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Instead, his tail began to wag just slightly. It would have wagged more, but he was completely swaddled by the Gaza Strip. I unwrapped him, and he stepped over to Obadiah, smelling his hands, timid, but clearly happy to see a child. After we’d all petted him and talked to him and told him what a good boy he was, we decided to let the other dogs in. Fay and Harry, who were both then twice Dewey’s size, approached the couch gingerly. And here is a classic example of how One Just Never Knows: Dewey sprang off the couch, his tail curled tautly over his back, staring the other dogs in the eye and smelling their nether-regions, as is customary in Dogland. All the dogs became very stiff, if I may. I wasn’t sure whether a scuffle was brewing or not, and then Dewey did something I’ve never seen a dog do before. He leapt straight up off the floor, all four feet at once, and turned 180 degrees. It was positively freakish. He looked first at Harry, then leap! turn! at Fay. Everyone found this breathlessly amusing, including the dogs, who lowered their chests to the floor in the bow that signals play, and after that they were off. They wagged crazily, bit one another’s lips, exposed bellies, rolled around like doughnuts, ran in circles. Happy happy happy. Happy to be alive, to meet another of their tribe. There wasn’t a moment of tension between them. Eventually I opened the back door and off they went into the yard, where they played until bedtime. I told Kat that whatever had happened to Dewey in his brief, sad life, it hadn’t been done to him by other dogs.
    I couldn’t continue to call him Dewey, and not just because of how much it sounded like Bosco. I didn’t want him going through life hearing that name, given the contexts in which he might have heard it before. So I renamed him Lucas, and he came running the first time I called him. Smart boy.
             
    More must be said about the fact that Lucas wasn’t neutered when I brought him home. Specifically, I must be honest about his testicles. I decided not to have him neutered immediately, because I wasn’t sure of his age (his grown-up teeth were brand-new), and because he was so traumatized. I decided to wait a month and let him settle in. Fay had been spayed, and there was no chance Lucas could get out of our fenced-in yard and make more little hyenas, so I didn’t worry much about it. But I’d never had a, shall we say, intact male dog before. I prefer females (a real dog person would write “bitches” there; oh, and I shall). I prefer bitches. Walk around saying that. The only male dogs I’d had were already taken care of in the reproduction department.
    The first thing I noticed about Lucas’s parts was that they were really noticeable. He’d been with us only a couple of weeks when my daughter gave him the nickname Fat Tony, because he swaggered like a wiseguy in the Mob. In fact, he acted in all ways like a mafioso; it had something to do with his demeanor around dogs much larger than he (he came to us weighing about sixteen pounds to Fay’s fifty, for instance), as if he had nothing to talk to them about because he was packing greater heat. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he was packing the genuine article, and his testicles were visible with every step he took. I couldn’t get over it. I’d see him run through the house toward the back door: testicles. He’d jump up on the couch with me: there they were. I wasn’t sure where to look.
    And also I didn’t know how adorable those little guys can be. Lucas slept sitting up like an old man in a recliner, with his head thrown back. He also snored. He preferred to do this leaning up against me. So one night Kat and I were sitting up late talking; I was in one corner of the couch with Lucas on my lap. He was sound asleep, bent like a question mark. Kat was at the other end of the couch. I pointed out to her (in an educational way) that Lucas’s testicles resembled little furry eggs. I