The following is what I imagine went through my dog Kaiya’s mind in one day with me.

7:45am: Where is she? She must still be upstairs in the high soft bed on which I am not allowed. I want that bed. I will go upstairs and find her and tell her to play with me. Ooo! There’s the bathroom trash can with Kleenex in it. Gotta get a few of those and shred them up. Feels so good.

7:47am: I found her putting the warm things on her body while she made weird noise with teeth clacking together. She says the word ‘cold’ a lot. She hasn’t taught me this word. I don’t care. I don’t have time for this nonsense. There is a stuffed animal pheasant downstairs with my name on it. But it won’t throw itself. I howl two inches from her face as she is bending down to put more warm things on her feet. She jumps. I am funny.

8:00am: She’s FINALLY downstairs and now we can play. She is petting me and telling me I am a sweet, cute, furry girl. I know this. See that pheasant over there by the lamp? I got a jonesin’ to see it ‘flying’ through the air. Let’s get to it.

8:10am: Still no pheasant throwing. She has been in the kitchen making food, none of which is for me. I wait patiently in the living room, rolling on my back and kicking my feet in the air. Man that’s so fun.

8:20am: Wait a minute. She’s sitting down at her desk with the glowing shiny thing! What is she doing? Every time she sits down at the glowing shiny thing she is there FOREVER. She makes little clacky-clack noises with her fingers that I don’t understand. I will just remind her that I haven’t seen the pheasant fly yet. I bring the fat pheasant with cool noises deep inside to her and gently place it against her leg. I gently push it into her leg. I gently push it up into her lap. I push it into her stomach. I push it harder and the pheasant makes the cool noise inside. Yes! I got the noise. Let’s see if I can do it again by biting it harder and pushing it into her stomach at the same time. Yes! I can’t get enough of that noise.

8:24am: It worked! She came into the living room and is throwing the pheasant! She can throw it so far! Like all the way into the dining room. Oh that silly pheasant, he always thinks he can get away from me. But I always pounce on him with extreme skill.

8:34am: I am sleepy and will take a nap in the special place by the big chair. Her clacky-clack finger noises in there are keeping me awake.

10:20am: She is pounding on the window, yelling something. I will go protect her. I see through the window – the pigeons. Oh no. She hates the pigeons. I will help her. I tell her in many howls but she ignores me.

10:34am: Pigeons keep coming back. She keeps being mad. She keeps pounding on window. I will help her. I howl and tell her and I will hunt the pigeons. I am extremely skilled pigeon hunter. She doesn’t listen. So I walk to back door and she lets me out.

10:48am: Pigeons fly in towards bird feeder meant for little birds, not pigeons, and I bravely scare them off with my intimidating bark/howl combination. But I can’t reach them through the fence or I could have pounced on one. She should let me out to get them. I will tell her.

10:50am: Very proud of my pigeon hunting skills and believe I need a nap now. I sit by back door until she lets me in. She says word ‘cold’ again.

12:05pm: She said we are ‘going for a walk’! She said those words! We are ‘going for a walk’! Oh this is the most exciting thing all day. Even more exciting than pigeon hunting and pheasant pouncing. I will tell her with many howls how exciting this is.