\n",
- " | 0 | \n",
- " low | \n",
- " He found him behind the old shed, a damp ball of surprise,\n",
- "eyes like two small moons against the dusk.\n",
- "His palms trembled when they touched the ribs, a first brave promise —\n",
- "the word that made them both grin: \"home.\"\n",
+ " | 0 | \n",
+ " low | \n",
+ " He found a scruff of fur behind the shed one spring afternoon,\n",
+ "a heartbeat small and fast beneath a coat of dust and light.\n",
+ "The world shrank to two—mud on sneakers, a wag, a clumsy tune—\n",
+ "names rolled off his tongue like marbles, simple, sure, and bright.\n",
"\n",
- "They learned the map of each other's days:\n",
- "mud on the porch, the shorthand of paws on tile,\n",
- "lessons in patience—sit, wait, the clumsy language of fetch—\n",
- "evenings stitched together by a tail that kept time.\n",
+ "They learned the map of each other's hands: the scratch beneath the ear,\n",
+ "the way a storm could change the shape of brave into a shake.\n",
+ "Mornings were for toast and sunlight, afternoons for running near\n",
+ "the riverbank where leaves applauded every leap they'd take.\n",
"\n",
- "The dog taught him how to be gentle with broken things:\n",
- "scarred knees, lost kites, the ache of a scraped promise.\n",
- "When the boy fell, the dog was there to push him up with a wet nose,\n",
- "when the world tightened, the dog leaned in like a small sun.\n",
+ "At night they shared a blanket and the secret of the dark,\n",
+ "the boy with whispered stories, the dog with steady breath.\n",
+ "Years braided into footprints—first skinned knees, then a spark\n",
+ "of barnyard gray upon a muzzle, slow and gentle as a wreath.\n",
"\n",
- "Years threaded silver into ears and softened the sprint,\n",
- "the boy grew taller, pockets fuller of other lives.\n",
- "On the last slow walk he carried the dog across the field they had worn bare,\n",
- "and learned what it meant to hold and let go at once.\n",
- "\n",
- "Sometimes, in a house that now holds different voices,\n",
- "he still calls the name and feels a short, bright tug at the hem of memory. | \n",
- " 754 | \n",
+ "When time unlatched its gates, the boy still carried small things:\n",
+ "a collar, a chewed shoe, the echo of a bark that taught him how to hope.\n",
+ "He learned that love can look like leaving crumbs of ordinary kings,\n",
+ "and that some firsts fit in your pockets long after they have gone.\n",
+ " 560 | \n",
"
\n",
" \n",
- " | 1 | \n",
- " medium | \n",
- " He was small enough to be held in two palms,\n",
- "hands surprised by the light, warm weight of a breathing animal.\n",
- "The dog came with a cardboard box of toys,\n",
- "a collar that jingled like a laugh,\n",
- "and eyes the color of late autumn pools.\n",
+ " | 1 | \n",
+ " medium | \n",
+ " He found him folded in the crook of a cardboard box,\n",
+ "a tiny ribcage hitching like a thought.\n",
+ "The boy had pockets full of pennies and promises;\n",
+ "the dog had eyes like two small questions.\n",
+ "\n",
+ "They learned names together — the boy said one,\n",
+ "the dog tilted his head and accepted it.\n",
+ "Mornings were clumsy lessons: leash in hand,\n",
+ "the dog discovering sidewalks with a sneeze of wonder,\n",
+ "the boy discovering courage at the end of a rope.\n",
"\n",
- "They learned each other by touch:\n",
- "how a thumb smoothed a lump of fur,\n",
- "how a paw fit between fingers like a promise.\n",
- "Afternoons became slow, luminous things —\n",
- "fetch across the yard, the dog tumbling through dandelions,\n",
- "the boy counting sticks as if they were crowns.\n",
+ "They chased afternoons into puddles,\n",
+ "mud kissing the boy's knees and the dog's whiskers.\n",
+ "The dog taught him how to throw sticks that never came back\n",
+ "and how to forgive them when they didn't.\n",
+ "Evenings were for quiet conspiracies:\n",
+ "the dog's breath a warm punctuation\n",
+ "against the boy's ankle as the sky grew blue-black.\n",
"\n",
- "At night the dog curled against a ribcage\n",
- "and taught the boy how to sleep with one ear listening.\n",
- "They shared secrets whispered into warm fur,\n",
- "bandaged scraped knees with careful nuzzles,\n",
- "and sat together on porches while light leaned away.\n",
+ "Homework became a small island between their worlds,\n",
+ "a pencil, a pat, the faithful presence of paws on carpet.\n",
+ "The dog learned how to sit for apples,\n",
+ "how to hide a cold nose under a blanket of fingers.\n",
+ "The boy learned how to stitch up a torn stuffed bear,\n",
+ "how to say sorry and mean it.\n",
"\n",
- "The world outside was larger, sharper,\n",
- "but he had a companion who never measured fear,\n",
- "only presence — a warm, steady map back home.\n",
- "Lessons came not in words but in ritual:\n",
- "the bowl filled, the leash clicked, the hush before storms.\n",
- "Responsibility fit him like a second skin.\n",
