The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (26 page)

“That's very stable,” I said. “That's impressive. What about the guy? What did he do before he stayed home?”

“He's retired from having a landscape company. I'm sure you noticed their lawn. It's natural. He's not the type to use chemicals. You see, I had to ask about his choices for treatment. I'd felt it was important to know.”

“I
hate
chemicals,” I said.

“Would you like to see some photos of the house?”

I shook my head. “When is he leaving?”

“Soon. He won't be part of what's going to be happening with the new arrivals.”

She stood up to put more wood on the fire. When her back was turned, I looked at the photo again. Something was bothering me about it. I could see that there was a space for Giant George to fit in with that crowd. I couldn't think of him as Eric, but I could see him with those people. I could see his big shaggy self in swimming trunks, jumping off the pool deck, cannonballing. I could even imagine him getting yelled at by the guy for being lazy about mowing that grass. But something was wrong.

There wasn't a dog in the picture.

If they had a dog, the dog would be with them. It was a family portrait. They were obviously the kind of people who would think of their dog as a member of the family. How could there not be a dog? How could he want to go to a home without a dog?

Phyllis was standing near the fire when I mentioned it.

“They don't have a dog. Is he all right with that?”

She stepped over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder, getting ready to pat me.

“Evie,” she said. “He's taking Tasha.”

A
DOPTION, THE KIND
of people who do it.
People who adopt are not aliens, although it's easy to think they are, in the sense that, first there's everyone who's human, and then there are people who adopt, as if, in evolution, a separate species branched off. Being clever, they were able to adapt. They learned to pass themselves off as normal. They can mingle with the rest of humanity and not draw attention to themselves, like in schools, places of business such as insurance companies, geographical locations such as a desert or a home with a deck and a nice yard and a swimming pool. You can walk by the members of this branch on a sidewalk and not know what's under their skin. It's not like pointing to dogs and saying what breeds they are, or what mixes. It's not like spotting people with dyed hair or false teeth.

However, I think it's a mistake to stand back and be in awe of adopters if you happen to find them out. They want to pass as normal people, so you should respect that. Never fall into the trap of using over-the-top describers for them, such as noble, saintly, superior to normal people, virtuous.

Also, “heart of gold.” There is no such thing as an adoptive person who has, in their chest, a heart made of gold. Gold hearts are
lockets.
Just by looking at someone who adopts, you can tell the person has muscles and pumping blood. Also they have flaws. You can't be human and not have flaws. So just because you can't see signs of interior imperfections in pictures of themselves they send via email—well, it doesn't mean they're perfect.

Adoption, problems
of.
I looked at charts put together by some rescue people for a website geared to people who work in shelters and in fostering. I was searching for testimonials and advice on things like how not to be selfish and emotionally stupid when an animal gets a home. Instead I found the charts. I learned that many adoptions don't go well, especially the ones involving large dogs. Large dogs have the highest rate of return.

Probably, many adopters are idealistic. This can mean overlooking the reality of the many problems large dogs can cause in a household and also in a neighborhood, even when they're housebroken and leash-trained, and did sort of okay in Basic Obedience.

Things are going to be chewed. Things are going to be mangled. It might not always be only dog toys. And that could be the least of it.

Maybe it's naive, or plain bad, to be idealistic about large dogs, or, in fact, any dog of any size.

Awareness.
Dogs have heightened awareness in certain situations, like dog ESP. For example, Alfie's having ESP about Tasha. He'd never done his business indoors on the nice woolen welcome mat by the front door, which the staffers are fond of. He'd always been considerate of it. But . . . there he was, expressing himself through his rear end, and not looking sorry or guilty. His mound of shit was saying, I have reached a new level of depression, and it's a whole lot lower than before.

Bonding.
Good trainers know that the attachment called bonding must only take place between the dog and the person or persons of the dog's human family.

But what if the trainer has a personal history of things going wrong in the bonding thing that people do with each other? What if the trainer finds out from a dog what bonding means exactly, because the trainer went and felt it for the dog?

