"That's all right," Daine insists. "It's not as if he minds. He's too big to be up on the furniture, anyway." The dog's tail thumps the floor a few times, as if in agreement. "I've got a bed for him," she adds, "so I could bring that over along with everything else. He'd be perfectly comfortable here."

See? That was easy to address. The comment about qualifications is a bit more puzzling, and she gives Rush a quizzical look. "It'd be fair easy, I should think. He doesn't need much, and you're smart." A bit of a stretch as encouragements go, if only because she knows full well that bookbound sorts do have a harder time caring for animals, simply because they get distracted and don't think about more basic needs (theirs or anyone else's). But that's what the dog is here for - reminding Rush to do things besides scrawl math on the walls and drink too much coffee.