If Fate could speak, I imagine she would very often be asking me “what’s next?” She is a “what’s next” kind of creature, she went out this morning, tore around the sheep in the sun until her tongue was hanging off of the ground, jumped into the swampy pond by the back pasture and looked at me, as if to say, “okay, we’ve done that, what’s next?” This, oddly, is my own philosophy of life. You get the dog you need.