The dogs swirled around my knees, noses all pointed toward my hands as I passed out treats piece-by-piece and dog-by-dog. Lily’s big sweeping tail knocks over salt shakers pens candles bills the pepper a tv remote and sunglasses from their spots on the coffee table and Jerry groans.
It’s all on tape and I watch the little hand-held video recorder bounce from Ozzy to Hershey to Bandit to Lily to Ozzy…I watch my fingers and rings and a bracelet enter the screen with a treat pinched in fingers that Lily bites and nibbles. My fingers, I mean.
I zoom down as Ozzy turns his snorting little pushed-in face toward me. I catch his stubby face, short legs, and curly tail and watch again as fingers enter the camera’s view and a treat disappears into his funny little mouth.
The video is two months old at least and since then things have become better and worse. Lily’s muscles and flesh have filled in and her energy is high. Bandit and Hershey are now alternately annoyed at her for bouncing around. Bandit sometimes plays with her, feet spread wide and tail going furiously as they wrestle, neither being aggressive, just twisting around with each other. Hershey, our once docile and whimpering chocolate lab has taken these opportunities to charge Lily with an angry growl, fur tufted on her spine.
She is ganging up on Lily. Ozzy snorts and looks for a sunny spot to rest and stay out of the way as a combined tumbleweed of more than 210 pounds of dog rumbles around in the basement until I go over and pinch Hershey’s ear.
Do I get angry at her? Do I praise her for leaving them alone? Maybe I just go outside…a little more…a little more….almost far enough not to care about it for a few minutes.

When I got home Monday Jerry was getting back from a walk in the woods with the dogs. Ahhh. I jogged alone all by myself without any company.