Abet

abet
verb, transitive. To encourage or assist someone to do something wrong, in particular, to commit a crime or other offense.

Jill motioned Jason to the window. "Have you ever seen them do this?"

She was referring to the actions of their two dogs, who were trotting across the lawn in what could almost be described as a grid pattern, their noses low to the ground.

Jason nodded. "It's called 'casting.' It's hunting behavior. They found a faint scent and they're trying to find its strongest traces. As a team, they're abetting each other. It's much more efficient than what a dog can do working alone."

"I wonder what they're after," Jill mused, her face leaning close to the glass.

"Probably a rabbit."

"I never had a dog when I was a kid," she told him. "I'm glad we got these two. The more I live with them, the more awesome they become."

Jason smiled and hugged her from behind. "I'm glad you feel that way. I can't imagine living without a dog or two."

"Didn't you have ... like ... six?"

"Oh, sure!" The memory brought out his northern Florida accent. "It wasn't necessarily a good idea. There were times when Mom and Dad couldn't afford dog food. We would feed them okra then."

"Okra!" Jill drew away from the window and half-turned so she could address him face to face. "I've never heard of such a thing. And they ate it?"

Jason was nodding and smiling fondly as he remembered. "They not only ate it, they seemed to like it better than the commercial food, and," he moved forward and pecked her on the lips, "they thrived on it."

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.