The mangy vagrant dog with one white eye, who licked your cheek unexpectedly as your legs dangled lazily over the old bridge above Sand Creek that sunny afternoon in 1992, who the neighbors called Bandit, had only moments before held a limp, dead possum in his mouth. And proudly. I would have warned you, but it happened so quickly.
Bandit, a common enough pet name, but an attribute usually unacknowledged, is the essential nature of even the most polite dog, who empties the cat’s food dish when you are in another room, and removes the beef-stained Styrofoam tray from the kitchen garbage the moment you fall asleep, and without any shame or hesitation steals a possum-breathed kiss before you can stop it, which most of us would also do if we only had the chance, and the nerve.