Because somethings are too important to leave hanging about: the bone, the flowerbed and the pillow

There is a particular kind of dog logic that makes complete sense from the inside and absolutely none from anywhere else. Jazz operated almost entirely on this basis. Warm, devoted, endlessly cuddly, not exactly burdened by overthinking — and on one specific afternoon, the architect of a property dispute involving a bone-shaped treat, a neighbour's flowerbed and a spare pillow.

Jazz and the bone she absolutely could not eat immediately

Jazz had a firm personal policy about desirable treats. You did not eat them. You saved them. For later. For a future occasion that, in practice, never arrived, because the second part of the strategy — remembering where you had put them — was where the whole system fell apart.

Every bone-shaped treat Jazz had ever been given is, in theory, still out there somewhere. In the garden, mostly. Buried with great ceremony in spots that had felt significant at the time and then immediately stopped feeling significant in any retrievable way. The garden is less a garden and more a long-term snack archive with no index.

On this particular day, Jazz received a new treat and began the familiar process of finding a suitable burial site. The problem was that every reliable spot was already taken. Previous Jazz had been very thorough. Current Jazz had run out of options. She stood in a garden full of forgotten investments and had to think. Yes THINK.

She applied her brain cell and left the building

What Jazz did next was, viewed from a certain angle, impressively lateral. The side gate was open. The cul-de-sac was quiet — absolutely no one about, so Jazz trotted out.

She did not sneak. She did not scurry. She walked past the neighbours with the easy confidence of a dog running a perfectly reasonable errand, continued along to next-door-but-one, identified a flowerbed that met her requirements and got digging.

Back at the house, nobody had any idea this was happening. The first we knew about it was the front doorbell. A neighbour, laughing, stood on the step with Jazz beside her. She explained what had happened. She also handed back the treat.

That was the detail that made the whole situation slightly worse. Jazz was home, Jazz was safe, but the problem was, as the neighbour cheerfully pointed out, very much still unsolved. Jazz had, by all available evidence, done everything correctly.

And that was Jazz

The bone stayed under the pillow until I changed the sheets, because of course Jazz forgot it was there.

Which really was the flaw in the entire operation.

She had left her own garden because it was apparently full, crossed the cul-de-sac, attempted to acquire additional storage on somebody else’s property, been escorted home with the disputed item, reconsidered her options and finally selected the spare bedroom.

And then promptly moved on with her life.

Somewhere, even now, there are probably Jazz treats quietly decomposing beneath plants, behind shrubs and in corners of the garden nobody has thought to investigate.

She never did learn to eat the good thing while she had it.

But then Jazz was never particularly interested in efficiency. She had a system. It made perfect sense to her.

And really, that was usually enough. I miss you Jazzer!