Raising Dog-Dog – Oliver Cubillos

June 1, 2026

When on that Sunday morning Dog-Dog fell straight from heaven, my younger brother Henry and I celebrated with our secret sister-brother dance. He’s real, he’s real, he’s real, Henry sang. We cried and cried. Oh, Mommy. Oh, Daddy. How did you do it? How? How? How do you always do it? Henry had an appetite to know these things. I pat our new Dog-Dog on his little-big head and cradled him in my arms. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I sang through tears. It’s all I could really say.

That’s how it was explained to us. Dog-Dog fell from heaven, where all little-big dogs come from. He had these little black feet because Mommy said he landed in a patch of mud. Daddy found him wandering somewhere lost and afraid on his drive home from the city. That night Mommy let us bathe and towel him dry. We sang to Dog-Dog through clouds of sweet bubbles. Then we put him in his new crate between our two beds. Mommy and Daddy tucked us in and kissed us sweet and shut off the light. I listened to Dog-Dog snoring between us on the floor. And I heard Henry whispering something to himself. Wishes come true, he said. Thank you, thank you. Someone really hears. Everything, everything, he said.

Eventually, Dog-Dog grew. We learned over time that little-big dogs only get bigger. And Dog-Dog had quite the excitement. Quite the hunger, too. After school, we’d take Dog-Dog out to the swings at the park. Henry said Dog-Dog wanted to fly. Can’t you hear him, Henry said. It reminds him of home. Of being heaven-felled and soaring through great clouds. Like he’s back where all other Dog-Dogs come from. Henry wheezed and rolled around with Dog-Dog in the mud. Fly, Dog-Dog, he said. And they went round again and again until Henry got tired and needed a break.

I should mention that Henry was always getting sick. He was always home with Dog-Dog. I was pretty jealous. Being the older sister, I had to go to school. To do my dishes and homework and try not to get sick. Henry’d been trying to teach him this trick where Dog-Dog would do a backflip or a frontflip or something kind of crazy. He wanted to train him to fly. Henry stole this container of treats from above the fridge and would use it as motivation. I think I mentioned Dog-Dog was always pretty hungry. And Henry always had to push things further than he should. I think I mentioned he had an appetite to know things. It worked a while, the treats. I saw him one time get pretty close to doing the flip. But Dog-Dog wasn’t much of a little-big dog anymore. I guess this happens to Dog-Dogs of all shapes and breeds.

That’s how we explain how Henry disappeared. Henry was extra sick that winter and stayed home a week from school. Dog-Dog was growing, remember. And staying extra hungry, too. One day Dog-Dog got a little too excited. And one day they never showed up for dinner. Mommy was getting worried, and Daddy set out to find them, his little-big babies lost in a big, big world, and he drove around and around all over town, and when he finally found them later that night down the road in the spotlight of his truck, all he saw was our big Dog-Dog holding little Henry’s torn sweater in his slobbering mouth, tail wagging, an empty tub of Dog-Dog biscuits tangled over his little-big paw.

He swallowed Henry whole, and all those treats, too.

Mommy and Daddy never liked telling people that story. Instead, Henry was forever living upstate with Grandma. Always sick but always improving, bit by bit. And Dog-Dog started sleeping in Henry’s bed. He was getting real big, you see. Too big for that little crate. I was pretty down about the whole Henry thing, so Daddy started doing little things to cheer me up. He’d put a little baseball cap on Dog-Dog. That made me giggle. He even got a jersey from his favorite football team and put it on him, too. It was a perfect fit, he said.

Things started to change when we brought Dog-Dog to school. I was feeling down, remember. To cheer me up, Mommy let me bring Dog-Dog everywhere. We found out that if we kept on the hat and jersey and supplied him with a backpack full of treats, Dog-Dog sat quietly in class. Nobody seemed to notice. Or maybe they did, but nobody seemed to mind.

Sometimes I missed Henry. Sometimes I’d play with my dolls in our room and think about all our secret sister-brother dances. But Mommy always said he was a bad influence on me. Asking silly questions. Playing silly games. Dangerous games. Dog-Dogs can’t fly, she said. What a silly boy, she said. Maybe things are better with him gone, she said.

Eventually Dog-Dog grew some more. At this point, he was a student of his own. The teachers moved him up some grades. Mommy dropped me off to fourth grade then took Dog-Dog to the big high school. Daddy told the teachers if Dog-Dog wouldn’t listen to throw him his backpack full of treats. That always seemed to work. And Dog-Dog took off over there. He got pretty popular and even scored a few goals for the football team.

They say Dog-Dog’s going to graduate soon. Daddy might take him to work with him in the city come fall. Maybe work a job of his own. And maybe one day he’ll find another Dog-Dog and settle down. Maybe he’ll catch little-big puppies of his own (they fall like heaven-felled stars, remember). Maybe they’ll even play and sing and dance their secret brother-sister dances all around the yard. And maybe Dog-Dog would learn to speak. Maybe he would ask me things.

Can’t you hear it, sister, he might say—that sweet, sweet music on the hill?