The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (32 page)

The other sheet was also a photo. Dapple. She was lying in a curl on a cushion on a dog bed that looked like a laundry basket missing one side. It was an up-close shot. Nothing indicated where she was or what type of room it was. I looked at her spots. I looked at her expression. She seemed to be at ease, in a zone of quiet. I told the photo I thought she looked like an ideal of someone put into Witness Protection by protectors she could count on.

Under the photo was a handwritten note from Agnes. “Was found to be pregnant, a condition which no longer applies. Will be ready for adoption after healing.”

I appreciated getting the news in the hush of the dining room. A feeling of relief came over me, a sort of calmness after a storm. I was glad the staffers were all around me. Our silence was the right way to have a connection to that dog, even though she didn't know we were holding her close to us, even though she wasn't here.

Belonging (backward and twisted).
The pitties are in isolation. Sometimes we hear them barking. They don't sound like they're in pain, or hungry, or upset. They're not complaining in any way. All the barks come with question marks, and it's the same question over and over. Where am I? Where
am
I?

Louise told me, in her same quiet, gentle voice, that sometimes abused rescued dogs go through a rough period of confusion and inner conflict, because as glad as they are to be free from what was happening to them, they lost their known place of belonging. Just because their attachment to their abusers was terrible for them—well, it was still an attachment.

Oh, I was saying to myself. It's like detox. They're sort of in
detox.

She also told me that, now and then, rescued dogs will try to bolt from the rescuers and head back to the only place they ever felt they belonged, and never mind what's in store for them if they make it. Because sometimes you don't call it abuse when it's happening to you, even if you're doing it to yourself. You just call it “my life.”

Belonging (normal).
I haven't been sleeping well. Boomer and Shadow and Josie and Dora and Alfie, downstairs just below me in the night, keep breaking into my sleep with all sorts of noise, including those weird yippy sounds dogs make when barking in their dreams. And the voices of the pitties rise up to me, muffled, uneasy, still strange. I open my eyes to moonlight. It really does sound as if an alien invasion is taking place, like I'm the only one on earth who knows about it. I'm saying, “This is so cool.”

A little while ago I needed a break from dogs. I was running a little low on patience. But when I decided to head back to my room for a while, I called it going
home for a quick time-out.
I didn't correct myself. I don't think I'd started calling it home just from being so frazzled. It just felt normal.

Companion.
Busy as she was with the new ones, Agnes with all that height of hers remained true to her terrier qualities, not that I was comparing myself to a rat or other small, annoying animal terriers were long ago bred to go after. She wasn't letting go of how I'd lost control of Tasha and Alfie so they could charge the car of Dapple's owners. I could tell from the way she kept looking at me that she was silently nagging me about it, and finally I found a note from her slipped under my door, with the suggestion that I should go online and look at videos of people walking their dogs. She was sure I'd find some and pick up some tips.

I did both of those things, and then I wanted to see if there's a difference between a leash attached to a harness and a leash attached to a collar. There had to be differences that are maybe profound, like neck walking would be such and such, and torso walking would be totally something else. But in just a couple of minutes I forgot the assignment I'd given myself. I wondered, can you tell if a person walking a dog is out for a walk with a companion? Or is the person walking the dog because, if you have one, someone has to take care of that chore?

You can tell the difference! Anyone looking at a human out walking with a dog would know if the human was saying to the dog, “You and I are in this together, fair and square, because that's companionship.” Or if the human was saying, “Dog, you're my chore.”

It's not just about walking. I sat still with myself for what felt like a long time, trying to work out the question of how it's possible to be a trainer and also a companion, at the same time, like they're two things that can actually fit together.

Then I had to decide not to make a theory about it. It's not as if I have to write a paper on the subject. It's not like I'm in graduate school. So I'm just doing it: I'm just going to be both a companion and a trainer.

Doing.
All of that led to me back to Alfie. I turned off my laptop and found him by a window. He was standing with his back to it, just standing there.

