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office looks like.”
    “Yeah.” Sid stood up. “I appreciate your giving me these few minutes, though.”
    “That’s okay. I’m sorry I can’t give you anything more. I know how you must feel.”
    “Perhaps, if something else comes to mind . . .”
    “I’ll give you a call. That’s a promise.” Dr. Fox extended his hand and Sid shook it. Outside in the lobby, he paused by the German shepherd. The owner was an elderly woman dressed in a long black overcoat. She looked fragile and afraid, with eyes sadder than the eyes of the dog that had quills in its mouth.
    “Went where he shouldn’t have, huh?” Sid asked.
    “It’s not like him,” she said. “He’s always right by me. Stays close to home. He’s a good dog. But it’s those dogs down the street that come up all the time,” she added, her voice filled with vehemence, her pale, slim face becoming animated. “I tell those people they should keep their dogs leashed, but it’s too much trouble to put up with the barking.”
    “You should report them.”
    “Oh, I have. The police come up; they warn them, and then they’re at it again.” She looked at her dog. The animal sat patiently and stared up at Sid. The dog’s eyes were watery. Sid thought he looked remorseful, like a child who had been caught doing wrong and hoped to escape serious punishment by playing up his regret. “He’s a good dog,” the old lady said, stroking the animal’s head and neck. “It’s those others.”
    “He’ll be all right,” Sid said. He started to pet the dog and then stopped. “Good luck,” he said and left the office.
    She talks about him as though he were a child, he thought as he started for home. Then he thought, butso many people do. And the pet food industry and all the related pet industries cater to that, encourage that. He thought about the television commercials in which animals were shown having opinions about brands of food. People clothed their animals, bought health insurance for them, and even buried them in special pet cemeteries. No, the old lady isn’t hard to understand, he thought. But how much of this stuff is true and how much of it is superimposed? Are animals really capable of the deep feelings and emotions we ascribe to them?
    What was his relationship to King? He had liked the dog, had been impressed with him, especially after he had gone through obedience training. Sometimes when he sat there in the living room looking at Sid or at the kids, Sid thought he looked as though he were thinking. There were times when he seemed sad and times when he seemed happy. Yet was it possible to ascribe what had happened simply to a case of a bad mood?
    People, who are far more intelligent than dogs, have been known to do impulsive and foolish things . . . things that hurt others and things that hurt themselves. Why was it so hard for him to accept that the dog might have done that, too?
    Because it’s precisely his lower level of mentality that makes him predictable, Sid thought. Someone once said, some philosopher, “To think is to be sad.” The deeper one thinks, the more one philosophizes, the more unhappy one can become about this life.
    Intelligent people are unpredictable because they see more choices and take more original routes. The dog, a lower form of life and intelligence, can’t be as moody. He wasn’t happy being chained, but it would be a stretch of the imagination to expect that to make him suicidal or conniving.
    None of this satisfied Sid. All that he had learnedand thought about only deepened the mystery. Maybe Clara was right; maybe he should simply let it be: admit defeat and forget. It wasn’t in his character to do so, but it wasn’t in his character to be self-destructive, either.
    He sat in the car for a moment after he pulled into the driveway; he stared at the empy doghouse. It would be best to get that out of here now, he thought. It was a shame to destroy it; it was a well-built doghouse. Maybe he could put an ad