A Dog's Purpose (20 page)

Then I remembered Ethan and the stupid flip, how happy it made him when I brought the thing back to him. I turned around and trotted back to the man, dropping the ball at his feet and sitting for him to throw it again.

“This one,” the man said to the woman. “I’ll take this one.”

I whimpered when I saw the kind of car ride I was going to be taking—in the back of a truck, locked in a cage very similar to the one that had taken me to the hot noisy room with Spike. I was a front-seat dog; anyone could tell that!

My new home reminded me of the apartment where we went to live after the fire. It was small, with a balcony over a parking lot, but it was down the street from a nice park where the man took me several times a day.

I knew I was far away from Ethan by the smell of the trees and bushes—this wasn’t a wet place like the Farm, with frequent rain, though it was lush with flowers and shrubbery. The air was tinged with a strong smell of automobiles, which I could hear driving in the near and far distance every single hour of the day. Somedays a hot, dry wind blew in, reminding me of the Yard, but other days the air was thick with moisture, which never happened when I was Toby.

The man’s name was Jakob, and he named me Elleya. “It’s Swedish for ‘moose.’ You’re not a German shepherd; you’re a Swedish shepherd, now.” I wagged in noncomprehension. “Elleya. Elleya. Come, Ellie, come.”

His hands smelled of oil and his car and of papers and people.

Jakob wore dark clothes and wore metal objects on his belt, including a gun, so I figured he was a policeman. When he was gone during the day a nice woman named Georgia came over every few hours to play with me and take me for a walk—she reminded me of Chelsea, who had lived down the street from Ethan and me and had a dog named Marshmallow and then later Duchess. Georgia had all sorts of names for me, some of them really silly, like Ellie-wellie Cuddle-Coo. It was sort of like being called a doodle dog—it was my name, but different, delivered with an extra dose of affection.

I was doing my best to adjust to this new life as Ellie, so different from my life as Bailey. Jakob gave me a dog bed very similar to the one I’d been given in the garage, but this time I was expected to sleep in it—Jakob pushed me away when I tried to crawl under the covers with him, even though I could see he had plenty of room.

I understood that what was expected of me was to live with the new rules, the way I’d learned to live with Ethan going to do college. The sharp pain I felt when I thought about how much I missed the boy was just something to get used to: a dog’s job was to do what people wanted.

There was, though, a difference between obeying commands and having a purpose, a reason for being. I thought my purpose was to be with Ethan and that I’d fulfilled that purpose, being by his side as he grew up. If that was the case, why was I now Ellie? Could a dog have more than one purpose?

Jakob treated me with a calm patience—when my little bladder suddenly signaled and let go all in the same rush, he never yelled and ran me out the door like the boy used to; he just gave
me such praise for when I went outside that I resolved to get my body under control as soon as I could manage. But Jakob didn’t gush affection the way the boy did. Jakob focused on me in the businesslike fashion Ethan focused on Flare, the horse, and to an extent I liked the sense of direction it gave me—though there were other times I pined for the feel of the boy’s hands on my fur and couldn’t wait for Georgia to come over and call me Ellie-wellie Cuddle-Coo.

There was, I came to feel, something broken inside Jakob. I didn’t know what it was, but I could sense something drawing energy from his emotions, a dark bitterness that seemed to me very similar to what I felt inside Ethan when he first came home after the fire. Whatever it was, it kept Jakob’s feelings toward me in check—whenever he and I did something together, I could feel him evaluating me with cool eyes.

“Let’s go to work,” Jakob would say, and he would load me in the truck and off we’d go to a park for games. I learned “Drop,” which meant to lie down, and I learned that to Jakob “Stay” really meant “stay” and I was expected to remain in the same spot until he told me, “Come.”

The training helped me keep my mind off Ethan. At night, though, I often fell asleep thinking of the boy. I thought of his hands in my fur, the smell of him as he slept, his laugh and his voice. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, I hoped he was happy. I knew I would never see him again.

Georgia started coming over less often as I got older, but I found that I didn’t miss her, as I became more and more immersed in our work. One day we went to some woods and met a man named Wally, who petted me and then ran away. “What’s he doing, Ellie? Where’s he going?” Jakob asked me. I watched Wally, who was looking over his shoulder at me, waving excitedly.

“Find him! Find!” Jakob told me.

Uncertainly I started trotting off after Wally. What was this? Wally saw me coming after him and dropped to his knees, clapping, and when I caught up to him he showed me a stick and we played with it for a few minutes. Then Wally stood up. “Look, Ellie! What’s he doing? Find him!” Wally said.

Jakob was strolling off, and I ran after him. “Good dog!” Jakob praised.

