Ser Pounce-a-lot considered the mabari pup carefully. It was graceless, ugly, floppy. Its skin did not fit, its paws were too big, and it was whining.
It was whining, it was lost, and a memory stirred of a time when he had been but a kitten, frightened and alone. A woman with a voice like a good stroke under the chin and hands that tingled with magic had picked him up and given him his Giver-of-Names-and-Pets-and-Food.
He remembered the Woman-With-the-Voice, and he remembered her hound, and he remembered how she had smelled of salt and sorrow when the hound had died.
He jumped on the pup's back and nipped its ear to guide its wobbly steps in the right direction toward the big hall where she usually could be found. He decided she needed to be owned again too.