I said hi. I told him I thought he was attractive. I told him that if he were a guy, I'd totally fall for him, even though he's so skinny. Then I placed my hands on each side of his head, as if forming a cup or little bowl. I was harnessing him, sort of. I needed him to feel extremely invited to give eye contact with me another try. I said, “If you think you're only a chore to me, Alfie, you're the stupidest dog there ever was.”

I was just going with being non-alpha and trying out the teacher-companion thing. But I think he knew what I meant. Of course he figured out that the only way he could stop being in contact with me was to close his eyes. Which he did.

Now what? I could feel the other dogs watching me. Was this some kind of a showdown? I couldn't keep holding his head much longer. Where were the staffers? Why wasn't a staffer around to help me out?

I remembered something. The other day when I was brushing Josie, I wanted to see what would happen if I blew on her face, just lightly, not like blowing up a balloon or exhaling to put a flame out. I'd seen a list of “Things Dogs Don't Like” on the web page of a longtime dog person. It was alphabetical. Blowing on their faces was near the top. I didn't recall anything else, just that. So I blew on Josie, and she got mad and jerked up, and went for a bite of my nose. I was able to turn in time to avoid it.

Alfie was so lazy, I knew he'd show his teeth but wouldn't use them. He understood very quickly that the only way to make me stop blowing on him was he had to keep looking at me. Well, this is what we're doing, I messaged him. We're
making contact.

And I was asking him, want to run, just to run?

Dogs, decision making.
I didn't think Alfie would decide to go back to the place where he used to belong. I think he loved being rescued, and ever since, he'd been living in a nowhere place in his head, like the land between sleeping and waking. So I was also telling him, it's up to him if he wants to live his life as a zombie or not. But it was up to me whether or not to keep blowing on him.

Then I stopped. I went to the door, opened it. What's it going to be, Dog? Want to run for no reason?

I could feel the vibrations of the other dogs: an excited tension, like they were joining together in a pack. They knew perfectly well what was happening. They knew the open door was not for them. Maybe they were tapping into an ancient leftover thing of being wolves, way deep in themselves—but as they grouped up near Alfie, Boomer and Josie and Dora and Shadow didn't resemble wolves in any way. They looked at each other like, want to place some bets? Like, will he, or won't he?

Clean, strong hilltop air was rushing in. Alfie liked it. I saw him tip his head and drop his jaw, as if he wanted to swallow some wind.

Dora forgot she was queenly and almost elderly. She started jumping around and yapping at him. Josie joined right in. If the two of them had been wearing little skirts and holding pompoms, their cheerleaderness would have been complete. Boomer nosed Alfie's bum, as if nudging him. Shadow gave me a look like he was telling me not to worry if Alfie left. He would find him.

And the greyhound took off so fast, I didn't have time to give him a countdown. Boomer and Shadow put their paws up on sills, to be lookouts. I scooped up Josie, so she could look too. Her little body was trembling in my arms, while Dora kept hopping about and making air kicks, now and then yapping at me so I could turn to tell her she was
perfect.

I was the only one going into a panic of terror that Alfie might head for the road, but he went tearing around the back. He decided to circle the building, and soon we heard the barking of pitties. They were watching out the kennel windows! They sounded like they were asking a question, but it was totally along the lines of, WTF? Like, is that creature actually a
dog?

And here came the staffers, four, like the points of a compass. They were in time to welcome the runner home.

Everyone was barking. Everyone was pawing high-fives, and I was sending out a message to Alfie: I hope you took a moment to poop while you were out there, like a normal dog. But if he didn't, that's all right. One thing at a time. This is rehab. One thing at a time.

Dogs, disgusting.
I cannot believe what dogs will do in the event that one of them throws up. I should have known Alfie would be attracted to grass. Grass doesn't grow on racetracks! So one minute he's streaking back inside, as gorgeous and sleek as a comet, and the next, he is puking, and there's an awful lot of it, and it's green. You would think he'd brought his friends a picnic. I was horrified. But at least they were sharing nicely.

