Walter gnawed on his favorite bone, the long one that he had chipped off considerably at both ends. The sound of his back teeth scraping along the length of the bone was soothing to him, more soothing than pretty much any other sound. Daisy liked the sound of falling rain. Sometimes Daisy would take a cup of coffee and a kitchen chair out to the tiny back stoop, which was covered with a small awning, and sit with Walter lying next to her and she would occasionally reach down and scratch him behind the ears and ask him, didn’t he just love the sound of falling rain. The answer, actually, was no, he didn’t love it, he found it bothersome, but he did love lying next to Daisy and her scratching him behind the ears. No, not rain. Rather, for him, there was nothing quite so soothing as that permeating sound of his teeth gnawing away at a bone, the sound seeping from his teeth straight to his soul.
So now as he sprawled on the kitchen floor, a late autumn breeze came through the screen door. The days had turned chilly, but as Daisy prepared her dinner, she was warmed just enough by the stove and kept the inside door open. The breeze and the rustling sound of leaves it brought in with it were a nice background accompaniment to his chewing. For Walter, gnawing on a bone was a full-fledged project. He stopped to look up at Daisy as she cooked her dinner. It smelled good, whatever it was.
Walter turned from Daisy back to his work so that she would not know he was watching her. Pausing to assess his progress, or “Pawsing” as Daisy liked to call it, he carefully looked the bone over, licking a couple of spots as if to test it. He had reached a point in the project that took a great deal of consideration. During this break, he considered a small spot of mud on his forepaw. The smell of the mud mixed with the smell of the critter that had been in it before Walter. He returned to his work, licking the bone again, trying to decide on the best way to resume. He turned the bone over between his paws, finally choosing which end to chew, Daisy referred to this whole deliberation as “Chewsing.” On one end there was a small tab of bone ready to be removed. He decided to start there. The fragment broke off with a snap that caught Daisy’s attention. Then Walter let the bone drop over his paw and onto the wood floor. For now, his project was finished.