The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (22 page)

Oh, but those staffers were getting so old. Every one of them was old enough to be Mrs. Auberchon's mother. But why couldn't they be at least a little connected to reality that wasn't about dogs, such as reality about walls, stone, wood?

They were maddening. They'd let things go as if they felt aging and wear and tear and all the natural forces of reality had nothing to do with them! They were idealists! They were so wrapped up with their ideals that they didn't know a sagging roof from a tree or a cloud or a paw of a dog. They didn't even concern themselves with generating income from tuitions. Their so-called training program had fallen like crumbling walls! They only had one trainee, and it was
Evie.

Mrs. Auberchon didn't know if it was good for her or not to be upset, but getting all worked up about the shabbiness gave her the steam she needed to make it to the bottom of the road without reminding herself of her own age. She hiked down at a snappy clip, her breath making streamers of clouds, like something coming out of an engine. There needed to be magic, she was thinking as she paused for her picnic.

The lodge, she realized, was like a lonely old dog no one paid attention to. There needed to be an Anonymous to rescue the poor lodge. What about all those volunteers? Some of them were
loaded.
But of course you couldn't count on volunteers to tune in to non-dog reality. They were all idealists too.

Leave it to Dora, Mrs. Auberchon felt. You'd think she had planned this whole thing, lying there on her cushion like a queen. She'd known perfectly well the Warden would show up in person! And see with her own eyes what was what!

Well, the rescue couldn't be something to rush into. Spring, Mrs. Auberchon decided. Late spring.

This wasn't the way things were supposed to go. Only the other day she felt herself drifting closer to the moment when she'd know it was time to start thinking about her own future. So far, all she had in mind was “somewhere that isn't here.” That, and maybe an inn, a brand-new one, nested in the middle of the somewhere. She'd already spent a lot of time imagining herself a guest, waited on, fussed over. Nothing was specific about it. Just “a guest for the rest of my life.”

And there it went, popped like an actual bubble. She had the right to a moment of bristling, growling, showing her teeth, even though no was around to see her.

Damn those old women, she thought, crunching into her energy bar. And damn that little dog.

A
GILITY, EQUIPMENT
.
A day was scheduled for UPS to deliver components of a basic agility course. The equipment could be used outdoors and also inside.

The agility things were paid for by an anonymous donor. Activities involved in the course were jumping; running in patterns of the letter S through a row of objects (like highway cones) that needed not to be knocked over; getting oneself through a tunnel; getting oneself up and down a stand-up pair of joined surfaces in the shape of an A without a crossbar, which were ordered in two sizes, for small dogs and big dogs, not that I expected Tasha to give it a try of her own free will.

I was confident the UPS guy would be able to make it up the hill. Meanwhile, as he was out there steaming toward the turn of our road, the staffer Margaret decided this would be a good day to undo her experience of falling and witnessing Dapple put into the Buick of the scum.

Margaret took Shadow with her for a walk, retracing her steps. As I heard it, from Giant George, the UPS truck met up with her and Shadow around the halfway point. The driver had to stop. They were in the middle of the road. They had a conversation about the nature of the delivery while the truck was at a perilous angle, and what did Margaret tell that driver to do?
Back down and go away because, on behalf of the Sanctuary, she was refusing acceptance.

Why would a staffer not want equipment for an agility course for abused rescued dogs? Because it still was winter and the snow was too deep for putting it outside. Because they couldn't have it indoors because there wouldn't be room because
the pitties were coming on a Network transport, and they'd picked up a few more on the way, and they were about to take everything over.

Mrs. Auberchon was called. She refused to take the equipment at the inn. The classroom/indoor porch behind the sliding door in the lobby was too small for it. Anyway, that room wasn't meant to be a playground. That was her reaction.

The agility course is like Dapple. I don't know where it is.

Alfie, more notes on.
I've put together my own notes on Alfie, and not because I'm ignoring my assignment about “notes on Evie,” which I am, in fact, very actively ignoring.

