When we get near the employee entrance, I hop into Julia’s backpack, like always. We enter through the special gate, where George shows his ID, checks in, and says hi to the staff.

Pet dogs aren’t allowed at the park, natch. Foxes, wolves, jackals? My dog cousins? They are. But in my opinion, even though they’re technically part of my extended family, they’re nothing like dogs.

Only dogs have perfected the art of human watching.

The smartest thing we ever did was figure out how important the human gaze is. So often when we follow our owners’ eyes, we’re rewarded with something amazing.

A smelly sock!

A glazed doughnut!

A glazed doughnut that’s fallen on a smelly sock!

We follow every blink, every sidelong glance.

We see it, whatever it is, before humans do.

We understand before they do.

And if there’s a glazed doughnut involved, we eat it before they do.

puppy eyes

It’s midmorning, still pretty early. There aren’t many visitors around yet. “We’ve got a meeting in twenty,” George tells a couple workers, Hank and Sonia, who groan. “Just a quick one. Going over contingency plans one last time, in case there’s any flooding.”

During the last hurricane, a small part of the park flooded, mostly near Reptileville. George helped move cages. He came home smelling like cottonmouths and copperheads. It was all I could do not to barf.

“Weather service just issued a tornado watch,” Hank says.

“I thought we were having a hurricane,” Julia says.

“We are. Gus. But sometimes tornadoes are spawned during hurricanes,” George explains.

Julia frowns. “But a watch means ‘maybe,’ not ‘for sure,’ right?”

“Yeah, but I want you to head home,” George says, “just in case.”

“Please, Dad? Just ten minutes?” Julia says. She’s using the special voice she reserves for moments when she really, really wants something from her parents.

I guess kids manipulate their moms and dads the same way dogs manipulate humans.

“I don’t know—” George begins.

“I promised Bob.”

I figure that’s my cue to pop my head out and look adorable. So I do.

“Hey, Bob,” says Hank. Sonia reaches over and scratches my ears.

I’m pretty popular around the park.

I give George my best puppy eyes, and he caves.

“Ten minutes, tops,” he says. “Meet me back here.”

Puppy eyes.

Works every time.

mr. oog

Here’s how I figure puppy eyes got their start.

Cave humans were sitting around a fire, wearing mammoth fur and grunting about how there was nothing on TV because TV hadn’t been invented yet, and some wily wolf thought, Whoa, they’ve got leftover mammoth meat!

And he probably whimpered and cowered and did a tummy display and looked pathetic enough that Mr. Oog finally tossed him a bone. And soon enough, a few zillion years later: voilà! Man’s best friend.