They stood by the apartment door, evaluating the situation, when one of them had a brainstorm. He rang the doorbell. Brigid responded right on cue, bursting out of her lair at the back of the bottom shelf of the built-in cupboard in my bedroom.

    Meanwhile, the apartment was a mess with doggie poop and pee. The poop was easy enough, but what to do about the pee? To lessen the smell, Nimesh and Sangeeth poured water on it, which caused it to run in the general direction of the furniture. Hastily applied tissue paper only made the mess worse. To save the couch, they raised it and propped it up with one of the chairs. They turned the fan on high, locked the apartment, and were in the elevator on their way down when it hit them both: what if Brigid ran under this makeshift arrangement and it fell down on top of her? They went back to the apartment and stood the couch completely on end.

    By then it was approximately 4:30 in the morning. The security guard appeared at my door. Cupboard doors were open, things were in disarray, and the sofa was standing on end. What was he supposed to think? To complicate matters further, there was a language problem. My security guard speaks only Nepali, a variant of Hindi. Sangeeth and Nimesh speak some broken Hindi. Neither side understood the other well, and Sangeeth and Nimesh considered themselves lucky to escape without having to face the police with an explanation. They also promised that in the future they would arrive at a more reasonable hour.

    The next day Nimesh called my veterinarian for advice. Dr. Venugopal told him to talk to the dog.

    On day four Sangeeth arrived alone, cleaned up the new mess, fed the animals, and petted the dog. So far, so good. As he was standing by the door, his cell phone rang. It was a call from our vice president. Now, Brigid has an unfortunate idiosyncrasy. Just as she doesn't like to leave, she doesn't like anyone else to leave either. When someone approaches the door, she barks. To hear over the barking, Sangeeth stepped outside the door. Brigid, in her excitement, pushed on the door. It closed and locked, leaving Sangeeth and his cell phone outside, and inside, Brigid and the key. Sangeeth said, "Oh, f--k!"   Our vice president said, What? Sangeeth said, Oh, nothing, and continued the conversation.

    Afterward, he came downstairs, where the security guard regarded him with suspicion. He went to my landlord's apartment and spoke to my landlord's wife. He could tell from her accent that she was from Kerala, so he spoke in Malayalum. In his words, immediate bonding occurred. She let him into the apartment across the hall from mine. He stepped out onto its balcony and from there made his way from one sunshade to the next until he reached my balcony. He was three floors