The puppy I just watched get run over and I are in the garden seeing if the lettuce seeds have sprouted yet.  She sniffs at the dirt and says 'Nope.  Another day or two.'  Together she and I grab one end of a stick and Louie takes the other in his chops and the three of us race around the yard.  With the puppy who lit out from under the vintage Indian bike on a crushed leg, I go check the mail.  No mail.  She runs circles around me as I head back toward my house.  At her house there’s nobody home.  She is at the shelter getting morphine and her squashed belly assessed by a vet.  Then she starts digging up a place near my trash can.  I ask her if she is scared or lonely there, and she says to throw her the ball.  She says to let her in the bed with me because there’s frost on the ground.  She laps up a big drink of water with her fast little tongue and says she hopes the guy on the bike is okay, and I say 'Well, he’s pretty mad but he’ll get over it.  Some scrape on his helmet,' I tell her, 'You don’t mess around.'  We sit on the sofa watching Making It Grow.  I rub her face, so ugly it’s cute.  She says she’s just got to chase bikes, it’s a genetic thing.  At the shelter the vet gives her the shot.  As I pull new weeds out of the garden I hold her in my lap, gently because she’s so badly damaged.  Drowsy, she licks the earthy sweat of my hand.