After saying goodbye to Clara, Katherine started the car and slowly drove down the driveway, frequently glancing at the dog. He looked around, bracing himself as the car made gentle turns, and once gave a little squeak of unhappiness. “There, there,” murmured Katherine, and then he stood up and climbed out of the box and moved closer. He perched on the parking brake, his nose tucked into Katherine’s arm pit. Katherine let him stay there, thinking that he was getting comfort from her smell. She imagined that he sensed that she was now the only other animal in his world.
     At home she carried him into the kitchen and set him down. He began sniffing the floor and cautiously investigating his immediate surroundings. When Katherine moved to the counter to fill two dishes with water and with dry puppy food, he scurried to her ankles. She closed the kitchen door near the foot of the stairs and spread out newspaper in one corner. “Try to hit some of that, will you, boy?” Wherever she moved, he was close to being underfoot, and she soon learned to step carefully. Suddenly he began shivering, and she reached down and scooped him up. At once he pressed his belly against her chest and put his paws on either side of her neck. It was as if she was carrying a monkey. He stuck his nose against the base of her throat and closed his eyes. When his shivering subsided she realized that this was what he needed. Holding him with one arm, she managed to fill the kettle and plug it in. She wandered around, carrying him like a sleeping baby until the water boiled. Then she took a large mug of tead to the couch in the living room and carefully sat down, the dog still plastered to her. After a few moments she slowly reached for a book on home treatments for athletic injuries that she was reading for an upcoming interview, and managed to read and sip tea around the black ball of fur.
     After half an hour of reading about ice packs and heating pads, herbal steams and poultices, she was tired, and put the book down. This is a fine way to spend Saturday night, she thought. The puppy remained on top of her, basking in the heat of her body, but he had long since relaxed his panicky grip, and his head had slid away from her throat to the side, and he slept.
     His paws started to twitch and then his tongue crept out of his black snout and he sucked air. He was dreaming of nursing, and slowly Katherine moved her finger to his tongue to test his reponse. She expected him to suck it like a pacifier, but as soon as she touched his tongue he started back and shook himself awake. As his beady dark eyes blinked sleepily at her she felt slightly hurt at his violent rejection.
     Now that he was awake she took her chance to fix supper. She carried him into the kitchen and set him down on the newspaper. After walking and sniffing in a circle, he leaned his chubby belly away from his back legs and released a stream. Delighted that he had used the paper, Katherine praised and petted him and added a couple of sheets of newspaper to cover the wet.
     As Katherine prepared her dinner of tomatoes and rice, the puppy started to explore the kitchen. He sniffed his food but lapped some water. Katherine stirred a pot and when she looked back at him, he was gone. Glancing around in concern, wishing she had decided on a name to call him, she spotted the white tip of his tail under the woodstove. “You nutbar,” she said in relief. When he emerged  he was covered in dust, and Katherine grabbed a paper towel and wiped him all over, murmuring words of comfort as she did so.
     While she ate, the puppy – Tippy? – wove in and around the table and chair legs. Cute white socks, she was thinking. Socks? But he looks like a bear cub, with those little dark eyes and snout. Bruno, maybe. He came upon a broom in a corner and backed comically away from the dark bristles. Suddenly he gave a squeak and darted for the safety of Katherine’s feet. “You silly baby,” she said with a smile.
     After putting her dishes in the sink, she opened the cupboard where she kept the dog food and took out a little striped ball. “Okay, Buster, let’s play.” She sat on the floor and first let him sniff the ball. Then he sat down in front of her with a bored look. When she slowly rolled the ball toward him, he shot up and backed away, then cautiously approached for a closer sniff. “Didn’t know it could do tricks, did you?” Katherine reached for it and rolled it again at him, and this time he stood his ground, even tentatively touching it once with his paw. Gradually she accustomed him to playing with the ball, and soon she was tickling him with it on his belly as he pumped his back legs and playfully bit with his tiny sharp teeth. When she quickly rolled the ball across the room he raced after it and tried unsuccessfully to pick it up in his too-small mouth. After fifteen minutes or so, Katherine urged him onto the papers again and he was ready, seeming to smile at her praise. Again he went for his water, and Katherine moved into the living room to watch TV. While she settled on the couch, he stretched out on his side at her feet and closed his eyes.
     When Katherine was ready to go to bed, she picked him up and placed him in the corner of the kitchen with the newspapers. She put the towel in a small wicker dog bed, and then barricaded him in with two pieces of wood supported by kitchen chairs. “Good night, you sweetie,” she called while he looked up at her innocently. She turned out the light and went upstairs. She undressed, brushed her teeth, and then got into bed with a sigh of exhaustion. Just after she turned out the light and closed her eyes, the whimpering began.
     Pitiful baby-like cries came drifting up the stairs through the silent house. Katherine held her breath. Resist the impulse to pick up your puppy, she remembered reading in her book on dogs. He must learn to sleep alone right from the first night. But instead of growing quieter, the cries grew louder and more insistent, almost panicky. She threw off her duvet and went downstairs making soothing noises. The puppy tried to climb over the barricade to her, but she only petted him and gently put him back in his basket, murmuring all the while. She climbed back upstairs, but as soon as she was quietly in bed again, the whimpers resumed.
     She closed her eyes. The whimpers rose to a crescendo and then suddenly broke into another sound that seemed to be the first attempt at barking, and Katherine’s heart broke at this sign of her puppy’s infant anxiety. The awkward barks grew more confident, but gradually slid into howls. They were baby wolf howls of loneliness and despair, and Katherine hated having to ignore them, but she listened with fascination to the calls of the wild that were coming from the corner of her kitchen. Suddenly they stopped and there was ringing silence.
     Katherine sighed in relief, but the quiet lasted only a short time, and then the whimpers began again. The litany carried on as she lay wide awake, whimpers shifting into angry barks that led to heart-rending howls.
     All puppies are lonely their first night alone, she reminded herself from her reading. But he’s safe and has a warm bed and can pinkle on the paper, so eventually he’ll get tired and fall asleep. She lay there resisting the unmistakable distress calls of a lost young creature, feeling increasingly like a heartless monster. You’ll spoil him if you go to him. He has to go through this.
     Twenty minutes later there was a long silence, and Katherine slipped gratefully asleep. But soon she was awakened by the whimpers and howls, and saw in horror that only half an hour had passed. She turned on her other side and covered her ear.
     So it went that first night, patches of sleep regularly interrupted by the puppy’s insistent calls for help. He cried himself into exhaustion, and then dozed until he was restored enough to begin his protest again. Katherine slept as he slept, and lay in agony listening to his enraged barks that began to get hoarse through the night. Tomorrow night it’s got to get better, she told herself.

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