I am not allowed to bark. Not even a little woof. If I yipped, my master would panic. She would think something was terrible wrong, and later, I would get into trouble if there wasn’t a true cause for alarm.
My dog came from the breeding farm. He was trained not to open his snout unless I am about to fall into a strange moving fragment of society that was not designed for people like me. When I first got him, he barked at a bird. Just a pigeon. I refused to feed him dinner. I cannot have an unreliable dog.
Jodi carries around a stick and my harness at all times to prevent invisible dangers from coming her way. I do not bark when she walks into a dip in the road—her white stick with the red tape takes that role for me. When we are at home, I do not even think about barking because she doesn’t need me for anything but my furry belly and wet tongue.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my dog. He helps me around our town, but when we get home. He really is my only company. I don’t need him or even my stick when we get into the house because I know our home better than I know the inside of my own mind. I can swiftly maneuver from the living room, up the one step to the bedroom hallway. I know there are exactly five steps before I must turn right into my bedroom. Once I make it there, I know that one step to the left is my closet and three steps forward lives the foot of my bed.
But you probably all know where your warm bed is and the big drinking fountains that you sit on are. I used to know how far of a run it was from the training field to the kennels. I still can tell you that they keep the muzzles in the back closet in the same building that the puppies still yip and play and drink milk. I can tell you all about that place that taught me to not even think about barking.