She was a petite woman, standing a whole five foot two inches tall and tipping the scales at a sedate 99 pounds. For her middle age, she was a looker with a cherub-like happy countenance. A fifty-something, she had a tiny pug faced dog she carried around in her purse everywhere. She cut quite an image.
She had checked into a hotel with a no dog policy but had smuggled her pooch in easily. This was nothing new, she was used to taking the dog places that dogs weren’t allowed and the dog was adept at being inconspicuous. At one time I asked her why she took her dog literally everywhere and she replied that she liked the dog, and pointed out that she’d never had any problems with pick pockets. She and the dog spent an uneventful afternoon in the hotel room, watching the in-room television and munching on snacks of sandwiches, cheese puffs, and chocolate cup cakes, all washed down with root beer. She was well sated and, because the dog always ate what she ate, he was too. So well in fact, that the dog trotted to the door and scratched on it, the universal dog sign for “I need to go out.” At least, dog sign for housebroken dogs.