I can already tell that this lady who has arrived in the evening with a rotten fish for me will be nothing but trouble. I like the smell of the fish because I am a dog. I do not trust the lady because she talks too much. I can not understand her words, but I do understand an advance payment of food. I swallow the fish and follow the lady.
She wants me to find her cat. The door was open and the cat left, she tells me. I enter her house. It smells like soap inside. I hate soap, so I leave quickly. Outside the house, there is a lot of mud. I love mud, so I roll around until I am dirty. I feel good.
Suddenly, I am running. I sniffed a tree that smelled of fox. That fox was here, and he must have chased the cat off into the woods. I follow his trail. I will find the cat when I find the fox. This is fun. I like chasing foxes around.
I am all alone here in the quiet woods. There was a storm in the afternoon. The animals must still be all hidden away. I do not find the fox, and I do not find the cat. Soon, it is midnight. I stop for a moment to mark a tree. Sitting on a branch, a squirrel laughs at me until I flash my teeth at him. He chatters loudly as he runs off. I hope that I will soon have the great pleasure of introducing him – to my stomach.
“Where on earth is that cat?” I keep asking myself as I walk around through the dark woods. “How did she vanish without a trace? What did the fox do?”
I am annoyed. I feel sick, perhaps because of the rotten fish in my belly. I have a tough job. I should rest.
I go to the river to cool off. Floating in the water, I see the moon reflecting from the surface of the river. When I stand still, I can see its reflection clearly. If I move around, the waves cause the reflection to dissolve, and then I can no longer see the moon in the river. It is only when I stand still that I can see it.
Suddenly, I know where the cat is. I run back to the house. My fur is still dripping wet when I arrive. The lady is outside, looking for her cat. I bark at her to get her attention.
“We were thinking about this the wrong way,” I say. She does not understand my language, so I talk without interruption. “I was thinking like a dog, but we are looking for a cat. In order to find a cat, we must think like cats.”
The lady follows me into the house. It still smells like soap inside. I sneeze.
“There were storms and it was raining. Now it is muddy outside. I like the mud, but the cat does not.”
We enter the kitchen. Clean clothes are piled up neatly. I sneeze again – I hate soap.
“The cat likes to stay dry. When the rain comes, she must be in the house to avoid getting wet.”
I wait until I have the lady’s attention. Then, I go to the pile of clean clothes.
“Therefore, the cat never left because she hates all the mud outside. She was here inside the house the whole time.”
I lift the clothes, and there is the cat, lying on a folded blanket. That old cat just smiles at us.
Now the lady is happy. Busy talking to the cat, the lady no longer pays attention to me. I steal a fresh fish before leaving. It will taste good. My job is not that bad sometimes.
