In the beginning there were two: Mr. Biddle and his little bowlegged dog.

The stout little dachshund was named Milton. He'd been with Mr. Biddle through hurricanes, divorce, and the sudden death of a Jack Russell terrier. Mr. Biddle and Milton were bonded more closely than Batman and Robin, Laurel and Hardy, Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

They took walks together. They sat on the front steps and watched geese high above the trees forming the last letters of the alphabet. They dug in the dirt for bugs.

Then one day, for no discernible reason, Mr. Biddle began to add to the family. First came the twins, the same breed as Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog. Unlike Milton, both had long hair. But because they were puppies, and dachshunds, and boys, they made for reasonably agreeable companions.

When Mr. Biddle was otherwise occupied, the twins provided a number of amusing moments for Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog. Milton especially liked the way Tommy and Danny chased each other in circles while Milton lay on his belly like the Sphinx on the cool tile floor.

But seven years later, if one calculates time as dogs do, Mr. Biddle went too far. He brought home a little girl, a tiny fuzzy white one with razor-sharp teeth and an ear-splitting bark. She was high-spirited, spunky, and able to jump on and off the battered leather sofas from the moment she arrived. This was something Mr. Biddle's somewhat corpulent little Milton could not easily do. This annoyed Milton immensely.

In fact, within an hour of the little girl's arrival, it is safe to say that Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog hated her.

He hated how she jumped on his stomach and stuck her tongue into his ear. He hated how she snatched his rawhide bone from his mouth. He hated how Mr. Biddle cuddled her and cooed to her as if she were some ancient European princess. He especially hated how, at bedtime, she claimed Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog's very own pillow—the flattened and stained one positioned right beside Mr. Biddle's fluffy pillow.

Enough, already!

Sulking, Milton retreated beneath the quilts, snooted himself between Mr. Biddle's knobby knees, and, just before he surrendered to the siren call of sleep, hatched a shameful but, to his mind, necessary plan.

Every family, no matter how uniquely constructed, has intellectual diversity among its members. Some are very smart, others demonstrably less so. And all, of course, when you get to know them, are dysfunctional.

Within Mr. Biddle's household, and excluding Mr. Biddle out of the respect to which old people are entitled, it was believed that one of the twins—the brown, long-haired, non-dappled one named Tommy—was especially gifted, inasmuch as Tommy was the one who inevitably discovered opportunities for mischief. These opportunities included the theft and destruction of Mr. Biddle's eyeglasses, cell phone, camera, slippers, wastebasket, newspaper, daily mail, dinner, and a variety of objects that Mr. Biddle had accumulated over the years that had no particular purpose other than to give him pleasure when he saw them.

The dappled twin, Danny, a sweet and docile dog, was thought to be of average intelligence, a perfectly acceptable condition in such an affectionate and furry little animal.

Bringing up the aptitudinal rear, Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog, Milton, while well-meaning, was, it was assumed, no candidate for high office. From the moment of his birth, Milton was destined to become a dog's dog, a creature whose greatest joys were eating, napping, and rolling on his back in stink.

Conventional wisdom, however, frequently turns out to be wrong. When push came to shove, as now it clearly had, Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog possessed a degree of craftiness that none of the others seemed capable of mustering.

The next morning, when the new little girl gleefully began her day by jumping on Milton's stomach, he snarled like a Rottweiler and bit her on the leg. This was no friendly nip. It was the kind of chomp you'd execute at a picnic on a batter-dipped leg of Southern-fried chicken.

Understandably, the little girl howled, which immediately got Mr. Biddle's attention. Uh, oh, Mr. Biddle thought.

What Mr. Biddle failed to realize was that he had just witnessed the household equivalent of the sustained bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor by the Confederate States of America in April 1861, setting off what the people who started it called The War of Northern Aggression. Hard times lay ahead.

Inside Mr. Biddle's Overland Park townhouse the die was cast, the battle was engaged, the war against the invader had begun.

Naturally, Mr. Biddle fussed at Milton, but Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog knew such consequences were inevitable. His heart remained unmoved. In fact, roughly half an hour later, when the little girl attempted to play Kiss My Face, Milton nipped her soundly on her left ear.

This is a boy's club, he announced in the form of speech preferred by dogs.

This set off another round of howls and angry scolding, actions that served only to stiffen Milton's resolve. War, once unleashed, is not easily recalled.

That night, sleeping arrangements underwent major modification. Recognizing that love was no longer in the air, the smarter twin, Tommy, elected to sleep on the throw rug beside the battered leather sofas. Danny snuggled close to Mr. Biddle, hoping to win his heart. The little girl, apparently still believing that everything would work out fine (a gender-specific trait), curled up on the pillow beside Mr. Biddle just as she had the night before. And Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog, Milton, crawled underneath the quilts where he growled himself to sleep.

Twice during the night Mr. Biddle was awakened by the sound of fighting. In the near-total darkness, he could not be sure who had started what, but by pre-dawn it seemed best to separate the combatants. Reluctantly, Mr. Biddle put the little girl into the safety of a locked wire crate that he lined with layers of soft cotton rag rugs.

Heh, heh, heh, thought Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog, reclaiming his soiled pillow.

Breakfast went smoothly enough, although when Mr. Biddle's back was turned, Milton helped himself to a sizable portion of the little girl's bacon bits, scrambled eggs, and kibble.

The next fight broke out over possession of a peanut butter-filled rubber toy, followed by a battle over chunks of salty goat cheese and a noisy disagreement over a prime patch of sunlight.

Ever protective, Mr. Biddle spent much of the day carrying the little girl in his arms. Gratefully, she licked his face, napped, and only once peed onto the front of his favorite shirt.

By the next night, Mr. Biddle began to wonder if he'd made a mistake. The little girl and his little bowlegged dog showed no signs of getting along. If anything, the situation had gone from bad to very bad.

Now both the twins were sleeping on the throw rug, the little girl was confined to the crate, and Milton, when not occupying one of the battered leather sofas, stepped up the frequency and severity of his attacks. Frequently, he'd stick his long nose between the bars of the crate and fire a sneeze at the little girl's face. Once dismissed as a dimwit, Milton found himself in complete control of the battlefield. I am doing this to protect my homeland, rationalized Milton in a burst of patriotism. I am doing this to preserve our precious canine way of life.

When surrender came, it was sad and swift.

Early the next morning, Mr. Biddle packed the little girl into his rusty blue car and sat in the parking lot with the engine running until the pet store opened.

"She's a good dog," Mr. Biddle explained to the manager while fighting back tears, "but we're having problems with her being accepted by the others. I'm truly sorry."

The pet store manager looked at Mr. Biddle with suspicion, as if Mr. Biddle should have known better in the first place, or should have tried harder, but when Mr. Biddle agreed to pay a generous restocking fee, the manager took the little girl from Mr. Biddle's arms and put her back into her kennel, where she curled up beside a seven-week-old schnauzer and promptly went to sleep.

Girls can be so fickle, Mr. Biddle thought.

That night, still suffering from mixed emotions, Mr. Biddle cooked a half slab of lightly seasoned baby back ribs for his three little dogs. Emboldened by his newfound power, Milton finished off the ribs that had been given to the twins.

To the victor go the spoils, Mr. Biddle's little bowlegged dog reasoned, as life at Mr. Biddle's returned to normal, if such a word can be used to describe anything that takes place in such a household.

Mr. Biddle sniffed a final, silent farewell. That was when he realized he'd never given the little girl a name.

"Millie" would have been nice, he thought.

---