John Collier, Love Me, Love My Dog
I used to have a dog. I loved him, and he loved me. But since he left this sad world, I’ve found dogs annoying: the little yappy dogs next door yapping their little yaps all the yappy day, the muscle-y dogs lunging at me on the sidewalks, the sweatered and bootee-ed stroller dogs that complicate my efforts to regard their owners with the respect I try to confer on all humankind—they annoy me. Now, my old dog had his bad habits. He would leave his scent everywhere. He would shed all the time. He would try to kill the plumber. But he had a deep, rich voice, respected pedestrians, would have scorned to wear bootees—was, in short, just a better dog than the dogs of other people nowadays. This puzzle is dedicated to his memory.
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