It’s a gender thing, I suppose, Red has girlfriends all over town, Fate has boyfriends all over town. I’m not sure how this attachment works, but Fate is close pals with our friend Bob at the town dump. On Saturdays, we bring her there, she starts wiggling and whining with excitement a mile a way. No matter where Bob is or what he is doing, he comes out to find Fate with a biscuit, sometimes in his hand, sometimes in his mouth.

I call it the biscuit kiss, Fate reaches forward very gingerly and takes the biscuit out from Bob’s teeth, eats it and licks him on the nose. In our town, the dump is part of our community, they know who we are (since my open heart surgery, the only way I can carry a garbage can is to sneak it out of the car when Bob isn’t around). I tell him I can carry garbage cans, he doesn’t care. We talked bears, Bob said he was out turkey hunting and a bear was sitting by a stump watching him. He say she can’t hunt for bear, he just can’t do it.