I have experience with this

Oh, no… My human’s malfunctioning again. Every time he gets nervous, he freezes. I have to help.

Woof!

Oh, right! That’s it! Thank you, Poof!

Even if he doesn’t understand what I’m telling him sometimes, my human’s intelligent enough to get my message. I brought him my food bowl to tell him he should bring out the dishes. Next, I should bring him my water bowl so he won’t forget the bottle that goes POP and those transparent bowls on transparent sticks they drink its contents from. Later on, I should remind him about the meat in the oven.

It’s okay, I have experience with this. He put a cloth over the living room table, so that means another human’s gonna come by and eat. If that human sticks around, I’ll get another playmate. Yay! I wonder if it’ll be a male or a female… Anyway, I hope this one sticks around longer.

Woof! Woof!

What is it?

The meat’s changing its smell. Come on, human! Follow me!

Sometimes, I have to take matters into my own paws. My human’s a good human. He’s good at getting food and keeping our home in order, but I have to take good care of him when it comes to other things. If I don’t get him out of his head when he’s nervous, he stays frozen. If I don’t take him out for walks, he never exercises. If I don’t introduce him to other humans at the park, he doesn’t know how to socialize.

Wait… Maybe the human who’s coming over is one of those humans from the park. That means I’ll have a friend over! Yay!

Woof! Woof!

What? What am I forgetting now?

My human joins me by the window to watch when our visitors will get here. I can’t wait! So far, no one seems familiar, but… Oh, my dog, that’s Miri! Look, look! It’s Miri and her human!

Oh, my God, Jason’s already here… Okay, stay calm. Stay calm. Don’t freeze. Stay calm.

What do you mean stay calm? This is cause for excitement! Come on, hurry! Open the door, hurry! I wanna see Miri!

“Poof! Oh, my dog, it’s been ages since I’ve seen you!”

“Yeah, it’s been two days. Way too long! Come in! Come in and let’s play! I wanna show you my toys! Oh, and I wanna show you this cool thing called a toilet!”

“Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Uhm… your house might end up looking like a tornado passed through it after this…

It’s fine. Poof regularly does a lot of damage by himself, so I’m used to it. Come in.

***

“Check this out, Miri! You stick your head all the way in and drink. The water’s much tastier than the one in the bowl.”

“Yeah, I know. My human has something like this too. It’s awesome!”

“Oh, no! The humans! I left my human alone for far too long and he’s gonna malfunction again… I need to go check on him!”

“Right! I wanna check up on my human too!”

“Ah, I knew it! They’re still not playing with each other.”

“But my human seems happy. And he has a look in his eyes that’s similar to when he looks at me, so I’d say things are going well.”

“You don’t understand, Miri. Humans are strange. Even when they like each other, they take forever to start playing with each other. It’s such a waste. We should take matters into our own paws.”

“What do you wanna do? Should we knock the table over so it won’t stand between them?”

“Nah, my human doesn’t really like it when I do that… Oh, I know! Hints!”

Whoof! Whoof!

“Good. I got his attention. Now, look here, human, and follow my lead… Wait, what are you doing? No, human! Noooo…”

“Did it backfire?”

“I’m putting my paw on your shoulder and telling him to do what I’m doing, but he put his hand over his face instead…”

“Well, my human’s laughing a lot, so at least we got that out of this.”

You know, Poof might be onto something there…

“What’s your human doing, Miri? Is he asking my human to give him his paw, I mean hand?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Do it, human! Do it… Yes!”

“Yay! Now that that’s taken care of, let’s go play.”

“I should stay here. My human might malfunction again.”

“Don’t worry. If they got here, they’ll end up playing later on. Trust me, I have experience with this.”

“I hope you and your human end up moving here and staying for a long time, Miri. We could play together every day and my life would be easier since I wouldn’t have to do everything myself.”

“That would be awesome.”

***

“Throw it here, Miri! I wanna play with that ball too!”

“Okay, catch!”

“I got it! I got it! I got… oops…”

“Oh, no!”

“Don’t worry! I caught this thing before it fell. Look.”

“Phew! That’s a relief. Last time you crashed into the dresser and that thing fell, both our humans got really agitated. It’s important to them, so it’s good that it didn’t break. We should put it back.”

“How, though? Neither of us can reach that high.”

“Uhm…”

“Maybe we should hide it?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Poof.”

“What is this thing anyway? It shows us and our humans, but small and static, looking like we did on that day ages ago when there were a lot of people.”

“They called it a wedding photo. Or something like that…”

“If they like it so much, why don’t they just get more of these wedding photos and put them all over the house?”

“Humans are strange. You know that.”

“Yeah… Looking at this makes me miss them even more. When do you think they’ll be back, Miri? It’s been ages since they went to that place called work…”

“Oh, I’ve been to that place once before we met. It’s a place where a lot of people pat your head. It’s a nice place, but not nicer than the park.”

“Oh, right, the park! We need to take our humans there tonight too for some exercise and fun.”

“This time, let’s try to keep them there for longer.”

“Yeah. They’ve been playing too much by themselves lately…”

“In the meantime, what should we do with the wedding photo?”

“I still think we should hide it. If the humans see that something important to them is missing, they get more of that something. After they get another wedding photo, we’ll bring this one out and then they’ll have two. Then they won’t worry so much if one of them ends up breaking. Trust me, I have experience with this. I hid my human’s shoes and then he got several of my favorite chew toys, I mean shoes.”

“I remember your human telling my human that, when things started going missing, he got the inspiration for your name.”

“What’s the connection?”

“I don’t know. Humans are strange. I don’t always understand them.”

“Yeah… So, where should we hide this?”