Many trainers (I read in several articles) practice a highly disciplined approach to their jobs, because when you come right down to it, realistically, it's just a job. Your level of professionalism is
everything.
Several trainers who share their thoughts on the Internet feel it's helpful to know about aspects of Buddhist thought, such as the one about detachment.

I was interested for about ten minutes in the blog of a trainer who does yoga every day and goes on retreats in American Buddhist places, to meditate with monks. I felt we had something in common, since those things were once goals of mine.

This trainer says you should care for the dogs you work with, because detachment isn't uncaring. But you have to care while being detached. You have to be realistic. “I've wisely learned to do my job without
being
my job,” this trainer says. “That's the essence of being a respected professional in the dog-training field.”

Control.
Do. Not. Lose. It. Ever. And if you do, or
when
you do, hurry up and call yourself back, even though it feels like you went over an edge there's no getting back from. Say to yourself, I'm new, I'm new. Say to yourself, in spite of evidence to the contrary, this training is
working.

Here comes Tasha.

Dogs, having idealism for.
I am so totally ideal, Tasha's saying.

How could I think there's something flawed in being idealistic about dogs?

Dogs, love.
The Rottweiler's on me, placing her big head where my heart is. She's listening to the beat of my heart, like maybe she's memorizing me. I put my arms around her. I have zero words.

T
HE VISIT TO
Mrs. Walzer in her hospital bed could not have been worse. She looked as if she'd aged by twenty years since the last time Mrs. Auberchon saw her. She was supposed to be getting ready for broken-hip rehab, but she'd made up her mind that she had come to a point in her life where she was better off flat on her back than up on her feet. Her lunch tray was barely touched. Her skin had a terrible pallor, her voice a terrible flatness. They'd cut down her meds as anyone would do with a patient who needed to leave the land of fuzziness and floating like a cloud, but she was making it clear it was the only place she wanted to be. She wanted to have her IV again. She wanted to be fuzzy, to float.

“You don't know what it's like to be old.”

That's what Mrs. Walzer had for a response to Mrs. Auberchon's first attempts at conversation. It had the gravity of being true. Mrs. Auberchon was young enough to be a daughter of hers. But still, “old” didn't have to be the most important thing she was. The woman was in fantastic shape in every physical part of her that wasn't a hip that got broken. Think of Boomer! He was her age, more or less, if you measured human years in dog ones. He had a condition that could never be healed. Yet inside himself, his spirit was like a genie in a lamp, as alive as anything, and all you had to do to release it was rub his fur, or just get down beside him and look in his eyes.

But Mrs. Auberchon saw that this was a case of Dora the Scottie all over again. Why couldn't she talk to Mrs. Walzer the way she'd talked to Dora? Why didn't anything she said break through? She just wasn't saying the right things, although they sounded right when she said them. She had pictured herself strolling into that room like a messenger from the outside world, saying, with staunch goodwill and confidence, come back, Mrs. Walzer, come back; there's an empty place where you were, and you have to hurry back and fill it. Plus, you're my only friend.

Of course she couldn't have put things like that, directly—come back, you're my only friend. She didn't compare Mrs. Walzer with dogs except in her own mind. But she thought she did a good job of being caring and concerned, as warm in her tone and manner as sunlight.

And what else did Mrs. Walzer have to say? She told Mrs. Auberchon she didn't want the flowers Mrs. Auberchon bought in the gift shop: a pretty bouquet of perky, bright colors, shiny leaves, and cheer. She rang for a nurse to take it away, and then she explained that falling and breaking her hip had been
a wake-up call.

A wake-up call! She said this as if she'd come to her senses about something she very much needed to quit, like she was in rehab right now to stop thinking of life as something she had an interest in being part of.

She was the same as a cake in an oven. It was all so simple, she said. She was a cake in an oven and the timer was ticking out, and the most she could hope for was feeling satisfied that she'd done her best with the ingredients she had to work with.

And it wasn't a joke! She was a baker!

“You're not cake batter,” Mrs. Auberchon replied.

