Sign Special — MORDANE · April 13 – May 2

Thank you, Benedetto.

Mordaine, then, April thirteenth through May second, twenty days of the year, and the sign of the garnet, a deep red stone that holds its color the way a coal holds its heat, whose mood is intense devotion, which is a polite way of saying this dog has never done anything by halves, including breakfast.

Mordaine is the devotee of the pack, and it runs on the pack instinct, which means the pack is not company to a Mordaine.

The pack is a vow, renewed hourly and witnessed by the furniture.

Its gift is devotion.

The Mordaine dog is passionate, devoted, and loves deeply and commits fully.

It does not fall in love so much as enlist for life at full strength with references.

When a Mordaine chooses its people, the ceremony is daily, the attendance record is perfect, and the beloved's routines are memorized down to the minute.

While the rest of the pack is still deciding how it feels about the new arrangement, the Mordaine has taken its post, learned every footstep in the house, and begun the great work of its life, loving this household as though it were a sworn office because to a Mordaine it is one.

Now, the other side of the page, because this paper tells the whole truth.

This is a dog that turns minor interests into full-time identities.

It glanced at the garden hose on Monday, and by Friday it is the hose's biographer, bodyguard, and next of kin.

The sign's great temptation is obsession, and its standing warning is a serious one, delivered kindly.

Beware of loving with handcuffs, of holding the beloved so close that the love itself cannot breathe.

Under stress, the devotion heats into pure obsession, and its one true companion fear is abandonment, because a Mordaine can survive almost anything except an empty chair by the fire.

Its vice is possessiveness.

Its virtue is devotion.

The same fire, banked or blazing.

Its official motto is the whole biography in three words: I'm all in.

And its favorite human excuse is the devotee's signature: I'm committed now.

Its natural habitat is the fireside.

Anywhere there is a hearth, a beloved in the good chair, and a dog-shaped space on the rug that is permanently reserved.

Its lucky object is the wax seal.

Its lucky place, the fireplace.

Its lucky color, crimson.