Gone to the Dogs (9 page)

Jackie invited me to stop in. Although I’d urged Steve to hire a second veterinarian and helped him to move to the little house in Belmont, I still found it disconcerting to ascend the stairs to his old apartment above the clinic and find Jackie Miner in residence. She welcomed me, gave me a cup of coffee, and settled me on Steve’s couch, which she or Lee had covered with an unbleached natural-fiber hand-woven throw, very Cambridge, and a collection of plaid pillows, very Scottie. The Miners had made quite a few other additions to Steve’s spartan decor. The tiger maple end tables flanking the couch weren’t Steve’s, and he’d certainly never have bought the crystal lamps that sat on them. He pays very little attention to inanimate objects, but if he’d noticed the lamps, he’d have thought of them as something his mother would buy.

Because of Willie’s real terrier character, I’d left my dogs at home. I want to stress that Willie did not
actually bite my ankles. He didn’t even nip at them. What he did was stare at them and ponder. He cocked his head, frisked around, barked, circled, surveyed, salivated, and restrained his impulses. I was glad. You know why terriers are called terriers?
Terra
, right? Earth. They were developed to go to ground after vermin, and although Scotties have been bred almost exclusively as show and companion dogs for over a century, they retain that instinct to go after, dig in, lock onto, and never be shaken off. Most Scotties are thus high-spirited, brave, strong, vibrant dogs, but don’t get me wrong: Scotties, in general, aren’t biters. Willie was a particular.

“Willie’s taken quite a liking to you,” Jackie said brightly. “He usually flies at people’s ankles.”

He’d quit yipping by then and stood foursquare, his black eyes gleaming and flashing at me.

“Really?” I said.

“Oh, yes. He’s bitten quite a few people. Twelve, in fact. Well, he hasn’t really bitten them. He’s nipped them. But they don’t like it.”

“Oh.”

“Visitors, usually, but people really don’t like it, especially if they’re not used to dogs.” Her own dark eyes met Willie’s. “And we aren’t used to people who aren’t used to dogs, are we?”

I interrupted their silent communion. “Was that the reason you took Willie to Dickie Brenner? To get him to, uh, calm down with visitors?”

“Oh, no, no,” said Jackie, beaming at Willie. “The only problem is that we take our responsibilities a teeny bit too seriously, don’t we? We have to learn that we can keep our teeth to ourselves. Can’t we? And we must learn to be a good boy with other doggies.
But nasty old Mr. Brenner did not like us at all, and we certainly returned the favor, didn’t we?”

Is syntax contagious? I came very close to asking whether we had actually bitten Mr. Brenner, but I caught myself and asked only about Willie.

“Almost!” Jackie replied. “But mean old Mr. Brenner was a little too quick for us.”

“What did he do?”

At last, she looked directly at me. “He picked Willie right up in the air and threw him! He threw him right to the ground, just like that.”

“Didn’t Willie bite him first?”

“Well, of course, he tried, but what good did it do him? Horrid Mr. Brenner was wearing leather gloves. Gauntlets! And he was very, very angry. He wanted me to let Willie loose, and if Willie went for his ankles, he was going to kick him and pick him up in the air and throw him down again!”

“And what happened then?” I asked.

“Well, we left, that’s what happened then, and we never went back.”

“I’m a little surprised Brenner told you what he was going to do,” I said.

“Oh, that was only after Willie tried to teach him a good lesson,” she said. “When we first got there, all he wanted me to do was leave Willie there, board him there, and you could tell he really didn’t want me around at all. So I said that I was not interested in
that
. We were there for a consultation, period, and I was not leaving Willie, and that was that. So then I started telling him what the problem was, but it was more than obvious that he wasn’t listening. And that’s when I thought I’d better show him.”

“So you, uh, let Willie loose?”

“Yes! And Willie did show him! And then we
left, and we are certainly never, ever going back to him!” Black eyes glittering, Jackie held her head high. Willie looked on approvingly.

“Good. Look, there’s one thing I don’t understand. I heard this story about Brenner and Oscar Patterson? Someone told me that Brenner mistreated some dog, a dog that Patterson knew, a Clumber spaniel, and Patterson went and punched him in the jaw for it. Is that true?”

“Oh, Oscar did a lot more than that! He gave him two good black eyes!”

“So how did you end up taking Willie to him, after that?”

