Esme was the smartest dog I ever knew.

She literally taught herself to fetch. Watched Teddy — he would just chase a thrown ball, taste it, and run to the next distraction. Ezzie figured out as a puppy that if she brought it back to her human, he would be tickled and throw it again. And again.

She’d learn to sit and find a toy on command. If Teddy did something he was not supposed to — like crap on the couch or eat my leather wallet — Esme would actually leave the house when I awakened. I would come to learn Teddy had misbehaved through her cues: If I heard her exit when I walked in from the bedroom, I’d know to brace myself.

Esme was perpetually cold. She’d laze on her back in triple-digit Valley heat.

She treated guests as if she’d never had company in her life.

She loved the car as much as her brother.

She did not mind a little 420.

She stood her ground, regardless of size.

And she stood guard.

Her favorite thing, though, had to be the 5 p.m. fetch. Since we both required evening meds — her for a brain tumor, me for the transplant — we’d rush our way through our evening doses to beat a path outdoors.

There, we’d play Esme’s version of fetch. More of a hide and fetch, I’d say.

Any dog can chase a ball and bring it back. Esme preferred you hide the toy and send her on a search mission. She would do this for more than an hour, and I usually wilted in the sun before she.

The night before she died, Esme did something for the first time in her life: made a noise.

I knew Esme for 11 1/2 years, and not once did I hear her bark. Not. Once. She may yip the rare dream, and snored like a motherfucker. But she made Dirty Harry look like a gossip queen.

Last night, though, she gave a soft, sustained whimper. Twice. I came to her bed to see if she was dreaming. Her eyes were wide open, her head against a blanket. I sat next to her and scritched her belly. The whimpers stopped. I rubbed her until she nodded off.

She was reminding me the time.

“I know,” I told her.

She knew too.