We had a spat with Sparrow this week. We do accept some responsibility for being impatient, but the real culprit was the quirky double zipper on our ancient Lands’ End parka.

The trouble began when, after finally closing the coat on the seventh try, we yelled to Sparrow to quit practicing high leaps and bounds around the yard and get in the car so we could drive some annoying distance to buy groceries.

When she came to the car, instead of getting in the car door, Sparrow jumped for the roof — which she missed, but not by much. Instead of hopping into the back seat, she raced back out into the yard , preparing for another try to get up on the roof. That was when we called her a zoologically accurate but vulgar noun, slammed the car door shut, and drove off without her.

We returned to find Sparrow sulking on her bed and a new book called “How to Talk to Your Dog” on our pillow with a note saying, “If you were more sensitive to my feelings, you would have noticed how hard I have been training to meet the standards for membership in the Famous Like Seamus Society, open only to dogs who ride on the roof of the family car.”

Despite the ludicrous mental image of explaining this Seamus scenario to the Lincoln police, we were feeling pretty guilty, so we checked out the book for some ideas in preparation for a rapprochement with our sulking pup.

Mercifully brief and charmingly presented, the book actually does have some useful tips. The first thing we learned is that we should be greeting Sparrow by sniffing her nose… or at least toward her nose. And, to ensure that she knows who is the leader, we should put our mouth on her muzzle.

Those seemed like a good way to start, so we approached her bed to try using these tactics to reingratiate ourselves. She did not rise to greet us, but lifted her head to check whether we had gotten her message. Our sniff toward her nose generated eye contact and a head tilt, so we figured we’d go for the mouth on the muzzle and then all would be well. We crouched awkwardly down and leaned in to try it.

Sparrow clearly appreciated the effort and is being loving again. Of course it’s hard to tell how much of her behavior has been affected by guilt about our back spasm….