Sweet-pea, that boy is a junk-yard mutt and screw me silly if'n
he'll ever be anything else, the kind of dog that looks mean and
people buy beware-of signs for but whose hind legs give out after
he's been living too long. Weak at the knees, he has spent the bet-
ter part of these last five years following your tracks with his tongue
lolling out the side of his jowls and at twice your size almost, he
barks out orders at every single male he sees, to prove a point, but
smiles and shifts from foot to foot when you're around. I'll bet you
got him pedigree and used him up so he's naught but the scars where
his balls used to be.

Fittingly, he will probably live to be no older than thirty (which,
still is, a helluvalot of time in dog years). He'll have spent his
entire life working on great big metal objects and bearing his teeth
at the men who've wronged the women he secretly fauns after, who braid
his hair and send him off a-huntin'. When he goes it will be with his
lips aslop with foam and his tail between his legs -- and girly, I'll
bet it's you who picks up his old 22 caliber and says "I'll do it,
he's my dog."