“Because it wasn’t after. In fact, if you ask me, that was one of the reasons Oscar did it, because Oscar knew perfectly well what that horrid man did to Willie. I told him all about it. And then when those people brought in another dog! And he had ruined, totally ruined the poor dog’s temperament. Well, that was too much for Oscar.”

“Jackie, when did this stuff happen? When did you take Willie there?”

“Just a few months ago. October. The end of October.”

“And when did Patterson and Brenner have this fist fight?”

“A few weeks later. Maybe two weeks. Not long at all.”

“So all of this really just happened,” I said. “I didn’t know that. Could I ask you, uh … do you mind if I ask you how much Brenner charged?”

“Well, I can tell you what I paid him, and that was not one cent.” Her eyes snapped. “And I’m perfectly happy to tell you what his bill was, because I could hardly believe that he had the gall to send it.”

I probably gasped. For the amount Brenner had wanted for one consultation, I could have trained either or both of my dogs once a week for five months at the Cambridge Dog Training Club.

“And,” Jackie continued, “Lee thought we ought to pay it! He said it would be easier, that we’d avoid a big fuss if we just paid, but I plain outright refused. Willie could’ve been seriously injured! Were we going to pay for that? Not on your life, I said to Lee, and don’t you dare pay it yourself, either, I told him, and he didn’t.”

Then we talked about the Monks of New Skete. I didn’t know exactly how much they’d charge, but I knew they couldn’t be cheap. Well, I thought, the Miners weren’t paying any rent, they didn’t have to worry about vet bills, and Jackie had at least picked good instructors this time. Also, having recently replaced my old scent-discrimination articles with an extravagant set from Paul’s Obedience Shop, I was in no position to accuse anyone else of wasting money on a dog. Mostly, I wished the Monks good luck and hoped that Willie wouldn’t bite one of them. As I drove home, I wondered whether a nipped Monk has to turn the other ankle.

Want to become a professional dog trainer? Presto! There you go. Don’t bother getting certified by the Society of North American Dog Trainers. Don’t waste your time putting dozens of obedience titles on dogs. Never trained a dog at all? Never even owned one? Well, that’s all right. Just list yourself in the yellow pages, and put in a display ad, preferably one with a picture of a happy-looking dog. Also, be sure to offer everything: complete professional evaluation, obedience training, protection training, puppy training, behavioral consultation, and problem-solving services for any dog of any breed at any age in your home or our homier-than-home professional facilities. Individual lessons? Of course. Classes? Naturally. Residential programs? Make that a specialty. It’s very lucrative.

Dick Brenner was listed in the NYNEX yellow pages and had a great big ad there, too. I recognized some of the other people listed under “Pet Training,” including a couple of people who’d written dog books and one honest-to-God smart and helpful behavioral consultant who really did specialize in monster dogs. You want to know who wasn’t listed? Vince Dragone wasn’t there, and neither were Roz, Bess Stein, Tony
Doucette, or any of the other first-rate trainers I knew. But wasn’t the Cambridge Dog Training Club there? No. Neither was the New England Dog Training Club, Charles River, Concord, South Shore, or any other AKC-affiliated club. But competitive obedience is a sport, some people say, whereas the consultants are dog psychiatrists. Unless the dog is one of those rare fiends with a genuinely rotten temperament, I don’t buy that distinction. If you’d never been sent to school and if no one had even bothered to show you what good behavior is, which would you need, education or psychiatry?

NYNEX didn’t show Brenner’s credentials, but it did give his phone number, and early Tuesday morning, I reached him. All the obedience titles I’ve put on dogs do not make me a professional dog trainer, but the B.A. in journalism I put on myself does make me a professional writer, and I don’t trust secondary sources.

“My name is Holly Whitcomb. I found your name in the yellow pages,” I informed Brenner. Whitcomb is my cousin Leah’s last name. I borrowed it in case Brenner happened to subscribe to
Dog’s Life
or one of the other magazines that publish my articles now and then. “I’m having some problems with my dog? And I thought maybe you could help?” I tried to sound like the kind of person I’m not, someone who’d have problems with a dog and expect someone to save her if she did.

Brenner spoke rapidly for a man with such a deep, full voice. “That’s what we’re here for,” he said confidently.

I feigned a sigh of relief.

“Is this a crisis?” he asked eagerly. “Emergency situation? We can deal with that.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Not at all. In fact, you might say, it’s, uh, chronic? She’s, uh, well, it’s a little hard to take her for a walk? Because she pulls on the leash.” I hate lying. It makes me feel guilty. “And also, she just won’t come when I call her,” I added. “Mostly, I just want her to come when she’s called, and I want to be able to take her for a walk and not be dragged down the street.”

