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back of the couch, “rather large?”
    The man shook his head. “It’s just because he’s in here. Take him out for a run along side the car and you won’t even notice him. Why, just the other day I was talking to my girlfriend and she was saying how Caesar seemed to be getting smaller because he fit into her closet so well, kind of back in the dark”—he moved toward the door as he spoke—“where he likes to make a bed, out of the way back in the dark”—his hand was on the knob—“why, in a short time you won’t even know he’s here…”
    And he was gone. I won’t say he ran, but by the time the door was latched he hadhis car started and was pulling out of the driveway.
    It all happened so fast I don’t think the dog even knew he was gone. He sat for a moment, staring at me, then out the window; then he climbed on the couch, knocking over the coffee table, two end tables and a lamp. He used his paw to push the drapes aside and saw the car just as it was disappearing and he made a sound like a cross between the closing whistle at a major auto plant and how I imagined the hound of the Baskervilles would sound.
    Then he climbed down, moved to the front door and sat.
    Staring at the door.
    Waiting.
    “Well,” I said, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
    My wife looked around at the wreckage— when he’d jumped down he’d put his weight on the back of the couch and tipped it over—and sighed. “What do you suppose happens when he has to go to the bathroom?”
    It nearly became a moot point. For a time it didn’t look as if he would live. I have never seen a dog grieve like Caesar.
    His heart was truly broken. He sat by the door all that day and all that first night and when it was apparent his owner was not coming back right away, he lay down with his nose aimed at the door and waited.
    Although he would drink a small amount of water, he would eat nothing. Great Danes are not fat in the best of times—all angles and bones—and within two days he looked positively emaciated. I tried everything. Special dog foods, cooked hamburger, raw liver, bits of bread with honey, fresh steak—he wouldn’t touch any of it.
    The third day I called a vet.
    “Does he drink?”
    “Barely.”
    “How long since he’s had food?”
    “Two, no, three days.”
    A long pause. “Well, if he’s drinking he’s not going to dehydrate. Give him a couple more days and if he doesn’t eat then you’ll have to bring him in and we’ll tube him.”
    “Tube him?”
    “Force a tube down his throat and pump liquid food directly into his stomach.”
    I looked at Caesar. Even skinny and lying by the door he seemed to block out the light in the room. He was civil enough when we petted him but he mostly ignored us and would pointedly push us out of the way when we came between him and the door. I didn’t see how it would be possible to force him to do anything.
    It was, in the end, nearly six full days before he came around. I genuinely feared for his life and had decided that if he didn’t eat by the morning of the sixth day I would take him in to be force-fed.
    The change came at six in the morning onthe sixth day. I was sound asleep—actually close to comatose, as I’d been working on a construction crew pouring cement forms for basements and the work was killing me—and found myself suddenly lying on my side with my eyes open. I didn’t remember waking up, but my eyes were open and I was staring directly into the slobbery muzzle of Caesar.
    I closed my eyes—lost in sleep for a moment, I did not remember getting the dog— and kept them closed. It was no good. A tongue that seemed to be a foot wide and three feet long slathered spit up the middle of my face and I sat bolt upright and swore.
    “Woof.”
    It was not loud but it was perfect—an exact
woof—
and he looked directly into my eyes when he made the sound. It was so pointed, so decisive and focused, I knew exactly what he wanted.
    “What was that?” my wife