But I'm Not Supposed To Be a Dog!

- 12-

The next morning, Henry woke up long before Abby. Last night was a close call. It was all he could do to keep those two from mingling limbs all night. Henry needed to get serious about making Abby realize who he was. This task seemed near impossible with no hands or larynx.

He had trouble sleeping last night, thinking about communication ideas. He thought of a few, so today was the day he would implement them. First up, the computer. He approached her desk and leapt onto the chair. The laptop was there, already open. He looked for the power button and tried to press it with a paw. Nothing happened. It was recessed and difficult to push with his big feet. Eventually he managed to position one of the pads of his feet directly over the button and pressed firmly. The laptop came to life and Henry sighed with relief.

He thought that had been the hard part, then he realized that he needed to open up a program. He stared at the jumble of icons on the desktop and tried to work the mouse with his clumsy paws. Something opened and he peered to see what it was. It looked like one of her Word files with some notes in it. This would have to do. He was able to hit the large Enter key multiple times to clear a space, and now for the next challenge.

So many tiny keys. He pawed them a couple of times, but the gibberish that appeared on the screen was unreadable. He pawed at the Backspace key and ended up creating as much gibberish as he was deleting.

Argh I'd give anything for just one finger!

He knew exactly which finger he would give this computer. He stared at the minuscule keys again. Would his nose do a better job? He aimed and successfully held down the Backspace key long enough to delete most the gibberish. After fifteen more minutes of frustration, Henry managed to tap out "SNOIKUMS". He wasn't happy with it, but his nose was sore. Hopefully she would recognize his pet name for her, even if it was misspelled.

All this took much longer than he expected, and Abby was soon up and making coffee. He followed her around until she finally sat at her desk.

Come on, look at your computer!

She picked up the phone instead and leaned back in her office chair, facing away from her laptop. Henry sighed and laid down to wait.

"Rhonda, hi!"

"It's about time you called me!" The other woman's voice on the other end was so loud, he could hear every word. "What have you been up to?"

"I have to tell you about my date last night."

"Ooh a date! This is exciting! Where did you meet him?"

"Well I was walking my dog, and—"

"Wait, you got a dog? When did you get a dog?"

"Last week. I went—"

"You got a dog and you waited a week to tell me?"

"Um, yeah."

"Okay, whatever. This is great! You actually listened to me! What kind of dog did you get? Is it one of those super sweet pit bulls like the ones Cesar Millan has?"

"He's an Australian Shepherd mix."

"Ooh that sounds exotic."

"I don't know about exotic, but he is so smart. It's actually pretty incredible. When we went to the—"

"More on that later. Tell me about your date! Was your first date magical?"

Henry rolled his eyes at being dismissed from the conversation so quickly. This Rhonda person sounded bossy.

"Well, last night was actually our third date."

"What? You don't call me about your new man until the third date? Have we not been besties since tenth grade?"

Henry lost interest in the conversation and was half asleep by the time Abby hung up the phone and noticed her computer.

"Huh," she mumbled to herself. "Did I leave this on?" She squinted and looked closer at the screen. "What is this?"

Get it girl, get it!

To his dismay, Abby didn't spend much time trying to figure out what she was looking at. She shrugged and closed the program while saying to herself, "Maybe I drank more than I thought last night."

Henry dropped to the floor in a dejected heap. All that work. Too many typos.

"What is all this... snot? Eww!"

Henry looked up and found Abby staring with horror at her keyboard, then grabbing a dishtowel to wipe up the slobbery mess he had left from his fruitless typing efforts.

"What in the world did I do last night?" Abby continued to talk to herself.

It was time for Plan B. He hopped onto the far corner of the long desk. Abby turned to look at him with surprise as he went to her whiteboard and took one of the markers in his teeth. The cap was secured tightly. He dropped the marker next to her hand.

"You want me to write something?" Abby's brow crinkled with confusion as she picked up the marker. "I don't understand."

Henry returned her gaze, trying to command her to remove the cap.

"Why are you staring at me?" she asked. "Are all dogs this weird?" She paused in her inquiry. "Well, Trudy had a Schnauzer that liked to eat cat poop, so I guess I lucked out. My dog just likes to stare. And maybe flush toilets."

For the love of— Was she being dense? Henry pawed her hand, urging her to take action.

"What's with you? Okay fine, I'll write something," Abby said in exasperation and yanked the cap off the marker.

Henry immediately leaned in and pulled the marker away in his teeth.

"What the—"

He ignored her and went to the whiteboard. After some fumbling, he finally positioned the marker, ink side out, and began the painstaking task of writing letters. This would be so much easier with hands.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but when he finally finished, he dropped the wet marker and turned to look expectantly at Abby. She was staring at the board, seemingly befuddled.

"Hey Snookums?"

Yes! She can finally read my message! She'll remember my pet name for her and then she'll realize who I am! Henry's tail wagged furiously with excitement, but he patiently waited for his message to register in her mind.

"Hey Snookums..." Abby continued to ponder. "It sounds familiar..." She looked at Henry quizzically, trying to understand the message. "What does it mean? Did someone train you to write this?"

No! Snookums, how could you forget? He used to pick her up for dates by announcing, "Hey Snookums, I'm home." Didn't he?

Suddenly he wasn't so sure. Henry wondered if he'd chosen the wrong message, if maybe this infernal dog brain was getting in his way again. I used to call her Snookums, right? Or was it Snoopy?

Gah, his dog brain strikes again! How about a vote of sympathy?