+ "There were days of thunder when the boy's knees knocked,\n",
+ "and the dog, all stern responsibility, pressed his head\n",
+ "into the hollow of the boy's fear and held it there\n",
+ "as if he could anchor lightning with his chin.\n",
"\n",
- "Years threaded through collars and collars loosened,\n",
- "legs that once ran like wind now slowed to wiser steps.\n",
- "The boy learned how to be brave in other ways:\n",
- "walking into rooms without the certainty of pawprints,\n",
- "carrying a small quiet grief folded into his chest.\n",
+ "They practiced being brave together: doors opened for new schools,\n",
+ "new roads, a first bike without training wheels,\n",
+ "the dog a steady metronome of tail and warmth,\n",
+ "never asking to be anything but present.\n",
"\n",
- "Even when the dog went where yards are always green,\n",
- "he left prints on the boy’s life that never washed away —\n",
- "a tucked-in photograph, a faded ball, the smell of wet fur in summer rain.\n",
- "Sometimes, when the house is very still, the boy — now taller,\n",
- "still hears the jingle of a collar and smiles,\n",
- "for he knows how to be loved, and how to love back. | \n",
- " 939 | \n",
+ "Seasons unraveled the way they always do.\n",
+ "Snow came to lay white questions across the yard;\n",
+ "summer stretched its lazy hands and left grass bleaching in August.\n",
+ "The boy grew taller and later, the dog moved slower,\n",
+ "but in late afternoons they still shared the same light —\n",
+ "a private currency of sun and shadow.\n",
+ "\n",
+ "When the boy learned the language of goodbyes,\n",
+ "it was the dog who taught him how to soften them.\n",
+ "A last look, a lingering hand across the coat,\n",
+ "and a promise that out of all the small ordinary days\n",
+ "something invincible had been braided:\n",
+ "two hearts, a leash, a map of pawprints on the threshold.\n",
+ "\n",
+ "Years later, the boy — now grown — tucks a photograph\n",
+ "into his coat pocket. He feels the hollow\n",
+ "where a warm head used to rest and smiles.\n",
+ "Some bonds refuse to be folded away.\n",
+ "In the quiet hum of rememberings,\n",
+ "he can still hear a collar's jingle and a small, glad bark:\n",
+ "first home, first friend, first forever.\n",
+ " 849 | \n",
"
\n",
" \n",
- " | 2 | \n",
- " high | \n",
- " The dog arrived like a small sun, all fur and surprise,\n",
- "an apology for shoes chewed at the doorstep.\n",
- "He fit into the boy’s lap as if he had been made there:\n",
- "a warm, wiggling answer to the question the boy never knew he’d asked.\n",
+ " | 2 | \n",
+ " high | \n",
+ " The day the boy met his dog the world grew wider—\n",
+ "a small breath of fur and a damp, earnest nose\n",
+ "pressed like a secret against his palm.\n",
+ "They stood on the porch and the sun tilted curious,\n",
+ "as if the sky had come to see how two new things\n",
+ "might fit together.\n",
+ "\n",
+ "He named him after a comic-strip hero,\n",
+ "or maybe he didn’t name him at all at first,\n",
+ "just laughed and let the sound of it become a name.\n",
+ "They learned each other’s weight: the dog’s heavy joy,\n",
+ "the boy’s thin, cautious fingers turning into hands\n",
+ "that could hold a leaping heart steady.\n",
"\n",
- "They learned one another by touch — the boy’s clumsy fingers\n",
- "finding the soft map of ears, the steady paddling heart.\n",
- "The dog learned the geometry of a bedroom, a couch, a favorite chair;\n",
- "the boy learned the weight of responsibility when the bowl was empty.\n",
+ "Mornings became a chorus of paws and cereal,\n",
+ "of a collar’s jingle and the scrape of a chair.\n",
+ "Homework survived only when the dog approved;\n",
+ "math problems were beneath a wagging tail,\n",
+ "spelling tests punctuated by a slobbering vowel.\n",
+ "They hid secrets under the bed, between dust bunnies,\n",
+ "and shared the small, perfect conspiracy of being alive.\n",
"\n",
- "They practiced words like spellcraft: sit, stay, no — then laugh\n",
- "when the commands rearranged themselves into games.\n",
- "Mud sketched secret rivers on their trousers;\n",
- "the neighborhood became a kingdom to patrol on two legs and four.\n",
+ "Afternoons were a map of adventures: the cracked sidewalk,\n",
+ "the river that smelled like stones and moss, the hill\n",
+ "where the wind felt like permission to run.\n",
+ "The dog learned to fetch sticks and forgotten courage,\n",
+ "and the boy learned that bravery could be soft\n",
+ "as a warm head on a lap, or loud as a bark that scares away thunder.\n",
"\n",
- "At night the dog lay like a small, even moon against the boy’s ribs,\n",
- "breathing the rhythm of a shared world into his dreams.\n",
- "Storms were smaller storms then, because the dog’s body was a promise:\n",
- "that thunder could be waited out, that hands could find something warm.\n",
+ "Summer taught them both how long the day could be.\n",
