I had a dress pulled halfway over my head when my phone rang. Despite my insistence that I be left alone for a few hours on my day off, Jeff was calling me. I was trying on vintage dresses I couldn’t afford in a shop a few blocks from our house. When he asked me to come outside, I said, “How do you know where I am?”

“I saw your car,” he said. “I have a surprise for you.”

As I pulled my clothes back on, grumbling, I tried to give my boyfriend the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he wanted to make a nice gesture, like buying me a cup of coffee.

Instead, I found him waiting on the sidewalk next to a knee-high, tan-colored dog. The dog trotted up to me, panting in the humidity, his jowly mouth smiling. I let out the involuntary sound I make whenever I see a new dog, something between an adult cooing at a baby and a child crying over a Christmas present.

He was stocky with fine fur and a square head like a pit bull. His small ears folded over into symmetrical triangles.