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Necco's been at it again, with 'it' being either 'injuring himself' or 'animal hospital' (they're both true, so you pick). The dog is hapless. And yet--right now he's standing at the door, in his purple-polka-dotted cast, because he wants to go out and play in the snow (but the cast will get wet: Necco's trips outside right now involve suiting his cast up in a plastic bag and a neoprene sock). He doesn't know what it felt like for us to stand in the vet's office and hear that our dog might wind up three-legged if his tendons don't heal--he doesn't know that the same vet operated on him on Christmas Eve so he'd have a better chance of keeping that fourth leg. Necco is, after all, a dog. He doesn't know why he has a cast on his leg, he honors no holidays, he really likes snow and running around.

One of the earliest things I remember writing was a rumination on a dog's death (I was age eight), and I'm kind of tempted to go into the whole dog thing again here, like I did when I first started this blog and Necco swallowed a plastic bag. But mostly--hey, Necco, we're glad to have you home, you big dumb dog. You can't even read, and yet I'm writing to you. There you go: human-canine relationship, in a nutshell.