I just got back from a week in Pittsburgh, a week that constituted the first time that Fredo didn't have either me or his sister around. The poor little sissy-boy has had a rough year. First Dex died, then he was viciously attacked at the dog park and had to spend weeks in a cone, and now I abandon him.
"It'll be okay. I'll be back before you know it," I said more to myself than to the dog who only recently learned his own name after five years. I thought about him often while I was gone, hoping he was all right and that he was enjoying the twice-daily cuddle time I bought him. "It'll be okay," I thought.
Yesterday, I sprang Fredo from jail. "Man," said the clerk at the desk. "He was our choir leader!"
I had no idea what he was talking about, so he explained. "Fredo was leading the entire kennel in howls, for hours and hours and days and days." He looked at my grimmace. "He's a howler, right?"
"Never once."
"Oh."