Dear Helen,

Thank you so much for your kind card. A courtesy many people forget, in such cases. I am feeling a little better, but we all miss Stanley dreadfully.

Burke, too, has shed a tear. Well, not the sort that actually rolls down one’s cheeks. But his eyes welled up when he looked at Stan’s stiff, dear body. “Thank god he won’t be humping me anymore,” he said. I heard the emotional strain in his voice.

It’s true that Burke always took the brunt of Stanley’s sexual drive. Pugs are incredibly sexual, did you know? Of course many dogs have urges, but our darling Stanley took the humping to quite an extreme. He would glare at one with wild, angry eyes, and then come running and exert his passion on one’s arm, with a furious look  that said ‘don’t you dare try to stop me’.

Burke would lightly push him away, which would make Stan all the more frenzied, a mixture of passion and rage. If he got very displeased by Burke’s rejection, he would even bite him, so Burke usually gave it up and let Stanley have his way with him. Oddly enough, Stan never quenched his desires on me - a dog of strange tastes.

Barnaby is of course much less lascivious than Stan, especially since his chemical castration. I always wonder, by the way – why can’t they do those on men? So much simpler than the whole vasectomy thing, which I personally don’t like because men tend to complain of all sorts of little aches for weeks afterwards, so that one is wholly put off one’s feed, if you see what I mean. Of course, now and then even Barney suddenly discovers a Love Object, and when he does, he won’t take no for an answer.

Wasn’t it funny the way he used to climb on top of Dr. Veltman? Simply hilarious! No matter how vehemently poor Barnaby pawed Dr. Veltman’s stomach and bit and sucked on his ear lobe, Dr. Veltman had no clue what was going on.

“Yes, yes, you’re a good dog,” he would say. Or, if he was very put upon: “Why don’t you go play with your fire truck, now?” But he was never on to Barnaby’s carnal lust for him, even when the dog humped his arm furiously. I just didn’t have the heart to tell him what was going on. So innocent, Dr. Veltman…Even his almost fanatical devotion to me seems quite chaste and pure – Thank God!

I have put your card on the mantelpiece, my dear, with similar attentions from other friends. Nothing from Joanie – she can be quite cold, can’t she. I love her, of course.

Lisa