Rick gave his head a quick shake and focused on his customer. Im very sorry about that, he said, smiling.

Theres no need to involve my boss. Now what can I do for you?

He registered the old mans Afghan hound and then a King Charles spaniel before his stint at the grooming counter was done. Next, Rick helped in the stockroom and attended the sales associates meeting, but all he could do was think of her, the woman with the hair as wild as her dogs.

Rick shared a pizza with the manager of the fish and aquarium department, but afterward, he couldnt remember a single word hed said during the meal. Late that afternoon, while helping set up chairs for the evenings free dog-training introduction class, Rick wondered if he might be coming down with the flu. That had to be it.

A little before five P.M., his cell phone rang. It was a call he had expected sooner or later, but the news was a horrible shock nonetheless.

All thoughts of Josie Sheehan and her funny dog vanished.

She stopped checking her e-mail and voice mails just before midnight.

But, just in case, Josie took her portable home phone and cell phone with her into the bathroom while she brushed her teeth. By the time she began flossing, Josie felt like kicking herself. Did she really think that list on her laptop was some kind of magic bullet, that millions of tiny electrical impulses turned into little black letters on a digitized screen would somehow change the course of her life?

Schtupid, schtupid, schtupid, she slurred through the double-waxed thread. While rinsing, she decided that if she wanted a man like Rick the dog groomer to find her irresistible, it would help to feel that way about herself, first. Hadnt that been her problem all alongthat somewhere deep down she thought she deserved the kind of losers who had populated her past?

Josie turned off the water and stared at herself in the mirror. She was thirty-five years old! What was she waiting for? It was time to put an end to that old insecurity forever.

She felt a warm and fuzzy bump against her right calf, and looked down to see Genghis leaning against her, tongue out, beady eyes gazing lovingly at her. He was funny that way, always knowing when she needed a little reassurance.

You think hell call? As an answer, Genghis licked her knee. Seriously?

You do? So you think I should just chill? /Errrrummph./ Maybe youre right. Ill think positive. Josie flicked off the bathroom light. Her dog toddled down the hall ahead of her, jumped in bed and waited, immediately assuming his preferred spooning position against her tummy once she joined him. She pulled the covers over them both.

Good night, Doodle Man. Josie kissed Genghiss big fluffy head, so glad she had her dog. She closed her eyes and flopped an arm over her hairy bed partner. Yes, it might take a while for Rick to realize she was irresistible, but she could wait.

She had Genghis.

The group was set to meet for their usual walk at six A.M. at the off-leash area of Dolores Park, just west of the Mission District. As always, they gathered at the Starbucks on Diamond Heights and continued on to the park, where they let the dogs run free for about twenty minutes of group play. Except for Ginger and Roxanne. Gingers timid bichon frise often retreated to the safety of her owners arms, and, because Roxannes new dog had aggression issues, she wore a muzzle and stayed on a leash.

Typically, their outing was topped off by a brisk twenty-minute loop around the park (or an uphill route through the neighborhood) with the leashed dogs trotting at their sides. Then they headed back to the Starbucks for a morning cup. Except for Bea, who didnt drink coffee and believed the companys hidden agenda was global enslavement through caffeine intoxication. She expounded on that theory every time they met, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at six, plus the occasional Sunday afternoon at four.

On that memorable morning, Roxies large brown dog was especially unpleasant, growling and lunging at every unfamiliar malehuman or caninethat she spied. Josie, Bea, and Ginger were accustomed to Liliths antics, but people who didnt know Roxie and her mixed boxer gave them a wide berth, avoiding eye contact while yanking their own pets to safety.

Every once in a while, someone would make a disapproving comment and look at the pair with disdain.

Bite me. Roxie leveled that insult to a passerby while giving Liliths head a reassuring pat. Cant people see Im just desensitizing my dog as part of her socialization process? I mean, really, they act like shes foaming at the mouth or something!

Ginger pointed a French-tipped nail toward Liliths muzzle. Actually, I do see some foamlike substance under her chin.

Bea snorted with laughter. I dont know which dog guru youre all worshipping this week, but in my humble opinion, stuffing an aggressive bitch into a muzzle and dragging her out in public so she can get worked up to a froth doesnt do a damn thing to /desensitize/ anyone, least of all the dog.

At that point, Josie looked around at their group and wondered, as she often did, how they had all ended up together. She would be the first to admit that the eight of them didnt create any kind of cohesive unit.

Some days, like this one, the humans in the pack seemed to barely tolerate each other.

Roxanne, Ginger, Bea, and Josie were coworkers at the /San Francisco Herald,/ and had known each other casually for many years. The dog-walking group was formed about three years before, when the women wound up in the break room at the same time and discovered they shared a common love of dogs. Since then, their commonalities had expanded. For example, all of them were currently manless. They didnt plan it that way, but thats what happened.

Roxanne Bloom, at twenty-eight, was the youngest. She was tall and lean, with glossy black hair and huge dark eyes set off by a pale complexion.

She covered criminal courts for the /Herald,/ so she wasnt in the newsroom much. As Roxie put it, she was usually hanging out in courtrooms with pervs, psychopaths, and folks with huge anger-management problemsand those were the lawyers!

Roxie had been knocked silly by her last boyfriends betrayal, and hadnt bounced back. The guy was a hotshot criminal defense attorney thirty years her senior, and it had ended in a bigger train wreck than even Josie had anticipated. Josie was with Roxie the night her friend extinguished a burning cigar right smack in the middle of the older mans bald spot. Soon after, Roxie started blogging to deal with her fury, which grew into a kind of Web clearing house for boyfriend horror stories from around the globe. Shed developed quite a following at /

[http://www.i-vomit-on-all-men.com] www.i-vomit-on-all-men.com./ Roxies lovable old collie had died just a month ago, and she went out and adopted a dog from a rescue agency to keep her company. Roxie said she could feel Liliths pain, describing her new pet as needy. Josie knew Roxie could call it anything she wanted, but it wouldnt change the fact that the dog was just plain /kee-razy/.

Bea Latimer was the oldest of the crew, and the most eccentric. She was fifty-three and worked as an assistant sports editor at the paper. She was tall and solid with short gray hair and pale blue eyes, and she dressed pretty much the same every daychinos, belt, and a golf shirt embroidered with a team logo or the name of some tournament or 5K run.

She knew everything about the news business and even more about sports.

Anyone who spent five minutes with Bea would learn shed been a champion swimmer who earned a spot on the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics team but missed her shot at glory because of the boycott. Shed never forgiven Jimmy Carter or the rest of the world.