This is the bluetick coonhound puppy dog I babysat yesterday

When people know you're unemployed, or nonemployed, as in my case (unemployed means you are unsuccessfully looking for work, while nonemployed means you don't even look), you can expect some interesting requests. Your friends have things to do, and they know that you don't. What are you going to say? I'm sorry, I'd like to help you out, but I need to spend six hours at the coffee shop today resteeping tea bags until my Earl Gray is so watered-down the Church of England blushes?

Actually, I might say that. I've had it in for Henry VIII since Anne 0f Cleaves. But it wouldn't help. People with urgent requests are in no mood for Theocratic humor. So it came that Monday night my childhood friend, on the eve of his final Law School examination, beseeched my listless person attend his bluetick coonhound puppy dog, Gale, and I assented.

The particular nature of my friend's predicament dictated a special course of action. The puppy was eight weeks old, having lodged a mere forty eight hours in her new West Village home. I understand hound dogs are a little rambunctious in general, but I think youth and lack of Lower-Manhattan experience combined in my small charge to aggravate an already precarious equilibrium. The dog was fucking nuts. You had to watch it continuously; not only because it might apply its searching teeth to any garment in reach, or micturate, with youthful glee, upon any surface, but also because the little bastard would go for your jugular if you didn't entertain it sufficiently- a disease it likely contracted from the New York cinema patronage upon touchdown at JFK.

The dog could not be trusted outside its recently constructed comfort zone. What's more, little Gale did not even have papers yet, so even if she could be trusted at the boarders, they could not legally take her. And yet, the law exam approached, and my friend could not study for a small, floppy-eared, energetic bluetick coonhound at his leg. I got the call.

The arrangement was this: I would sit on my friend's couch, gently succoring the little dog with DVR and chew toys, while third-year law studied in his bedroom. He told me it would be the greatest favor anyone could ever do for him.

Things passed well enough. I walked the dog once an hour. I fed her twice. I even got her to sleep for a few minutes by showing her an entire season of Entourage. She did chew my jacket a little, but it was law school's jacket, so I figured she owned it anyway. Overall, I'd say we got on pretty well.

So beware, work force refugees. Your friends need favors, and they know how to find you (they call your girlfriend- speaking of which, does anyone know what you call a guitarist with no girlfriend? Homeless). But if you ever pick up the message, you might just find yourself reclining on your friend's leather sofa, watching movies and playing with doggie toys, while an adorable bluetick coonhound nestles in your flank and sings you sweet songs of spring hunts and water holes, thick grass and cool barnyard floors; the happy traditions of another shiftless, wandering breed somehow caught up with everyone else, here in New York city.