Sometimes I wonder how we Knilrams are doing as a family. I try to stress to the kids that the older ones should be watching out for the younger, and we should all be trying to take care of each other, but how much of it sticks? Well, this afternoon, we found that something is getting through.

This afternoon, Mrs. Knilram and I set out on an errand. As I walked out the door, the primary dog walked out with me. Without giving it any thought, I let her come out and had her hop in the car with us so she could join us on the errand. I didn’t tell anyone in the house that the primary dog was coming along with us. I should have let them know we were taking her, but it happened without planning it, and I really didn’t think about it at the time.

Driving down the road a quarter of an hour later, my cell phone rang. Mrs. Knilram said, “That will be our oldest daughter calling to ask if we took the primary dog with us.” I had to laugh as I answered, because as always, she was right.

It turns out that shortly after we left, our oldest daughter was checking on the emergency backup dog, and she noticed that the primary dog wasn’t anywhere to be found, yet her leash was still there. Our daughter devised an ingenious scheme to prove if the primary dog was in the house: she went outside and rang the door bell. (Brilliant!) This roused the emergency backup dog, and my brother’s dog, but there was not a peep (nor a bark) from the primary dog. If the door bell didn’t bring out the primary dog, she either wasn’t in the land of the living, or she wasn’t in the house.

Before she went out to search the neighborhood, our daughter called to ask if we had taken the dog with us.

I was impressed with the methodical way she went about deducing where the dog was (and was not). But most of all, I was pleased that she was watching out for the family.