Bill watches them follow the narrow footpath. From the back they look like littermates, but two dogs could not be more different. Chiffon seems never to have had an actual thought, but Emma has real intelligence. And she knows words, lots of them. Hotspur is smart, too, but border-collie smart. That means something else.

He turns back to the Gilmores’ pool cage, hoping the collie will come out. The open doorwall reveals a comfortable interior. Like the house he lives in, it has high ceilings. There are colorful pictures on the walls, furniture and area rugs. Being tall, Bill can see to the front foyer. His long legs and deep chest, his big head and serious face all make him an oddity at Donegal. With few exceptions, the dogs here are small breeds, easily carried on planes or crated in cars.

Again the Gilmore woman appears in the opening. She is tall, with broad shoulders and short red hair. No longer crying, she reaches up and the doorwall rumbles closed. Vertical blinds begin tracking across the glass.

Resigned, Bill flexes long, solid legs, then stretches. Half Labrador retriever, he is black with short hair. His muzzle is longer than those of purebreds, and his height leads people to speculate on his parentage. His broad chest has a white streak, giving him what his missus calls a well-dressed look.

He turns away and regards the jungle rough on the far side of the fairway. Against the deepening night sky it looks thick and black. Maybe the Gilmore missus will feel better when she takes Hotspur for his walk. That’s something everyone with a dog has to do. Work, play, knee or hip pain, parties, brunch, church—no matter what, they have to walk the dog. Bill’s mister sometimes sees Glenda out with the collie. The next time this happens, he will tell her he is sorry.

Bill begins trotting along the brick path in the opposite direction taken by the others. All the houses here have pools and spas protected by screen cages. He passes two with doors and windows already sealed behind storm shutters. Come the rain and sultry weather of hurricane season, half the houses at Donegal will look like that.

Sorry. People stopping to talk use the word often at Donegal. Bill’s mister always takes off his cap, holding it behind his back as the other person tells about someone who’s died, or gone to assisted living. Or just had or is about to have surgery. Restaurants, church, scramble tournaments, shotgun starts, owner assessment fees—understanding none of it, Bill waits patiently.

He nears the Telecoms’ big house. That’s what Madame calls them, Emma’s missus. Madame is one of the original residents at Donegal, and she knows telecom stock is how the family made their money. Inside, both white-haired Telecoms are on their red couch, watching TV. They each hold a dachshund, and all four are watching the screen.

Bill continues along the path. The birds have stopped, but insects are now diving and buzzing around his ears. Although they’re floppy they stand high on his head, giving him a vigilant look. It makes some people nervous. Along with being half Labrador, there is German shepherd in him. A quarter of Bill is Great Dane.

Vigilant, yes, but not fierce. Bill is what’s called a soft dog. He likes the dachshunds and other small dogs, letting them bounce around and sniff him. Mrs. Telecom loves Mozart, and that explains her dogs’ names, Wolfi and Stanzi. Her husband takes them with him when he plays golf. They are a fixture at Donegal, and a source of envy among other dogs. How can you not feel envy, seeing them seated side by side on a platform between golf bags, their small, proud heads raised as the cart trundles over the course? Before hurricane season they fly north, in a satchel placed under the missus’ seat. When they get there, the car is waiting, shipped in a truck.

AS HE NEARS the Vinyl house, Bill trots faster. His hearing grows precise, ears more erect. He was saved by his mister, and there is nothing he can ask that Bill won’t do. Reaching the screen cage, he sees the man inside, on a chaise. It fills the dog with longing. The reading lamp is on, Vinyl stretched out next to the pool reading a magazine. A sound comes from Bill’s throat, something between a whine and a yodel. It’s impossible not to love what he sees, impossible not to want to be with the man—lying, sitting, walking—anywhere at all.

The mister lowers the latest issue of Time. “Old Bill, old scout—”

The cage’s screened door was designed to open out, but Vinyl has reversed it. Bill places his left paw on the frame, and shoves. Quickly he noses in and begins slipping through. Door and frame rub his sides, and sometimes his tail gets banged—but not tonight. The door claps shut as he trots over. The mister is sitting up, ready to greet him.

