He doesn't love her like I do.

I can still remember when we met. I was locked up in a space much too small. The air from outside brought the smells of urine and fear and death. Then someone brought me to her. I smelled her for the first time. She was youth and freshness and clean air and love. Even then it was love. She hugged me to her bony chest. I licked her face and she laughed and hugged me tighter. I was so happy that it wasn't enough just wag my tail. I wagged all of me.

"He wiggles. Oh mother, can I?"

"Well Theresa, do you promise to take care of him? Feed him and clean up his messes?"

"Oh yes!"

"I'll take care of the paper work."

"Oh Wiggles! You're mine."

And I was. And I am. And she was mine.

We were both young. We both made mistakes. Sometimes she forgot to feed me. I was not much help there. My stomach said that it was dinner time all the time. Sometimes we both broke the rules and she slipped me something from the table. Sometimes she gave me a meat treat. Once or twice she slipped me something she didn't want. Then her parents changed the rules so that I couldn't be near when they were eating.

I never said anything about her mistakes. She was always saying things about mine.

"Bad dog!" she would say. Sometimes it seemed that she would say it all day. But I learned. It really wasn't the only thing that she said. It wasn't even the commonest.

"Come on boy!" she would say. That meant a romp in the yard or a walk outside. In the yard it meant a game of fetch, usually. Every once in a while it meant a game of tag in the yard. Those were the times when she filled a tub with the hose and got out the soap first.

"Oh Wiggles!" she would say time after time. And it meant everything. It meant that I shouldn't have done it but it was cute. It meant that I was learning and that she was proud of me. It meant that she never could understand the necessity of marking yourterritory on every walk. It meant that I really shouldn't lick her face just then, but she would forgive me since it was a sign of love. It meant that she was nearly as happy to see me as I was to see her. It meant that nobody else understood her like I did. It meant that nobody understood her at all. Every time, it meant that we were two together.

I was growing up through this time. I learned that the chew toys that smelled of feet were forbidden. I learned to predict my own needs far enough ahead to get a human to open the door. I learned which people liked to be greeted and which didn't. It seemed unfair that they moved me to a dog house at the time I was becoming less of a bother. The house was fine, though. It got better as I grew into it and it got snugger. The problem was that we were separated all night. Then she went to school and we were separated most of the day, too. But she would come home and I would be at the fence. She would say "Hi, Wiggles." Then she would come in the gate and we would greet each other properly.

One day, her parents got into the car together. As always, I went over to see if I could ride too. They put the leash on me and let me in the car. Then we got out at the vet's. I smelled something awful and when I woke up, I hurt beneath my tail. They had put an odd shield on my middle so I couldn't reach back and sniff. When I got home, she hugged me in front, but she laughed at the shield too.

She was growing, too. It took me a bit of time to notice it. When I used to bump her ankle, I bumped her knee. It was hard to figure that she was really a little bigger.

Then she changed in ways that were too obvious to ignore. She started to smell a little different. At first I thought that she had changed her food. She sometimes ate spices which would change her smell for a week. Then the changes concentrated between her legs. The odor there was much more changed than her sweat. She seemed healthy enough, so I was more curious than worried. What did worry me was her moods. It is nice to be hugged. It isn't nice to have the one you love most crying and hugging you and smelling sad.

One day, there was a new smell and the now-familiar hugs and tears before I was sent out for the night. The next morning, she smelled different again. She smelled of five new things and of old blood. That scared me. It was her blood, I can tell. She patted me absently and then hurried off to school. I was frantic by the time she got home. I raced to the fence.

"Oh Wiggles," she said, "are you glad to see me?"

And then she burst into tears. After a little fumbling with the gate while I ran around in circles, she came into the yard. She dropped her books and hugged me as tight as she ever had in her life. I licked at the tears before they even stopped. They finally stopped, though. She laughed, without meaning it. She often did when she didn't think that she should have been crying. She picked up her books. I took a quick sniff at her crotch. The odd smells were still there. She exploded.

"Bad dog!" she barked. "What a bad, bad, dog!"

She was really angry. I couldn't remember when she had used such an angry tone with me. She closed the gate. She started around to the back of the house and I slunk after her. After she went in the back door she said, "Well, are you coming?"