I've done some searching. My first impression of him as a dog who used to live in a stable was wrong. Without realizing it, I confused him with horses. I was thinking only in terms of racetracks, racing. Greyhounds are penned or crated. He had it in common with Dapple, I think, that home was some kind of a cage. I don't think he had it better than Dapple in terms of having the chance to be out and running on his own, just to do it.

I've decided he came from Florida. That's the state with the most greyhound-racing tracks. Other questions, I can't answer, not even by making something up, based on solid information. For example, in his training to be a racer, how many rabbits did he have to chase, catch, and kill, while being kept in a fenced enclosure? Probably there were rabbits and he chased them—that seems to be pretty standard.

It's impossible to know how long he was given nothing to eat, before being placed in the pen rabbits were introduced into. It's also impossible to know what was done to him on days he was scheduled for a race he didn't feel like taking part in, like he was asking for a holiday or day off for personal reasons. But when trainers use
electronic devices
as a way to stimulate dogs into proper performance,
no scars are left behind on their physical selves, not that I'm saying his trainer had zapped him. It's just a theory.

Alpha,
new
thing about.
Head high, looking sure of herself, Dora the Scottie walked into my class.

So I'm adding to what I thought before about alphas, which wasn't, it turns out, everything there is to know. Sometimes alpha-ness is not completely bad.

This is not like saying that maybe there are positive aspects in the whole idea of domination for one and submission for everybody else. It's not, dictators can be pretty benevolent, especially when they're compared with pure thugs. It's not, bullies can be useful to have around. It's not even about wolfness and let's have a pack because packs are cool and being an individual isn't.

How did the other dogs know what was coming at them in that almost elderly black and gray terrier body?

Suddenly here she was, strolling in, not hesitantly, not looking around to check out what was what and who was who. Right away, she was the one who had to be looked at, and while the see-the-new-student business was going on, she was privately asking herself if it was worth her time to stick around, as if she had many other items on her agenda, all of them more worthy of her than anything happening here.

I think it took Dora less time to become Chief Dog than it takes a greyhound to run a race on a track of something like six hundred yards. Dog races are measured in yards. Dog races happen
fast.

Staffer Margaret was present to “give me instruction,” as she put it, on how to get Shadow and Josie and Tasha to play with dog toys, and also one another, without crossing the line into one of them saying to the others, my mood just changed from having fun to becoming your enemy. I wasn't exactly open to instruction from Margaret. I felt I was fine on my own. What could be complicated about getting dogs to play with toys and one another? I already knew the difference between play looks and fight looks. I was feeling very advanced.

In fact, Margaret seemed to barely pay attention to me and the dogs. She stayed to the side, being elderly and frail. I could tell she was nervous. Maybe her thoughts were filled with the coming pitties, but I had the sense that fall of hers had really scared her, like she'd have to spend the rest of her life being worried about falling again, which I tried to be understanding of, as I'd tried in college to be understanding of King Lear, that extremist alpha of a father.

I wrote a paper in an all-Shakespeare class about how maybe you have to be old yourself to feel some sympathy for him. It wasn't that Margaret was Learish exactly. But when I factored out the pitties and her nervousness, I was left with non-sympathy. I could not believe she had forbidden the UPS guy from coming up the hill.

I thought that was personal
tyranny.
But of course she didn't care how I felt. Meanwhile, I was putting myself between Josie and Shadow because Josie had decided that playing with him meant biting his legs like he was her chew toy, which meant that Shadow was conflicted about being gentlemanly and tolerant, especially toward a smaller dog, and he was showing some teeth and doing snarls of
fuck off me you yappy little jerk, before I get mad!
And Tasha had just torn open a stuffed duck. She was disemboweling it. The thing had one of those plastic squeaky things inside, which I had to make sure did not go into her mouth, and also that she didn't swallow an amount of stuffing that would wad in her guts and require surgery. What to do? Go to Tasha? Separate Shadow and Josie, who chose to stop leg biting for a moment so she could stare at his penis? She looked like she was contemplating biting him there just to see what he'd do. Poor Shadow was so in the habit of never wanting to lie down, he couldn't think fast of protecting himself. And all along, Alfie was such a total dog zombie, I had to wonder if maybe there are really such things as zombies. Also I had to keep checking him to make sure he was actually breathing.

