Some friends had a dog that gave birth to some puppies. A few months later, they were finding homes for the dogs and persuaded me to take one of them. I named him Curtis after a friend and former coworker. I remember giving him the news.

“I got a dog and named him after you,” I said. “He’s black, a little overweight, and a male. I figured two out of three wasn’t bad.”

He dwelled on that, then said, “I wonder which one didn’t make the cut.”

He was a very playful dog, and liked to nip. If you were to lay on the floor he would come over and start to roughhouse. The ears. He always nipped at the ears.

He was exceptionally excitable on cue. He could be laying down half asleep, and if you were to clap and start yelling “YAY, CURTIS! YAY, YAY, YAY!!!!” he would instantly go into overdrive, jumping all over the place.

I remember one particular episode of this. I had just come home, was walking into the living room, and started yelling the cue. He came flying around the corner, skidding on the floor, then launched himself right at me. This time, his nipping attempt caught my shirt pocket. As he began his decent back down to the floor, he had a grip on the top edge of the pocket. As he fell, he ripped the entire pocket off of my shirt, with pens, pencils, and some paperwork scattering all over the place.

I’d love dogs more, if they were not such a pain in the ass.