“Good old Bill, what’ve you been up to?” Using both hands, Vinyl begins scratching the dog’s neck. Now he scratches behind the ears. I love it, Bill thinks, eyes closed. Always the same, every time. “You digging anywhere? Don’t be digging, Bill, no more of that, right? We agreed, didn’t we?”

Digging. Of course not, Bill thinks. Never. Eyes closed, barely able to stand, he feels transported. This perhaps is the best, to be greeted this way and scratched in the best places as the mister speaks to you and you alone.

Vinyl likes it, too. At such times he often thinks about the dog’s name. The Depression-era song “Bill” had still been popular in his boyhood during the war. Fifty years later, having done well in vinyl siding, he sold his business and bought a place in Florida, then one on a lake in Michigan. And two years later, up in Michigan sometime after eight in the morning, walking as he did every day before breakfast along a tree-canopied dirt road, he had glanced back. Trailing him by fifty feet was a long-legged, skinny stray. “A bag of bones” is how he later put it. For half a mile this went on, until Vinyl at last stopped and waited. Sick with parasites and not yet a year old, the dog was already big. In one of those moments that alter every day to follow, Vinyl put out his hand. The stray touched it with his nose. They had walked home, where Vinyl fed him against the protests of his wife.

The glass slider opens. With the scratching still in progress, Bill looks over as the missus steps out. She dislikes him less now, but that first day she saw him as a nuisance. What if it’s sick? she called from the house as they came up the drive. What if it’s dangerous? It’s a mutt, a mongrel. What are you thinking? No papers, no breeder. We’re retired, we don’t need the aggravation. Vinyl didn’t answer. At the door, he knelt on the walk and looked in Bill’s eyes. He opened his mouth to see the teeth, felt along the ribs, then placed his fingers in the gaps between. He’s letting me touch him all over, Vinyl said. He trusts me. They do the choosing, just like women. But the missus had already gone inside. Still kneeling, the man cupped the dog’s face. You’re a hobo, he said. A Depression dog. Your name is Bill.

“What a nice night,” the missus says. “Want some tea?”

“Sounds good.”

She is again holding the thing, looking down at it in her arms. For days she’s been doing this. Wrapped in a receiving blanket like a real baby, it has a shiny face. The eyes blink as the missus rocks, and now it makes a sound something like a cat. “What do you think, Bill? This is Jeremy. You’ll meet the real Jeremy tomorrow. Yes you will, just as cute as they come.”

She reaches down and holds it in front of him. It smells like the shower curtain. He looks up and sees the missus is smiling. She straightens and goes inside. “It’s something she read,” Vinyl says, still scratching. “She thinks you might be jealous of the baby, so she’s getting you ready with a doll. Her middle name is worry.”

All Bill understands is that the missus has stopped making a fuss when he’s wet. The first time he came out of the lake in Michigan, with the great pleasure of water still delighting the Labrador part of his nature, Bill shook himself on the dock. Mrs. Vinyl yelled about her dress, the chair cushion. She demanded the mister do something—lock the dog in the garage or tool shed—anything, so he wouldn’t do what was in his nature, to plunge into the delicious Michigan lake and lunge at fish.

Vinyl stops scratching and sits back. The dog quivers from a strong wish to jump up and sprawl on the man, to mold himself into the presence that loves him, that is warm and generous and walked along the road at the most important time. But he doesn’t. Not on the flimsy chaise. On the couch inside, sometimes, but only when the mister is taken with a need of his own. Usually it happens when the missus isn’t with him. At such moments the small need flows from Vinyl’s head and heart to his hand—and he pats the cushion next to him. When this happens, Bill jumps up and settles close. It’s like what the missus calls all the things that make her voice happy. Certain people, and things to eat, and weather. She calls them all heaven.

But not on the chaise. Bill spreads himself on the cool, smooth concrete at Vinyl’s feet. He smells chlorine. Sometimes when it’s hot, if the mister is in the pool and makes a certain move—Bill always watches for it, sprawled and panting in the midday heat—if he calls and claps his hands, oh what goodness! It’s almost equal to the big lake in Michigan, spreading from sandy shore and dock, out beyond the diving platform.

