Yesterday, in the afternoon, when A. was done with work and I’d finished writing, we drove to the animal shelter on the other side of town, and looked at the dogs. Meaning, we walked through the rooms in which they are kept, in concrete cells, behind cage doors, and spoke to each of them, or anyway smiled at each of them and said a word or two before continuing down the passage, which was somewhat noisy with barking. In one of the cells were two mixed-breed puppies that resembled German Shepherds, with floppy ears and black and orange or light brown coats; and we asked an attendant if we could meet these two in one of the adjacent rooms that are for that purpose. And she said that yes, we could.