The only failing of dogs is that they don’t outlive us.

That’s become acutely clear over the past day. There’s a ringing in my ears, as if a flash bang went off in the house. I know it’s the tinnitus of absence. But there’s a larger void.

For the first time in my adult life, I’m without a canine companion. And that’s only because I count my college days as adulthood. Esme’s northern passage also marked the end of a duo — Teddy & Esme — the first buddy-cop movie to ever play out before me in my 8 dog years.

While my parents were never animal nuts, my sister and I are, particularly for wolf cousins. Caroline and I are of one mind on this: Cruelty to animals should be punished twice as severely as cruelty to humans. At least humans have therapy.

I guess that would have made Ezzie a therapy dog, because god knows she was an emotional salve. While Teddy was easily the alpha dog — from his size to his cartoonish personality — Esme set the rhythm of every day I’ve spent in this house since we moved here in 2009.

If I were lost in a column here in the office, Ezzie would stroll back to remind me: It’s dinnertime, dummy. Fetchtime, too. Oh, and bring a baggie; I left something warm for you in the backyard.

Without a word, she was the crossing guard. She taught me: close doors; latch the gate, pick up your shit, check your suit for fur so you don’t look a corporate tool for Big Dander.

So it goes with all furred family members, it seems. What miracles! that meeting of the mind across species. That we would evolve to have the same endgame in mind: a safe, loving home that stands until the carousel stops. A home so intricate-yet-synchronous we could only hope for such symbiosis with homo sapiens.

And let’s bow back to our furred roommates for a moment. No matter your shortcomings, real or imagined, no matter your demons, manifest or budding, No. Matter. What. You are a rock star, they tell us. You hang the moon every night.

There’s something about that surreal bond that sets off meth-level dopamine hits in my brain. Maybe that’s what I’m jonesing. The problem with losing a love is that you can picture what you remember, but cannot see what you really miss: that aura of presence.

And I realize, here in the office, where nothing reminds me of the setting sun except memory and a wristwatch, that the question really isn’t a question at all: Another hound will roam these grounds someday.

Maybe two.