Dogs, yay.
I could not believe I was letting Alfie lick my face and he didn't swill mouthwash or even get a drink of water. He was telling me he thinks I'm the stupidest person ever for taking so long to do the simple thing of opening a door so he could take off and do his thing. Like he was never a zombie! Like this was the first time he had the chance to go out a Sanctuary door!

He was saying, by the way, this is the first time in my life I felt like slopping my tongue all over the face of a human. His eyes were so shiny.

Evie, appearance of,
plus manners of behavior and also personal history.
I have to stop driving myself crazy with that assignment from Agnes about writing the notes on myself. I must have started a hundred times in a hundred different ways, including many long paragraphs that sound like glowing references written by someone who believes I have no flaws, or only very minor ones, which are actually sort of admirable.

Also I took the opposite approach of “flaws only,” plus a well-argued (I'd thought) opinion paragraph on “Can a Person Who Had a Relationship with Cocaine Be Trusted as a Trainer of Abused Rescued Dogs?” The conclusion I worked out was, absolutely not. Then I tried to describe myself physically, and also my clothes, my L. L. Bean slippers, my backpack, et cetera, and that went nowhere, because I emerged in those lines as a short, slight-of-build human who should only be near dogs if posing with one for a catalog. And when I made the effort to list some words about my manners and behavior, and be honest about it, I found myself going for “agreeable,” “consistently mature,” and even “sophisticated.”

Give it up, I was telling myself.

Evie, future
of.
In the last part of the story about the student monk who questioned his teacher, then swept the patio, then started learning how to blow in a leaf to make a beautiful sound, he's still a student. One day, he goes into a panic about the rest of his life. He's young, but he knows it's not a permanent condition. He also knows he has lots of options, even though, in his state of mind, he can't be rational about, like, making a list of what they are. So he finds himself at the windows of his monastery, looking out toward the hugeness of all the rest of the world, and he thinks, with tender, intense emotion, of everyone he was close to in the life he'd left behind, even the ones who did very shitty things to him, which he's still working on, in terms of forgiveness and getting over all the stuff in your background you just absolutely have to get over.

He grows agitated, restless. He can't sit still for meditation time, and when other monks complain, he has to be told to find a corner of his own somewhere, bothering no one but himself. Finally his old teacher comes over to him and wants to know what's going on. When he hears the words “I don't know if my future is where I am now,” what does the old monk do? He throws back his head and laughs and laughs and laughs. Baffled, the student points out that this would be a good time for him to receive some guidance, and the old monk nods in agreement, and asks, “Why isn't your future the leaf you should find to practice on, because the one in your hand, take a look, is coming all apart?”

Evie, notes on.
Oh my God, haiku! Of course I had to make the title seventeen syllables too. I'm calling it, “Everything Important About Evie, Human Female, Twenty-Four.” Note to self: prepare Agnes for the fact that she's getting the assignment at last, but not in the way she expected. I don't want her to flunk me.

 

Came in as a stray.

Is not completely hopeless.

Please allow to stay.

T
WO HOURS AGO
, Mrs. Auberchon had returned to the inn from seeing Mrs. Walzer and stopping in the village at the little branch of the national bank where she kept her nest egg.

This time she hadn't approached Mrs. Walzer's room with an image of herself as a sort of rescuer, sweeping in from the outside world full of hope. She hadn't planned a flutter of things to say that sounded like sentences on a greeting card. The only things she'd thought to talk about were how the pit bulls had arrived at last, and how
a young Siberian husky she didn't want was being forced on her.
But she never had the chance to talk at all, except to a duty nurse. Mrs. Walzer had requested a little something to help her sleep. She'd been sleeping badly. Her therapy to get her up on her feet again had been delayed.