+ "They chased shadows and each other, made small rules:\n",
+ "no digging in the tulips, no chasing the mailman,\n",
+ "except that the tulips never stood a chance.\n",
+ "The boy’s knees collected stories—scrapes that healed,\n",
+ "dirt that stained his socks but not his smile.\n",
+ "The dog’s ears learned the cadence of the boy’s breath,\n",
+ "the way it tipped into sleep like a boat finding harbor.\n",
"\n",
- "They buried treasures — bones, a tin soldier, a lost mitten —\n",
- "beneath the old apple tree, sworn companions to the earth.\n",
- "They chased imagined villains down fences and over hedges,\n",
- "and sometimes, at the creek, the boy learned the exact angle of courage:\n",
- "how to step in, then trust another heartbeat beside his.\n",
+ "Years folded like worn pages. The boy got taller,\n",
+ "his voice snagged on words he used to swallow.\n",
+ "School took afternoons; friends took phone numbers.\n",
+ "Still, the dog found ways to be a country in which the boy could disappear\n",
+ "and always be found again—on the porch, by the back door,\n",
+ "where a tail thumped the rhythm of home.\n",
"\n",
- "The dog taught him how to be brave without knowing the word,\n",
- "showed him where loyalty lived (in the bright, impatient wag of a tail).\n",
- "He taught him how to say hello, properly; how to stay when needed;\n",
- "how to forgive a day of wrongs with a single, earnest lick.\n",
+ "Time comes like winter in slow increments.\n",
+ "The dog’s muzzle silvered; his steps remembered caution.\n",
+ "He stopped fitting into the spaces he once owned\n",
+ "and learned to ask for rest. The boy—no longer quite a boy—\n",
+ "sat longer, tracing the map of every scar and whiskered gray.\n",
+ "There were nights when the dog’s breathing was a thin, honest drum,\n",
+ "and the boy pressed his forehead to the dog’s and said things out loud:\n",
+ "I am here. You were right. You showed me how.\n",
"\n",
- "Seasons folded themselves into the years;\n",
- "the boy measured time in collars replaced, in new aches in the dog’s hips.\n",
- "Snow made the yard a clean page; leaves wrote their own goodbyes.\n",
- "When the dog’s runs slowed, the boy learned a different kind of steady:\n",
- "to sit more, to listen longer, to count the small comforts.\n",
+ "The last morning was quiet in the way that endings often are:\n",
+ "a light that does not need to hurry, a sky that keeps its blue.\n",
+ "Hands that had once been small bore the weight of goodbye,\n",
+ "and the dog, who had taught him everything about leaving,\n",
+ "went gentle as a story closing.\n",
"\n",
- "There was a last evening where the light sat low and patient,\n",
- "and the boy — now older in ways that did not fit his face — held that same warm weight.\n",
- "He remembered the first bark like a promise kept, the first wild sprint across the grass,\n",
- "and he kept, beneath his ribs, the map of a thousand small mercies.\n",
+ "They buried a bone under the apple tree, where shade remembered them.\n",
+ "At dusk the boy—grown, with work-worn hands and a child’s memory—\n",
+ "watches the place where grass leans toward the earth and listens.\n",
+ "Once, when the house was exactly the same and yet not,\n",
+ "he swore he heard a soft, familiar jangle in the kitchen,\n",
+ "a rhythm of steps padding toward the door.\n",
+ "For a beat the world tilted back to the way it had been:\n",
+ "porch light, collar, laughter spilling like coins into a pocket.\n",
"\n",
- "Now when he walks by an old apple tree, his hand finds empty air,\n",
- "but his steps know how to make room for another’s rhythm.\n",
- "Sometimes a stray dog will glance his way and tilt its head,\n",
- "and he smiles, answering without words what he was taught long ago:\n",
+ "Years will teach you how to be without the body of what you loved,\n",
+ "but they cannot unteach the shape of its love.\n",
+ "In small things he carries the dog—an old ball behind the shed,\n",
+ "the smell of rain when it hits hot dust, the way loyalty sits\n",
+ "like a warm stone under the ribs. Sometimes, at night,\n",
+ "he still calls out a name the way you call to the ocean:\n",
+ "to feel a voice come back, immediate and soft,\n",
+ "and remember the simple miracle of being chosen.\n",
"\n",
- "how to open a hand, how to offer a place on the floor,\n",
- "how to recognize the sun when it returns — in fur, in breath, in the simple, astonished love\n",
- "of a first pet who showed a boy what home can mean. | \n",
- " 1174 | \n",
+ "A first dog is a first map of how to love:\n",
+ "fur on your sleeve, the sound of feet that always come home.\n",
+ "He taught a boy how to stand steady under weather,\n",
+ "how to be brave by being kind, and how to keep a place warm.\n",
+ "If you listen, sometimes the past still answers,\n",
+ "with a jingle, a wag, and the echo of a small, perfect breath.\n",
+ " 1288 | \n",
"
\n",
"