Before, my daughter was the one begging. "Please, please, can I get a dog?" I was the one saying: "A dog is a big responsibility. You have to walk him and train him and be around every day to let him in and out. And dogs shed and get ticks and dig holes in the backyard, and when it rains they smell. You really don't want a dog." But she said: "Yes, I do, Mom. I need a dog. Please, please, talk Dad into it." And so I did.

She walks more slowly these days. She doesn't bound to the door, she ambles. She doesn't rush at visitors. She saunters. Her bark is as strong as it has always been and her tail remains in overdrive, but her legs buck and stall, old legs suddenly, though Molly's heart is still young. She has such skinny legs for a big dog, legs like a horse, legs that she could always depend on. How many mornings did she lunge up the stairs, hurl herself onto our bed, dance and bark and groan and nudge us awake…

And I thought he didn't love her. He never said this, but it's how he acts sometimes. "She's a dog. She'll be OK," is as close as he ever gets to affection, when I moan about having to leave her again, or if it suddenly rains and she's outside. My husband never wanted a dog. He said dogs are too much work. That a dog on our street…

I should have taken her to the vet weeks ago. She's been dragging around for at least that long, her gait a little slower these days, her eyes a little less bright. I notice these things, but I ignore them. I sit on the floor and scratch her ears and pat her head and say, "How's my puppy?" And she sighs and wags her tail, the way she has always done. I see that the hair under her chin is more white than black and that there are tufts of white under her belly and that…

Here's what happens when I don't pay attention to my dog, Molly. She crawls under the kitchen table and eats paper. Constant attention is what she needs and constant attention is what she demands and since I am only human, I falter sometimes. And she makes me pay for it. Just now, for example, I was at the table reading the paper and thereby ignoring her. So she…

t's official. She suffers from separation anxiety, which is why she eats socks and scarves and those cloth-covered scrunchies you put in your hair. She loves us and can't stand to be separated from us and by devouring what is ours she is, in a very real way, keeping us with her always. Welcome to Doggy Psychology 101. Or man's relentless effort to find a rational explanation for irrational behavior…

It's noon and it's raining and the dog wants to go for a walk, but I do not.

I tell her I'm not going. "No walk today, girl. It's too awful outside."

But she will have none of this. She's pacing and prancing and moaning and groaning and all but pointing to the ticking clock in the front hall. It has just chimed, one, two, all the way to 12 and Molly, who doesn't know what "Get off the couch this instant" means and who can't even process the one-syllable word down, knows exactly what time it is.

Dear Bill,

So you went and got yourself a puppy. Oh, I know he is beautiful and loving and adorable and he smells so sweet and his fur is soft and when he looks up at you with those big copper eyes, you know there isn't anything in the world you wouldn't do for him. A ball of fur that sheds and drools and whimpers in the night, and you're totally hooked. Go figure. But, hey, I understand. I've been there, right there, in your shoes.

The first time we went walking, Al took us. It was spring and the earth was soft, the trees new green and the path that leads from the street to the football field was a straight, clean line. Al's been walking his dog Dante for years, twice a day, no matter what the weather. I've watched him from my office window. A man and his dog. I envied them…

She didn't get top billing. Actually she didn't get any billing at all. In theater terms, I suppose you'd say she has a bit part. The press release gushes about Bambi and Tootsie and Nicki and Todd. But there's not a single word about Molly. Still, you know the old saying: There are no small parts, only small players. And Molly, when she's on camera…

Their house is immaculate. The floors gleam. The sofa is fluffed. The windows, even the window on top of the door, are invisible. Objects placed on the coffee table - a small vase, a candy dish - are safe where they sit. The living room smells like spring. Flowers are being coaxed in the picture window and the scent of new life fills the house. When you drink coffee or Coke, you don't find a dog hair at the bottom of the glass. When you flop into bed at night, dog hair doesn't float around the room…

She eats things. Not just ordinary dog things like newspapers and Coke cans and gardening tools, which she pilfers from the garage. Not just brooms and rakes and speaker wire and toilet paper and paper towels. Molly's preference is cotton - woven or unwoven, plain or printed, new or old. It doesn't matter. She's into all kinds. Dustcloths and facecloths. Cloths that you use to

She's the dog you can't resist. She does terrible things. She terrorizes the cats. She eats their food, drinks their water, plunks her hulking body in the front hall, and pretends to sleep there until, in need of litter or the great outdoors, they come tiptoeing by.