he miss his owners? What makes today different?
We’re about ready to volunteer ourselves as dogsitters. Maybe not volunteer, but we’d offer a competitive rate.