No. Eyes closed, hearing the phone ringing inside, Bill knows the lake is better than the swimming pool. Better even, he decides, hearing the missus talking now in her high voice, than the times the mister takes him to Naples Pier. Together they walk out over water, filing between rows of men talking, smoking, the air loaded with scents of ocean and fish. Bill feels proud to be taken, sensing eyes on him, hearing questions asked, hands stroking. Then they go down steps to the beach. Yes, that is wonderful, too. The Gulf, the mister calls it, tasting of salt. Fish are everywhere, more than at the lake, almost too many. Half asleep now, he remembers barking and lunging, seeing flat, wavy things that flap and scoot, leaving plumes of sand.

Many things make no sense to him. Lying under the dining table is one, looking at the feet of strangers, everyone talking, nicking the plates with knives. Bill stays still and listens, smelling food, smelling strange bodies and shoes, and what’s on the shoes. Sometimes the voices rise. When this happens, it makes him nervous. Like all dogs, Bill is a pack animal, with strong loyalty to his leader. When Vinyl seems for some unknowable reason to not be himself—shouting, banging the arms of his chair—Bill leaves.

The missus comes out again. This time, she doesn’t have the doll. “That was Rita Fisk. Cliff Gilmore died two hours ago.”

“Oh God.”

“He had a coronary playing Frisbee with Hotspur. At the tennis courts. He died in the EMS van.”

“Was Glenda with him?”

“Shopping. It was on her answering machine when she came in. Talk about insensitive. You’re shopping, you come in and find out about it that way. Rita’s there now. Such a nice man.”

“Cliff was a wonderful guy. The best. How’s Glenda?”

“Rita says not well. Because she wasn’t there. Of course they weren’t married all that long, who can really know?”

Vinyl doesn’t answer right away. “None of you like her because she’s young.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“‘Trophy wife, floozy, bimbo—’”

“Rita thought you might be willing to walk Hotspur.”

The mister stands and Bill does the same. It’s time to walk, and the missus said Hotspur.

“I don’t want you hanging out over there.”

Vinyl makes the clicking sound he uses to call Bill. “God, the man’s dead two hours. Already you think she’s husband-hunting.” He looks down. “Come on, let’s pay Hotsie a visit.”

IT’S NIGHT, THE streetlamps on. They are high up, making their sound. Like small clouds, insects form a shifting mass atop each post. The lights themselves are TV blue.

Bill and Vinyl walk along Donegal Boulevard. The road circles the property and is just over a mile long. Most nights the mister goes toward the clubhouse. Either they walk there and come right back, or Bill waits on the grass, hearing the mister’s voice among others in the lounge.

Meeting at such times or on evenings when allowed out, the dogs communicate through gestures and infrasonic noises. They understand some often-repeated sounds—words—but the human world is mostly understood through sense impressions. They pick up changes in inflection and skin tone, in eye size and electrical discharge. Fear or desire makes itself known through scent and movement. Changes in barometric pressure signal the coming of storms.

When Bill meets other dogs on walks, they are always on leads. He never is, and it makes him proud. From the beginning, Vinyl knew what to do. He had owned dogs before and knew to spend time and be clear. Firm but patient, he trained Bill in a school gym with other dogs and misters. He trained his dog to walk at his side without a leash, to heel, stay, come. Slow or fast, always the dog trots next to his mister’s left thigh. When Vinyl stops to speak to someone, Bill sits.

The dogs he sees live in single-family homes. There are other dogs, in townhouses and condos—he hears them across the fairways. But this part of the property is Bill’s domain. Sometimes he and Vinyl see Luger, or Chiffon. Sometimes even the Yorkies are walked, a troika on tiny leads, small and busy. There were four, but last winter one fell in his mister’s unheated pool. Of the dogs at Donegal, Bill most often sees Hotspur, with Cliff Gilmore. The man has a big voice and always makes Vinyl laugh.

They move up a driveway. Bill’s flank just touches Vinyl’s hip as they step now into the carriage-light glow of the entry. Bill sits. A bell rings, just like the one where he lives. Hotspur barks inside, there are footsteps.

The door opens. “Hello Rita.”

“Oh, Fred. Good.” Nails are clicking on tile.

“How’s she doing?”

“Valium seems to help. Come in.”

