A few weeks ago, I decided on a Spring Clean. It would be, I rationalized, the best way possible to usher spring in, since it has seemed determined to keep at bay. So off I puttered with Pot Roast always in hot pursuit. I cleaned out drawers, scrubbed baseboards, vacuumed dog hair from the couch (eew), and touched up paint. And then I turned to the closet to purge my clothing, making piles to donate that I heaped outside my bedroom door.

Hours later, exhausted from my household sweep, I set to making dinner. If you own an animal, odds are you know that you never cook alone. Your pet is usually there, watching, staring, willing food to fall to the floor. Among his many nicknames, we call Pot Roast the Rinse Cycle for the kitchen as a whole. Who needs to spring clean when he’s at the helm?!

So when my furry companion wasn’t sitting at my feet, I knew something was wrong. I went looking for Pot Roast all over the house, calling his name. Was he sick? Did he fall somewhere? I ran to the basement and checked there—No Roast. Maybe I left him in the backyard? I ran there too, but no luck. I even got in my car and drove around the neighbourhood, worried he was lost, although he’d never once saw fit to run away upon realizing that in the big wide world, no one offers permanent back scratches and food provisions.

I came home in tears and called my parents. Where was my dog? When I can barely go to the bathroom alone, why wasn’t he at my side?

A chill came over the house, empty without all the love that normally filled it. I went to my closet to fish out a sweater…only to find a snoozing Bull Terrier underneath my dresses, curled up without a thought in the world. “Oh, what are you doing here?” he seemed to ask with those beady brown eyes. I’d accidentally shut him in while cleaning and he hadn’t bothered to let me know.

Bull Terriers aren’t known for barking. In fact, it’s one of their prime features that I enjoy. But for once, I would have liked him to do the one thing that could have alerted me to where he was.

But I was too happy to be annoyed. I’m sure Pot Roast wondered why I was crying, why he got a hamburger patty for dinner, and why he was snuggled to the ends of the earth that night. But I don’t think he cared about the cause. The effect was what he was after.

 

 

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