THE MISSING HALF

Aaron has been out of town for the past week, which means not only am I at liberty to have pancakes for dinner every night, but I'm also the sole care-taker of the dogs.

I'm okay with this arrangement, on a temporary basis because I miss Aaron. However it is apparently not okay with the dogs. They told me.


On the first night sans Aaron, Scoop did not sleep a wink. She paced around the house looking for Aaron, whined at his side of the bed, pawed at the back door and eventually drug the mat from in front of his bathroom sink and curled up with it.

Sadie left her usual spot and made her bed in Aaron's closet.

Aaron is the one who usually feeds the dogs in the evening. So when dinner time rolled around and I filled their bowls, Scoop looked at me and said, "That's not how Aaron does it."

One morning I got a little bit upset with them for running off into the neighborhood and not coming when I called them. I told them I was worried about them, and I was going to be late for work and couldn't wait around while they took their sweet time exploring and chasing squirrels as they made their way home. Sadie looked at me and said, "Aaron lets us."

Yesterday we went on a walk and came upon a dog I've never seen before. In our neighborhood most families allow their dogs to run freely, so it's not uncommon to be greeted by furry friends, and we get to know them. But this was a new dog, a stranger dog. He was rather big and I couldn't immediately tell whether or not he was friendly. Sadie and Scoop went trotting towards him. I got nervous and called to them to stop. Scoop turned around, looked at me and said, "It's okay, Aaron knows him."

The new dog turned out to be very friendly, once my dogs told him, "It's okay, Aaron knows her."