Harold was hungry, but din-din was unlikely to arrive before the others returned. He debated eating the thing he’d found under Wendy’s bed the other day…but he gradually remembered that he’d buried it outside. And the door was locked. (And the thing wasn’t, strictly, edible.)

Doors in general seemed to be designed for people, not dogs, an annoyance Harold was compelled to abide. Also, his master was an idiot, but that went with the territory (his territory, unfortunately).

Harold was not alone in thinking this. Wendy also believed it, given the pheromones she excreted whenever the mailman was present and the fact that she and the master had not slept in the same bed for two or fourteen years. Most dogs were proud of their masters by virtue that they were taller and had mastered the automated world around them. Harold felt this was dubious but he also accepted that he himself was not innately clever – he had a bad habit of trying to fit large objects in his throat and then pooping them sidewise.

They didn’t call him Harold, naturally. The master had named him Spot, but in his mind Harold called himself after the master. He couldn’t tell anyone about this because dogs don’t talk, or rather can’t talk, and have to make due by smell alone; not an altogether inconvenient system given that it was impossible to lie…

Though it would be nice to call home every once in a while and tell them everything was fine.