“You’re a good boy,” I whispered.

He looked up at me and whimpered.

“Do you need to go out?”

He whimpered again.

I got out of bed and he struggled to get up, but couldn’t.

“What’s wrong?”

He looked up at me and acted like he was stuck on the bed.

As panic started to set in, I asked him again what was wrong, as if expecting some kind of answer.

He put his head down, depressed.

I leaned down and petted him and asked him if he was sick.

“Fuck, don’t do this to me, Pierre.”

I gently pulled at his paw and he whimpered. I apologized and stared at him. He tried to get up again but couldn’t.

I googled “paralyzed dog” and everything alarming came up in return.

I had to call Daphne’s friend to tell her what was happening. Maybe Pierre had done this before. She didn’t answer. I tried again. Finally, I left a helpless message on her voice mail while I stared at Pierre’s drooping head.

I called the animal hospital, and they told me to bring him in. I had no idea how much it would cost or how I would carry Pierre to my car.

I tried to coax Pierre up again, and tried to move my hands under his belly to help him up as he whimpered. He looked at me with his sad eyes, immobile.

I ran around my bedroom putting clothes on as Pierre watched me. I even brought his food bowl into the bedroom, hoping that would rouse him. It didn’t.

“What did I do?” I whispered at him. “Did we walk too much yesterday?” I thought about how I had made him run a little and felt awash with guilt.

I got on all fours and tried to talk to him, reason with him.

“I can help you, but you need to work with me.”

I decided I would carry both him and his bed as one. First, I ran down to my car and unlocked it, then ran back to my house and gently picked up Pierre’s bed. He was heavier than he looked. We struggled to the car, him whimpering and me huffing. As I tried to set him in the back seat, I was near tears, thinking I had irreversibly harmed Daphne’s dog. I ran back and locked up my house and drove him to the hospital, checking the rearview mirror as he stared back at me.

“We’re going to fix this,” I said. “We’re going to figure this out.”

At the hospital, I went to the back seat, opened the door, and put on Pierre’s leash. He pushed past me and jumped onto the ground. We stared at each other briefly, and then he lifted his leg and peed on my tire.

“What the fuck,” I said. He looked at me with casual indifference.