“LIE DOWN WITH DOGS, rise up with fleas,” Mumma used to say. She was referring to moral corruption that came of falling in with bad companions, although she also thought that people who let their dogs sleep indoors were asking for trouble.

Ah, but those who lie down with dachshunds rise up with smiles, even if their own night’s sleep has been disturbed. Dachshunds are structural comedians; their very existence is a cause for amusement. In the full light of morning, I awoke to the spectacle of Rosie lying flat on her back: pointed nose in the air, stubby forelegs folded demurely across her chest, hindquarters sprawled in lewd abandon.

“Trollop! Just look at you,” I murmured, stroking her belly. “No wonder Arabs think short dogs are odious.”

Waking, she rolled over. Yawned, her long tongue unfurling like a paper noisemaker. Stretched, a two-part motion: first fore, then aft. A cylindrical shake from one end to the other, and she leapt into my arms, all exuberance and kisses, as though we had been cruelly parted for days, not sleeping in the very same bed all night long.

Someone just outside my door must have heard my laughter, for there was a tiny knock and a piping voice. “Walk you dog, madams?”

I pulled on my dressing gown, lifted Rosie, and opened the door to a small boy wearing a barely respectable white cotton shift and sandals. This little capitalist held up a worn leather leash, probably scavenged from some European’s trash. “Yes, madams? Walk you dog?”