It was a short visit. That was the end of it. Mrs. Walzer didn't want to talk about the rehab center she was going to be moved to. She didn't want to talk about her faraway children, her grandchildren, the little ones and babies who were her greats. On the bedside table was a stack of get-well cards, untouched, not being looked at. There was a brochure from the rehab place and another about a meeting group for elderly widows. Both had the crispness of having never been touched by the person they were meant to reach.

Mrs. Auberchon had even tried introducing to Mrs. Walzer the subject of
let me confide in you the secret of what I'm going to do in late spring with my nest egg.

Mrs. Walzer had acted as if she didn't know what a nest egg was, when in fact she'd sat in the kitchen at the inn all those hours taking part in all those conversations that turned corners so suddenly, without warning, from news and gossip into “Oh, Mrs. Auberchon, now when are you going to confide in me what you're planning to do with that nest egg of yours?”

“Oh, you'll be the first to know,” was always the answer. Which would be followed by the friend-to-friend grumbling of Mrs. Walzer about how she wished she had a nest egg too. Or she'd rave about admiring Mrs. Auberchon for her self-discipline, her diligence in planning for retirement, old age, still such a long way off for her, unlike some of us others, she'd say. Sometimes she'd say she would miss Mrs. Auberchon very much when the day arrived that she was packing her bags and leaving the inn for . . . wherever. Sometimes she remarked how much she'd prefer being, you know, not in this world anymore, herself, just to spare herself the hardship of saying goodbye. And now she didn't want to discuss the nest egg!

It wasn't only that. Mrs. Walzer didn't ask about the Sanctuary dogs, not even to wonder what they were getting now for treats. She didn't even care about the treats!

On her way out, Mrs. Auberchon happened upon a hospital volunteer with a therapy dog on a leash: a girl pug with a pink bow on her collar.

Of course Mrs. Auberchon stopped to say hello and pat her. Candy was her name. Her puggy little squish of a face was pure sweetness. Her tail was in a soft, beige-white curl at the tip, like the loop of a fiddlehead fern. “I am the best thing about this whole hospital,” she was saying, rubbing herself in and out of Mrs. Auberchon's legs like a cat. She was on her way to Pediatrics, her usual hangout, Mrs. Auberchon learned. And in one second, she got the idea that Candy on Mrs. Walzer's bed, in Mrs. Walzer's arms, would be exactly, perfectly right.

The volunteer was calm, soft-spoken, matronly. “Sorry. We already tried,” she told Mrs. Auberchon. “We were asked to leave that room almost as soon as we went in there.”

That was just unbelievable. “My friend,” said Mrs. Auberchon, “likes dogs. In fact she—”

On the face of the volunteer was a look of defeat, as if she'd caught it from Mrs. Walzer, like airborne hospital bacteria.

“Your friend,” she said, “told me she's seen sausages that look better than this dog, and she is not a fan of sausages. That was how she put it. Don't worry about Candy, though. She's a pro. She wasn't insulted.”

The bus ride back to the inn was gloomy. What about a Sanctuary dog for Mrs. Walzer? Mrs. Auberchon remembered how partial she was to big ones. She was always taking Tasha's side. A real fondness was there. But Tasha was leaving.

Boomer with his golden inner genie? His fur and his personality could be painkillers, better than any drug. Old people and old dogs ought to be with each other; it was a natural fit. But Boomer was too arthritic to leave the mountain. The ride down would be a nightmare. He'd have to be brought bedside in a wheelchair for dogs, which of course the hospital wouldn't have. Alfie? No, he was an indoor pee-er and pooper. He was barely at the point where he was willing to make eye contact with a human, never mind put aside his own issues and be a therapist. Shadow? No. He was too, well, shadowy, plus his face was a sad one, even when he was having a good time. Anyway he was SAR-bound. Search dogs don't belong at a bedside. Dora? She was small but didn't act it. She might be able to draw on her own experience in the infirmary, put it to good use. But if Mrs. Walzer insulted her, she wouldn't be a pro about it. She'd put out her tail and raise hell. As for Josie, she couldn't be considered, not only because of her past. She was definitely on better behavior, but still, she had too much of a reputation as a nipper and an overly zealous yapper.