_Field report filed by Coal._

I arrived Friday
  under the impression
  that I was being dropped off

  for a weekend of spoiling.

This was _technically_ true.

What wasn’t disclosed…
        was the siege.

At first,
   I growled.

A proper growl.

Low.
Clear.
Carrying eleven years
         of institutional authority.

Orca heard it
     and exercised something
        _resembling_ caution.

For a while.

Then she made
     an unfortunate discovery:

     the growl wasn’t attached
     to any actual consequences.

From that moment forward,
     every object in my possession
     became the most important object

     in the known world.

“Is that your blanket?”

“It was.”

“You didn’t want it five seconds ago.”

“You had it five seconds ago.”

Blanket.

Toy.

Bowl.

Human attention.

She took it,
    celebrated,
    lost interest,

    then waited for me
    to make it valuable again.

By the second day,
   I accepted that resistance
   was accomplishing nothing.

So I made one tactical adjustment.

I played back.

This shouldn’t be interpreted
                 as enjoyment.

It was conflict management.

Morale preservation.

The practical decision
    of a mature dog
    who couldn’t stop the puppy

    and might as well
    have some fun with it.

Then the humans left
     for the Braves game.

Seven hours.

Our only unsupervised interval
         of the entire weekend.

No official account
    of those hours
     will be provided.

The house remained standing.

We were both alive.

And by the time they returned,
    Orca had apparently concluded
    that my participation

    proved the siege was now
    a mutually organized activity.

It wasn’t.

Probably.

In closing:

I was fed.

I was spoiled.

I was kept much too busy
   to properly miss Mari.

And I may,
    under sustained questioning,
           admit that I had fun.

This admission can’t
     reach the puppy.

She already has everything else.