I came in. It wasn't real forgiveness, but it seemed to be permission to stay. She hung up her coat and set down her books. Then she got down on the floor and hugged me again. "Oh, Wiggles." And it felt like she was crying but no tears came out. Finally, I licked her face anyway.

"Oh Wiggles, you're silly!" It was the first real laugh I had heard that day.

We sat there for some time. She had her hand on me but wasn't really hugging. Usually when she is like that I wonder, "What's next?" That day it seemed this was the best we were going to get. After a bit, her mother came home. That reminded me. I gave her crotch a fast sniff.

"Bad dog," they both said, but not very hard.

Her mother ordered me out but I had remembered something. Her mother smelled a little the way that she did, old blood and all. And I remembered that the mother often had smelled that way. That wasn't too bad, then.

That evening, they went out for dinner. She brought me back two bones. The next days went a little better.

I learned the pattern and it happened again and again. She didn't have much time for play with me when she was in school, but she seemed to have more time for hugs and sitting beside me holding me.

Summer came and there was more time for everything. We went to some classes where there were other dogs. The idea seemed to not talk to them, which is silly. She actually taught me two things: to stop sniffing crotches, and to lie at her bedroom door. It isn't really necessary to sniff at anything, the odor comes to you. It doesn't seem polite or honest, however, to pretend to take no interest in others. You can bet that a dog that I walked by without sniffing his or her backside would feel snubbed. If humans want to be snubbed, I can learn to do that.

As for the door, I never saw the use. But she gave me a treat for each time I lay down there. Then it became a whispered "What a good dog!" It was always whispered, but it was always meant. I can tell. These were odd times. I was allowed in her bedroom when she was there and awake. It wasn't a place where we had spent much time, though. She had held me and cried, then we had gone somewhere else to play. She held me and cried still. She did it more than before. But she also wrote and dreamed and changed her clothes five times in a row. All this time, she had me lying in front of the door.

Sometimes her parents would come in. This meant a bump for me. There were better places to lie. But she wanted me there. Finally, her father put a sort of latch on the door to stop them from coming in while I lay there. After her father put it on she thanked him. And she said that I thanked him. That got a laugh for her and a pat on the head for me.

"And thank you very much, Wiggles," she said. That came with a BIG hug.

School started again. When her friends came over now, they seldom did any more with me than greet me. She would sometimes play with me as much as before. She would sometimes bring me into her room and ignore me to read a book or scribble in another. She would sometimes bring me into her room to cry into my fur.

She started to go off in the evening really stinking. If I were downwind, I would have to sneeze. After a few such times, her mother complained. She stormed back at her mother, but she only stank half as bad on later evenings.

She came back from some of these sad. She came back from some of these laughing. She didn't want me too close to the fancy clothes that she wore at these times, but we would meet at a wooden chair that sat on the back porch summer and winter. I would put my feet up on the chair and she would bend over and kiss the top of my head. Sometimes, she would forget the clothes and hug my head then.

Summer came again. I noticed that she never hugged me as hard as before, even when she was laughing hard. And when she did hug me, her chest was softer than before. I didn't mind. Hugs were love. I could tell the love without a tight hug. She had more friends over that summer. Sometimes there was one girl, sometimes several. Sometimes there were both girls and boys. On those days, she smelled different, and it wasn't only the little bit of the stink that she put on.

Several times, she had girls over and they took me into her room. She would latch the door and have me lie in front of it. The girls would look at me and laugh. Then they would trade books, or they would take off their tops all at the same time and look at each other. Then they would stop and go back to the same giggling and talking that they had done outside.

Sometimes, when we were alone, she would go in the house without me. She came out smelling a little different. If I sniffed at her crotch when that happened she got really angry. I sniffed at her fingers, which smelled the same way. She laughed.

"Don't tell, Wiggles." I never did.

School started again. One weekend, she was playing with me but acting like she wanted something else. Her parents were in and out of the house. She took me into her room and latched the door. I lay in front of it, and she changed into a skirt and got out a book from a drawer. She was ignoring me, like she sometimes did in her room. Then I smelled that different smell. Her hand was under her skirt and her other hand held the book. This was too much to ignore. I followed my nose.

"Wiggles, no!" she whispered.

