It was one-thirty this morning.

"Yelp!" Roxy said, "yelp yelp motherfucker goddam yelp!"

I sat up, dazed and half awake, and grabbed the dog.

"Yelp yelp sumbitch yelp!"

One of her back claws was stuck in the little clasp that attaches her rabies tag to her collar. When she tried to pull away she was hurting herself.

"Yelp yelp! YELP!"

This was when I tried to rotate the clasp so it would let go of her claw. It didn't work.

Sonya had sat up by this point. No doubt the neighbors were up as well, thinking we were killing the dog.

"Turn on the light," I said. Sonya did.

"Yelp!"

The light woke me up enough to find the easy answer. I took the collar off the dog. It dropped onto the bed and off her foot.

Roxy jumped off the bed, then jumped back up and licked my face, her yelping forgotten.

Then, at straight up four o'clock, I started to cough. I couldn't clear my throat and had to get up for a drink of water.

But I've had caffeine, so I'm okay.