We’re back in Baltimore – Ace and I – having left the wide open spaces of Montana to return to a place where the houses have no space between them.

Ace does not seem happy about it.

In our new place, which is an old place – a Formstone rowhouse with slanty floors on a dead end street in South Baltimore – Ace has a big (for a rowhouse) back yard. With grass even. And yet he just sits on the concrete patio and looks at it with a look on his face that can only be described as forlorn.

He hasn’t eaten since we got here yesterday afternoon.

He did seem to remember Riverside Park, and cheered up during the hour or so we spent there yesterday, but mostly he is moping. Maybe it’s because the house has no furniture, or because he thinks, after so many motels, that it’s just another one-night-stand.

I set his crate up in the kitchen, which usually makes him feel more settled, but he’s still edgy, walking over to the front door every few minutes as if he wants out.

When I crawled into my sleeping bag last night, he didn’t even try to join me, choosing instead to lay down on the other side of the room.

Once our storage pods arrive, we’ll hit the park again. Maybe that will help.

I know once I start moving furniture in – it’s the 1800 block of Patapsco St., should you want to come over and help (there are only two houses on the block, and mine is the slightly less upscale one) – Ace is going to get even more bothered.

I also know that, as bumpy and prolonged as this transition has been, eventually things, including him, will settle down. When I get overwhelmed by all I have to do, relocation-wise, I just think back to my semester teaching in Montana and tell myself that, hey, it was totally worth it.

Ace’s brain, I’m sure, doesn’t work that way. Still, he’s always been slightly better at adapting than me, and he’ll probably come around.

In time, he’ll be a city dog again.