I sniffed once. She used her hand to push away my nose and I licked it. It tasted interesting. I licked where her hand had been. That tasted even more interesting than it had smelled. After a few licks, she fell back on the bed and stopped pushing me away. I licked her crotch as thoroughly as I had ever licked her face. The taste changed suddenly.

"Oh Wiggles!" she said.

She pushed me away. But a minute later, she gave me a big hug.

"Oh Wiggles, you are a nice dog."

After that, she sometimes took me into her room when her parents weren't home and put a little bouillon powder on herself. She didn't need to. I had learned how happy being licked there made her. Her happiness was enough. Of course, I never stopped her from getting the meat powder.

She kept going out in the evening with the bad smell. Sometimes she wore special clothes and sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she came home happy. Sometimes she came home tired. Sometimes she came home sad. One of those times she didn't even speak to me until she was in bedclothes. Then she went to the door and called me in. We went in to her room and she cried and hugged me. I am NOT allowed on her bed. That night, however, she pulled down the blankets and slept on the floor. She held me all night. When her father got up that morning, I whined to him. I needed to go out bad. He opened the door to her room and let me out. He looked at her on the floor and said, "That bad, eh?"

After he let me out, he wouldn't let me back in, but he got me a treat.

"Gooood dog," he said.

Summer came again. She didn't want much running play, but I didn't miss it.

We spent a lot of time in her room with the meat powder. With her parents gone all day, we weren't so rushed. I learned to lick slowly and then fast. I learned what she liked most.

One good time, she took me in the room but left the door open. She was reading a book. I was lying in the doorway enjoying the coolness. After a while, she smelled as if we might start the special way. She went and got a beef cube. When we came back, she latched the door and took off her jeans and panties. I watched, but I knew that she didn't want me until she was ready. She lay on the bed with her legs on the floor and her crotch just on the edge. She crushed the cube and spread some where she wanted me to lick. I licked up all the flavor from the outside first. Then I got between the layers and licked one side until she was supplying much more flavor than the beef was. Then I switched sides and licked the other side.

"Oh Wiggles," she said.

On that side I tried to go deeper into the crannies, but my tongue didn't really fit. I would lick the side a few times and wait for the last specks of meat powder to flow out of her. I also went closer to the top. She spread her legs more and I started licking the center between the layers. I took the whole way from the bottom to the top. At the top, there were some interesting folds and crannies. I licked all over them. She stiffened and her smell changed in the special way.

"Oh Lord Roland," she sighed.

She moaned a few times and then she pushed me away. I went and lay down and watched her. I learned more from my nose, though. She lay there a long time and then she squeezed the cube again. She took longer spreading the material this time, and spread it more widely.

I started by licking everything off the sides of her legs. As I went higher, she spread her legs wider. When I finally licked within the folds, she moaned. The special smell came much sooner and she spread her legs wider. I kept licking.

"Oh Billy!" she cried out. She said it several times, each time louder.

I licked and she moaned. She'd managed to place one crumb in a tight cranny just at the top of those folds. It took me a while but I got it all. I sat up and looked at her face. I wondered if she wanted me to go on. She didn't look at me at all. So I went and lay down.

Later, she tossed me the rest of the cube. I caught it in midair. I could have got it from where she had placed it while she was lying there, but I'm a good dog.

Much later, I heard her father come in the house. I went and lay in the doorway. She looked at me, but didn't do anything. When she heard his voice, she suddenly got up and pulled her panties and jeans on. He rattled the door. I wagged my tail against it.

"Watch out for Wiggles," she said.

When all the greetings were done, she took me for a walk along the sidewalk. This time, she didn't complain about the number of trees that I visited.

"You are one SMART dog!" she said. I knew that.

She didn't keep quiet, any more. She would moan, and talk to me. We would finish and lie on the bed (her) and the floor (me). Then, sometimes, we would start over. She smelled happy as well as the special smells.

If everybody had left us alone, we would both have been happy. But they didn't. Girls came over. She went away. Girls and boys came over. Sometimes boys came over. Sometimes one boy came and she left with him. Toward the end of the summer, she spent a lot of time with her father in the car. Every evening. Every day when he was home. Then, just before school began, she started going off in the car alone.