Now don't start getting ideas. I am not a philosopher. I'm a dog. But I look like a philosopher, they say, and I'm not sure the distinction is as great as you might think. I'm what's known as a Rhodesian Ridgeback. My forebears used to hunt lions in Africa, but I'm a modernized urban specimen. I don't hunt much of anything.

I was born somewhere on the plains west of Uppsala, Sweden. In the beginning I was blind and tumbled around with my siblings. We pooped and bit each other and nursed, and our mother — who I must admit was kind of a bitch — tried to raise us to the best of her ability. Without all that much success, I must say too.

When I was about two months old I was adopted. Two long-legged humans, a man and a woman, came and picked me up, loaded me in a car and drove into town. This is the story of the eleven years we spent together.