“Maybe I should just—”

“No no, come in for a minute, it’s better if she talks. Hotsie—” She grabs for Hotspur’s collar, but the collie slips past. The two dogs begin the greeting ritual at nose and anus.

“It’s all right, they’ll stay here.” The mister goes inside and closes the door. Bill and Hotspur shift from the entry to the front lawn.

—What happened? Bill spreads himself.

—How do I know? Hotspur settles next to him on the grass. —I’m a dog. It’s Thursday. That’s the day we go to the club. He drinks beer, then we go to the tennis courts for Frisbee. It’s like always, nothing different. He throws, I catch, he throws a different direction, I’m there. You know.

Bill knows.

—One minute he’s clapping like always, the next he’s on his back. Glenda thinks he’s dead. Bill looks at the collie. —This happened before, she wasn’t there. It’s before her. On the Cape. He’s surf-casting. Does your mister take you to the beach?

—Yes.

—They do it there. Surf-casting. Down he goes. The first missus is reading a book. She starts screaming “What’s wrong! What’s wrong!” It makes you wonder. “What’s wrong!” She doesn’t go for help.

—What happened?

—He’s bad, I can tell. I’m up close, looking down at his face. Then I start barking, trying to get the woman to help. She’s still yelling ‘Cliff, talk to me, what’s wrong?’ You have to wonder.

—What happened?

—I see she’s not doing anything. I run to the neighbors’. A smarter woman, I have to say. What is it, Hotsie, what’s wrong? They drive him somewhere. Whatever happens, he comes back. Then the missus dies. This is—I don’t know—a long time after Cliff got me. Something was wrong with her. She listened to polkas, she called them.

—Why is this one crying if the mister is coming back?

—You see how it is. I knew you were all out there tonight. What can I do? The woman’s talking to me. They both do. With Cliff I know everything he means. Everything. This woman is actually better than the first. Don’t they do it with you?

Of course they do. All dogs at Donegal have to deal with it. Lectures, jokes, listening mornings to the day’s plan while someone sits on the toilet or shaves. —My mister talks when he watches TV, Bill says. —‘They’re taking him out, what did I tell you? There it is, Bill, the two-minute warning.’ I don’t understand.

—But you act like you do.

—When he gets going, I don’t know what he wants.

—But you stay there.

—What can I do?

—Same with Glenda. They’re all different. The first one, always talking to me. Who she’s knitting for, where they’re going on the next trip. The second didn’t talk at all. I think that’s why she left. Glenda talks a lot. When she and Cliff dance, when she does yoga.

They hear crying inside the house, coming to them over the buzz of the streetlamp. Hotspur looks to the door, then faces forward. —I can tell this one loves Cliff and me. Sometimes we’re alone. He goes in the car or plays golf. She’s doing email or yoga. She looks down, she says, ‘Hotsie, we’re lucky to have him.’ You can see from her face and hear it.

Studying the bugs, the shifting, nervous quiver around the streetlamp, Bill understands. Hotspur knows they are lucky to have good misters. Emma understands, too, but in a different way. She is what humans call standoffish.

—Luger thinks crying is wrong, Bill says.

—Because of his mister. Hotspur now stands. —Glenda thinks Cliff is dead. She wasn’t there the first time. She thinks the truck thing won’t bring him back.

The other women at Donegal talk about Glenda Gilmore. In retirement, they are hungry for gossip and think Cliff Gilmore’s third wife is a gold digger. They resent the woman, you can hear it in the rise and fall of their voices. Tomorrow, Bill’s missus will talk on the phone about her. Others at lunch or over coffee will tell each other to watch their husbands like a hawk, whenever Glenda Gilmore is around.

—Are we going to walk? Hotspur is up and pacing now. He sees something on the far side of the street and tears after it. Bill wants to follow, but stays where he is. When the mister comes out, he needs to be here, to show he has learned and remembered.

The collie is trotting back as the front door opens. —Armadillo, he says. —Nothing you can herd.

“OK, boys, let’s go.”

At last. Reluctantly, Hotspur stops jumping as Vinyl fastens the lead to his collar. However smart they are, however good their training, in the end border collies are all action. Not me, Bill thinks. At the mister’s side he walks slowly, proudly. As they move toward the street, Hotspur is already pulling on the lead.