Daily Dose of Cute

The dogs stare at me. Not just me—Iain, too. They study us intently, watching us walk and watching us eat and watching us cuddling on the couch. As a result of all this concentrated study, the dogs have become such experts in our body language, rhythms, and impulses that they are virtual mind-readers. Both of them know when I am going to give them a little bite of my leftover dinner and are already seated politely in front of me before the thought has even fully formed in my own brain.


"I see you, Two-Legs."


"I've got my eye on you, Two-Legs."
So the other day, when we were out for a walk, and I had some weird inner ear bedlam in my troublesome left ear that caused me to list rightward uncontrollably and fall to my knees in the neighbor's yard, the dogs were ready for it. They circled calmly around me as I slipped into the snow on the verge of unconsciousness, and stood quietly by as I reached for my phone. They watched me pull out my phone, and watched me punch a 9 and a 1 into the keypad, and watched my spine suddenly straighten as the feeling went away as quickly as it had come over me. They watched me as I sat with the snow soaking my jeans, assessing whether I was okay.

"I'm just going to sit here a moment and make sure I'm okay, puppies," I said. They looked back at me stoically. We know.

We were not twenty yards from the front door, at the end of our walk, the place at which they're usually pulling to get back inside because that means TREATS! But they stood, quiet and still, watching me.

I stood up, fine once again. "Okay, puppies: Let's go," I said, but they were already walking. We know.