When the argument started, Robot and Sophie were sprawled on their respective mats in opposite corners of the kitchen. Robot still was, but our raised voices had Sophie alert, keeping a wary eye on us.

"I can't believe you did it!" Susan said for at least the tenth time. "I never should have let you take that robot of a dog to foster in the first place. You know perfectly well I've been looking for something special for you for months."

Yes, I knew. At seven, Sophie was getting up there in years for a Rottweiler, and getting a younger male dog now so that I wouldn't be without a dog when her time came seemed sensible. But it was Susan's ambition to find me another dog like Sophie, young and easily trainable, with no history of abuse or neglect.

She wanted me to do what she would have done - train him right from the start and compete in obedience, agility, or herding. The fact that she had failed to push or lure me down that path with Sophie hadn't discouraged her in the slightest. She was quite ready to try again. My enthusiasm for canine competition was distinctly less than Susan's, non-existent in fact, and she simply refused to acknowledge it.

"Maybe they'll make an arrest soon," I said, also repeating myself.

"Hah," Susan actually snorted. "If they arrested him tomorrow, it would be years of trials. They sit on death row for decades, appealing and appealing. You've basically adopted that lump of a dog yourself. I should go to the county attorney and tell them you had no right to sign that agreement. I'll tell them they can have him. They'll kennel him. He'll be fine."

We had been going round and round over the situation for more than half an hour, and suddenly I was fed up with it. If you started counting from that first phone call about Butch, I'd known Susan for over a dozen years, and in all that time when it came to dogs I'd always deferred to her judgment.

Susan is twenty-five years older than I am, about the same height, and at least ten pounds lighter, one of those women blessed by the gods who can eat anything and stay slim. Her hair didn't turn gray, it turned silver, and it always hugged her head in a gleaming cap. Her elegant, classy look and reasonable way of clearly stating her most extreme positions let her regularly steamroll her way over us lesser beings with impunity.