Okay, I needed some instruction. I wasn't aware of looking to Margaret to signal her to please step in and be my teacher. I don't think I had time. She was on it. I couldn't believe I'd thought she wasn't being attentive. Suddenly, at exactly the right instant, she called out, as if talking to nothing but air, “Dora! Dora, come!”

Her old woman's voice was big with strength and vigor. I'd had no idea of the dog waiting literally offstage, poised to receive her cue.

“Evie,” called out Margaret. “Please do as I tell you.
Relax.
Just stand still and relax and be
calm.
”

I watched a smile come onto her face, softening her, like she'd formed it on purpose so I'd catch it, and soften too.

And here was Dora. She went straight to Margaret and paused to look up at her so Margaret could admire her and tell her how amazingly perfect she was, in every way, which Margaret did, with just that same smile, plus a nod of her head. A second movement of her head—a tipping, a slight one—indicated that Margaret wanted Dora to start with Tasha. So Dora strolled over to Tasha and took the duck from her mouth, entrails dangling. The squeaker dropped to the floor, and I grabbed it.

Tasha appeared to feel that being robbed by Dora was wonderful, and now I know what it means to drop one's jaw in stupefaction.

Drop the duck and work the room, Dora, Margaret wasn't saying. I mean, she wasn't saying it in words. She was just moving her head a different way, in a more circular tipping, as anyone would do who had a neck crick or shoulder tension. It was actually so discreet, I wouldn't have noticed, if I hadn't been watching her closely.

Dora brought the duck to a corner and left it there. An invisible spotlight was shining on her. We all knew it. Of course she knew it too. She walked around, slowly, her eyes busy, checking everything out, letting herself be stared at.

Shadow went starstruck. You'd think a diva had stepped off the stage of an opera and come into the audience to say hello to him.

Josie was saying to her, I swear to you, I'll yap at, and also bite, everyone here except you.

Alfie lifted a front paw as Dora passed him. If she were closer, he would have touched her, so it was more like a wave, or a salute. No one crowded her. No one sniffed her bum. A decorum entered the atmosphere.

Then she came to me. I didn't get down to be close to her. I looked at her with my face as close as I could get it to a replication of Margaret's smile. Dora knew I was sincere in welcoming her. I think she was grateful to me for pretending in front of the others I didn't see that, inside the terrier body, behind the terrier eyes, was a dog who was alone in an apartment she used to live in with people, who had left her. I wondered how long she waited until she realized they would come back never. I wondered how long she had gone without food before swallowing her first mouthful of wallpaper.

Dora. I told her with my expression that I would do what I could to wipe out her memories like a virus. I saw that behind the shine of her eyes there was a blankness. I didn't blame her for disbelieving me about what I wanted to erase.

Then it was feeding time, and oh my God Margaret patted me on the arm. But it wasn't to pat me. She wanted me to walk with her to the dining room. She wanted to lean on me, not that she said so. She just looked at me and dared me to be strong and walk in baby steps and make her feel safe. If she asked me to carry her, I would have done it, even if I had to be sore from it for the rest of my life.

This was just a little while before the pitties arrived. I was hoping the new decorum of the dogs would last.

Connection.
Josie went on Skype with Giant George again to meet and greet a potential adopter.

Again it was a woman past her childbearing years. Josie behaved perfectly. The woman was an urban professional, Giant George said, very prosperous, very up in whatever corporation she was with. “I feel such a connection with you,” the woman said to Josie. “I'm white, I'm on the small side, I have a Unitarian mother and a Catholic father, so I'm not a pure breed.” She explained to Giant George that everyone she knew had purebreds, many of them designer-level in quality. She was willing to stand out from her crowd. She was going to love how it felt to take in a rescue, she said. And Josie was a terrific size for her lifestyle and environment.