“Well, that’s easy enough,” Brenner said. “It’s simple. It’s not difficult.” He paused. “For a professional.”

Not difficult? Sure. Instill the recall in a cooperative puppy during that chase-anything phase, then keeping practicing and rewarding him ever after, and don’t forget to proof the exercise in a few million highly distracting situations, and you’ve got it made, a dog who invariably comes when he’s called. Otherwise? Otherwise, Brenner was right. It’s not difficult. It’s a real bitch.

“Really?” I said. “Well, that’s good news. This is a very beautiful dog we’re talking about. She’s a thoroughbred. She came from a very good pet shop, and she has papers and everything. One of her ancestors was an American Kennel Club grand champion.”

Did you get all of that? Dogs are purebred, not thoroughbred, of course. Reputable breeders never, ever sell to pet shops, and any pet shop salesperson who tells you otherwise is just plain lying. The only truly
good
pet shops are equipment and supply stores that don’t sell dogs at all. AKC papers tell you nothing, absolutely nothing, about the quality or even the health of the dog. Finally, there’s no such thing as an AKC grand champion. That’s a United Kennel Club title. I felt proud of myself: In only a few sentences, I’d managed to sound like a total ignoramus.

“Well,” Brenner said, “you’ve hit it lucky. Right now is a very good time to get started.”

“Oh, is there a class starting now?” I asked.

“Holly,” he said, “I’ve got to tell you. What we’re seeing here? The way the dog’s pulling you down the street? Well, what we’re seeing here, Holly, is the first little step, the first little peak of the iceberg.”

“Really?” I tried to sound alarmed.

“You know, you’ll find people who might disagree, and my opinion may be no better and no worse than anybody else’s, but I’m convinced that if you don’t latch onto a problem like this and get right to the root as soon as it rears its head, you’re making a big mistake, and it’s nothing you want to tackle yourself.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You know, right now, it might seem kind of complicated, because you’re in over your head with this dog, but maybe it’s not as complicated as you think.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“So what you want to do, Holly, is, really, you want to wipe the slate clean. You have to understand that what the dog’s doing is directly tied into what you’re doing, and you don’t have to be a rocket-ship scientist to figure out that once the dog’s behavior’s straightened out, it’s going to unlock a whole new world for you. What you want to do is get a nice clean break, take your vacation, whatever, give us a couple of weeks, we can pick her up and deliver her back to you, and when you get back, we teach you a couple of simple commands, and you and the dog are two happy campers chugging off down the tracks.”

“Actually,” I said, “I’d been wondering about
training her myself.… Or maybe somebody could show me what to do?”

“Well, of course, we can do that, but I’ve got to warn you, maybe eight times out ten, it’s a waste of time.”

I persisted, and we worked out a plan: I would take my dog to Brenner for a one-hour evaluation and consultation. After that, I hinted, I might decide to board my dog with him for two weeks. His fee for one hour would be exactly what he’d tried to charge Jackie.

As soon as I hung up, while I was congratulating myself on saving hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year by training with the club instead of going to an expensive private trainer—there
are
some good ones around here, including some who give classes—the phone rang. Charity Wilson was worried about Groucho. Should she call Rita? Or did I want to?

“No, don’t call her,” I said. “Let me hear about him first, and then we’ll decide.”

“I feel awful,” she said. “I hate to bother you, but I just don’t know. Maybe he gets like this sometimes. It’s like he’s half awake. But the thing that’s got me most worried is, he’s not eating, and if you ask me, that’s a bad sign. Isn’t it? You always know, don’t you? If a dog puts away a good dinner, then there’s not too much wrong with him?”

“Groucho doesn’t have much of an appetite anymore,” I said, “but he does eat. He hasn’t eaten anything?”

“Not today,” she said. “Not a thing. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure he even notices the food’s there for him, and, like, yesterday? Well, he kind of picked at it, but today, I keep offering it to him, and he’s not interested. And I’ll tell you another thing.
Sometimes, when I get a dog here, it takes him a day or two to get adjusted. For a day or two, he might go off his food, or act nervous, or not pay any attention to me, withdraw. But then, when he sizes me up and figures out I’m all right, he perks up, and lots of them, by the time the owners get back, I’ll tell you, lots of them would just as soon stay.”