The birth canal was dusty. I could hear Dr Kyle, six-and-a-half feet above, “Scramble, Tango. Don’t give in. Use your paws. Your back paws. Leverage, leverage.” I was beginning to cough. “Keep working. Sneeze. Blow it out. It’s just a uterus, don’t worry about body fluids.”

Why was the Doggy Delivery Tube made from flannel — the dryest fabric imaginable? Thirty-five feet of life-sucking flannel, reinforced every eighteen inches with bamboo hoops. One could snap and put my eye out. What nitwits! The designers clearly could not remember their own travels through the birth canal, but I remember mine. It was slick. Silk is what they need for this thing. Or at least nylon. Memory. It is what separates man from dog — one of the things. Dogs, even the dumbest dalmations, remember being squeezed into the light. But I appreciate what Dr Kyle is trying to do.

And I emerge. I look up. His shiny pants, his striped shirt, his triangular, orthopteral head, strands of moussed hair as wet and loose as any delivery room doctor’s. “At this point you have not made any bonds, Tango. But you have not broken any, either. Here…” And now we enter stage two. “Lick this. Normally it is the mother’s job to lick the placenta, but you are your mother here.” The placenta substitute is raspberry Jello spooned onto a flat serving plate. With my muzzle flat on the floor it looks like a field of light red icebergs. I stand, move over it — not really wanting to begin — then I lick. Beef broth has been mixed in. Beef-raspberry. It is quite tasty and deserves a larger audience. I snarf it up.

But the point of this? Dr Kyle drops down on all fours, muzzle to muzzle, and places his invention, the Duet Chew, between us. The doggie side is a long canvas and rubber oval, the man side a semi-circular, tooth-indented lozenge. As he places it in his mouth I can see it is perfectly fitted to his teeth. I chomp my end of it and am immediately flung left and right, up and down. Frightening, but I can’t let go or I’ll be hammered against a huge painting of a Chongqing — a chinese version of a pit bull, but bigger and uglier. I hold on as the paintings, the fancy drapes, the low couch, the therapy bed, as everything whizzes by. I fly inverted over a glass-topped table and see my reflection, a spastic flash, all four legs thrown back centrifugally. A Russian MIG jet from a PBS war history show. Cartilage in my right ear snaps. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels like it should. But if it doesn’t hurt, what’s with this feeling like it should? That makes no sense. Who has time to understand sense?  I hear growling and see Hugo, the Chongqing, all the other mastiffs and Pinschers and Presa Canarios watching me spin. But it’s growling, not snarling. Low and pleasant. It’s Doctor Kyle. I join in. Yes, the Duet Chew. The doctor is a genius. I’m having what they call fun. And Dr Kyle’s doing all the work. My jaw is simply locked, clamped shut, and I’m a toy.

To be a toy. To be toyed with. To relinquish control — oh, yes, I realize how my-way or the highway I’ve been. Bompa throws down the laundry and I took the puff of air in my face as an insult, not as the delightful whoosh it is.

A timer dings. 50 minutes have passed. I swing out lower and lower, like a tetherball at the end of play, finally coming to a stop against his shiny pants. I realize, now, they are not made of animal hide, but a substitute that smells like the stair-runner outside the laundry room. The doctor removes his jawpiece and lowers me to the treatment bed. “Take a minute. Gather it all in. Breathe, breathe, breathe.” He looks deeply into my eyes. “You have to poop, don’t you. Well, let’s get you out of here, Tango.” I feel my intense longings for connection transfer from Justin to the doctor. These people probably have a word for it.