After running about thirty feet, we saw her. Somehow she had crawled from her blanket and had made a beeline for the caretaker’s house and, yes, the caretaker’s dog, Strider. We saw her sitting in the grass, and next to her, on his back with his legs in the air, rolling around like a puppy, was grouchy old Strider. I looked over at Maggie as we were sprinting towards Layla and Strider and said, “I can’t believe she made it this far. Since when has she started crawling!”

Maggie said kind of sarcastically, “Apparently today! I thought you had your eye on her, Jim!”

Sam, hearing all the commotion, walked out on the front porch, and as soon as he came out of the house Strider bolted, leaving me and Maggie and Sam all arriving at the same time and at the same spot next to Layla. We were all gazing down at her and she was looking innocently up at us. Sam said, “I’ve never seen Strider rolling around on his back like that! Is your baby okay?”

I looked at Maggie as she swept Layla up in her arms and said, “She’s fine, Sam. Layla has this thing going on with dogs!”