Leave It

I'm taking care of my friends' dog while they're out of town for a few days. Consequently, it isn't weird that I watched a dog pee this afternoon. The dog's name is Silas, and the session went a little bit like this:

"Buds, go potties" ("Buds" is short for Silas).

Silas dashes to the lawn, sniffs around for a suitable location and does the deed.

"Good Buddies. Come on."

Silas walks away toward the edge of the property and sniffs in the grass by the front gate.

"Silas, come here."

He sniffs some more, then picks something out of the grass with his mouth and looks at me apprehensively.

"What'cha got there Buds? Leave it."

He sets the object on the ground without breaking eye contact. It looks like a piece of bark. I pick it up and toss it over the fence into the road.

"Come on Silas. Go inside."

Silas hesitates. He looks back at the spot where he found the piece of bark, then looks back at me. I don't have anything new to say, but the silence is awkward and I'm ready to put in a couple hours on my friends' Playstation 3, so I more or less repeat myself until he decides to listen and goes inside without a word.

Part 2: the good part

Inside the house, I find that my friends have taken the Playstation 3 with them on their vacation, which makes perfect sense. I set down the game I rented and search for any instructions they may have left, like "please water the lawn every other morning," or "please sit around in our empty house bored out of your mind." There's no note, so I opt for the latter.

Sometime later one of the culprits calls to check in and, among other things, asks me to pay their rent for the month. I start to wonder if I accidently joined a cult when I offered to take care of the dog until she clarifies that I'm supposed to use one of her own checks and forge the signature. Okay, good, because that was getting shady.

"Oh yeah," she says, "and there's some poop by the front gate that Silas was interested in yesterday, so make sure he doesn't eat it."