Take My Pug—Please

Howard has been a royal pain today. He has barked countless times at the front door, even if there was no evidence that anyone was in the hall; he worked himself into such a frenzy before his dogwalker came that when she finally did, he tried to attack her. I was putting off his late-afternoon walk because I knew I should've taken him out earlier—if we wait till after 5 p.m., we're much likelier to run into lots of other dogs (and that's bad). But we had to do it, so I harnessed him up, and as we left the apartment, we both noticed a neighbor way down the hall. "Hey!" she said, and Howard had a barking fit. When we left the building, two skateboarders went by, and he went apoplectic. At the corner, waiting for the light to change, I forced him into some kind of equilibrium and exhaled—aren't people with pets supposed to have less stress? So when the man behind me said, "Excuse me, sir, but could I walk your dog sometime and bring him back to you when I'm done?" well, I was tempted to say yes, absolutely, and he could even forget about the bringing-him-back part. Then I sensed that the man, who was older than I am, was serious, and that he was probably a bit disabled. Digging for just one more ounce of patience, I smiled and said, "That's so nice of you, but I think I need to pass. My dog doesn't really like other people." The man was crestfallen, and I felt brittle enough to break. Couldn't the guy see that he didn't want Howard? I began to telepathically command Howard to bark—the way he does whenever anyone, even a toddler, approaches. But Howard refused to bark at the man. Instead, he turned toward another pedestrian, a woman in a navy suit, looked her up and down, and started to rip her a new one.