My new grand-dog Nellie is a soft, snuggly, copper-colored Vizsla with sapphire-blue eyes, which will turn green as she matures. She’s nine weeks old, and she’s already a linguistic genius.

When I arrived at Nellie’s house, she was in her kennel. As I came through the front door, she greeted me with a combination of barks and whimpers. Wow, I thought, she’s bilingual. Of course, Nellie wasn’t certain whether I spoke bark or whimper, so she alternated between both languages, hoping, I imagine, that her new Nana would be conversational in at least one of the two. Nellie had nothing to fear, I speak both bark and whimper. I understood her every word: “Hurry up! Open the kennel! Quick, I need a hug! Let’s go outside!”

I hurried to open the kennel, and Nellie and I exchanged nuzzles and cuddles. I put her leash on, and we went for a sniffing stroll. I let her explore the grass, sidewalk, and trees with her nose. Last week, while listening to Minnesota Public Radio, I was reminded why dogs love sniffing walks: The world is written in the odors they smell on the ground. Nellie was interested in all of them, especially the scent of some dried dog pee on a concrete step. The dog expert on the radio said pet owners should take their dogs for at least one sniffing walk a day and let the dogs move as slowly as they want. It doesn’t matter if the walk is short because all that sniffing is mentally stimulating for dogs, and it tires them out.

Nellie sniffed and walked. I walked but did not sniff. Somehow Nellie and I knew when we had reached the end of our walk–it’s our great psychic connection–and we looked at each other. “Let’s go home,” I said. Nellie stood on her hind legs, placed her front paws on my leg, and whimpered, “Carry me. I’m all worn out from sniffing and processing and analyzing.” (She’s a precocious puppy with a large vocabulary.) I picked her up, snuggled her against my chest, and one of us walked home!

Next, I fed Nellie and gave her some water. She ate only a few nibbles and ignored the water. Then she climbed onto the bottom shelf of the kitchen cart, using it as a step to climb up on a built-in shelf next to the lower cupboard. She curled up on an empty hot water bottle clothed in its own soft knitted sweater. She wanted to sleep. I reached in and pulled her off the shelf. “Not yet,” I said. I took her out to the backyard. We played with a ball and walked around the yard. She tinkled and attacked dandelions.

Hoping she had worked up an appetite, I took Nellie back inside. She ate most of her food and drank some water, then she climbed back up onto the shelf. She looked at me and whimpered, “Please don’t take me off this cozy, sweater-covered hot water bottle on this tucked-away shelf. It’s my favorite place for a nap.” She hadn’t forgotten that I had removed her from the shelf twenty minutes ago.

“Sorry,” I said, for I truly was. “It’s time for me to go.”

I placed Nellie back in her kennel. She didn’t bark or whimper. Her eyes were dozy, and she was too tired for words. As I pulled the front door closed, she sat watching me go. I like to think that by the time I drove away, she was sleeping and dreaming about our next conversation.