Today's Daily Double is... the dog knows it's Sunday!

Lady knows. No clock, no calendar, never once read a tide table, but on Sunday mornings she skips the 6am door dance entirely and just relocates, bed to rug, rug to the square of light by the galley. I respect it. I aspire to it.

So we did the long walk, the Sunday-only route up off the dock and along the shore path, and she read every piling and every clump of grass like it was front page news. A sea lion coughed somewhere out on the water and both ears swung around, then swung back. Known entity, no action required. That's the whole shepherd doctrine: notice everything, alarm at nothing, unless.

I had tomorrow's ship day already ticking in my head this afternoon and she ended it by putting one hundred percent of her skull on my knee. Seven years old now, some gray coming in around the muzzle, which I don't care for one bit. Gave her the good treat (the expensive one) and told her something embarrassing and true, and Al pretended not to hear.