The dog in the corner

The small amber dog around Ruxpin is Rux, a real dog, Ted's. The folded page corner in the Ruxpin mark is his ear.

What he does

He keeps you company the way a dog sits in a room where someone is reading: present, close by, not asking for anything.

• On the Rux box, on Home, on a source, at the foot of an entry, he perches on the frame while you decide what to ask. What Rux can see when you do: Rux: what it sees and what it can't.
• At capture he waits beside the record button, and steps out of the way the moment you start talking. Nothing of his ever sits over your thinking.
• While your words are written down, he carries the thought to your record, keeping the spinner company.
• If a recording had no words in it, a head-tilted pup breaks the news. It happens to everyone.

In those first two places, the Rux box and the capture screen, you can also just tap him, and he'll hop. It does nothing else, and that is the whole idea. Where he's only standing in for his name, beside the word "Rux" in a menu or a title, he's a label rather than a dog, and nothing happens.

He never speaks. The app's words are the app's, never his, and he never interrupts. He just sits there, which is rather the point.

The wardrobe

His outfit usually follows the calendar: ice cream weather in July, reading glasses in September, a scarf come December. One look per day, and the same look everywhere he appears. So if you spot him dressed for the season, it's on purpose, and tomorrow he may have moved on. The calendar can change without an app update, so a new outfit is not a sign you're behind on updates.

Twice, though, he dresses for your record instead of the date:

• A rosette on the day your streak reaches seven, thirty or a hundred.
• A book just after you add a new reading. He brings it along for a day or two.

Both take precedence over the season, and both go away on their own. He is reacting to what your record did, never to what you did in the app. Nothing he wears is a nudge, and a quiet week changes nothing about him.

When he says hello

The first time you open Ruxpin after his outfit has changed, he settles in with a small hop instead of simply being there. That's his way of pointing at it, so you look up and notice the rosette. It happens once, on the first place you see him that day, and only on days something actually changed. If you have Reduce Motion turned on in iOS, he skips the hop and is simply wearing the new thing, which is the same news told quietly.