As intelligent games go, I’d probably put it right up there with chasing the flip, but Wally and Jakob seemed to enjoy it, so I went along with it, especially since afterward we got to play Tug-On-a-Stick, which in my mind beat Find Wally hands down.

It was around the time I started learning Find that a strange sensation gripped me, a restless anxiousness accompanied by an embarrassing odor from my rear end. Mom and Grandma used to complain any time I released fragrant gasses from under my tail, so when I started discharging this smell I knew I was a bad dog. (Grandpa was so offended by bad odors that he’d say, “Oh, Bailey!” even when the smell came from him.)

Jakob didn’t notice the odor, but he did register alarm at all the dogs lifting their legs on the bushes around the apartment, dogs I knew instinctively were milling around because of me.

Jacob’s reaction was most curious: he put me into a pair of shorts like the ones he wore under his pants, my tail sticking out of a hole in the back. I’d always felt sorry for dogs who wore sweaters and other clothes, and here I was, playing dress up in front of all those male dogs. It was more than a little embarrassing, especially given that there was something compelling about the attention I was being shown by the motley pack of males who were so busy wetting the shrubbery outside my home.

Jakob said, “Time to see the vet,” and took me for a car ride
to a place that was very familiar, a cool room with bright lights and a metal table. I feel asleep and, predictably, was wearing a stupid cone-shaped collar when I awoke back home.

As soon as the cone came off, Jakob and I were back at the park almost every day for the next several months. The days grew shorter, though it never got cold or came close to snowing, and finding Wally became harder and harder because they kept changing the rules on me. Sometimes Wally wouldn’t even be there when we arrived and I’d have to go find him where he’d wandered off to. He’d be lying around like Grandpa doing chores, and I learned another command, “Show Me!” which meant leading Jakob back to where I’d come across Wally’s lazy body sprawled under a tree. Somehow, Jakob could tell when I had Found something, even when it was just one of Wally’s socks left on the ground—the man was a disaster, always dropping his clothing for us to Find and pick up. Jakob would read my look when I came running back to him. “Show me!” he’d say, but only when I had something to Show.

We did other work, too. Jakob taught me how to climb up a slide and to ease myself down the ladder on the other side, making me do it a step at a time instead of just jumping from the top as I preferred. He taught me to crawl into tight tubes and to leap up on a stack of logs, and one day he had me sit while he removed the gun from his side and shot off some explosions that made me flinch the first couple of times.

“Good girl, Ellie. This is a gun. See? No reason to be afraid. It makes a loud noise, but you’re not afraid, are you, girl?”

I sniffed at it when he held it out to me and was very glad when he didn’t try to make me fetch it. The thing smelled bad and looked like it would fly worse than the flip.

Sometimes Jakob would sit at an outside table with other
people with guns and drink from bottles. It was at times like these that his internal turmoil was most evident to me: the people at the table would laugh, and sometimes Jakob would join in, and other times he’d turn inward, dark and sad and alone.

“Isn’t that right, Jakob,” one of the men said one time. I heard the name, but Jakob was staring off into space, not paying attention. I sat up and nuzzled his hand, but when he petted me I sensed he didn’t really register that I was there.

“I said isn’t that right, Jakob.”

Jakob turned and looked at everyone watching him, and I sensed he felt embarrassed. “What?”

“If Y2K is as bad as they say it’s going to be, we’re going to need every K-9 unit we can get. Be like Rodney King all over again.”

“Ellie’s not that kind of dog,” Jakob said coldly. I straightened at the sound of my name, conscious as I did so that all the men at the table were looking at me. I felt uneasy for some reason, just as some of the men seemed uncomfortable with Jakob’s stare. When they started talking again, it was to each other, ignoring Jakob. I nuzzled his hand once more, and this time he responded by scratching my ears.

“Good dog, Ellie,” he said.

Find Wally evolved into just Find. Jakob and I would go somewhere and sometimes I’d be given something to sniff, an old coat or a shoe or a glove, and I’d have to Find the person who belonged to the item. Other times there’d be nothing to sniff and I’d course back and forth over a huge area, alerting any time I picked up the scent of something interesting. I Found a lot of people who weren’t Wally, and sometimes they were obviously not informed of the game and would call, “Here, boy!” or otherwise react to me when they saw me. I’d always Show Jakob these people, and he always praised me, even if the people I’d
Found weren’t bright enough to know what was going on. The point, I realized, was to Find people and to take Jakob to them and let Jakob decide if they were the right people or not. That was my job.

I had been with Jakob for about a year when he started taking me to his work every day. A lot of people dressed like Jakob milled around and were mostly friendly to me, though they drew back respectfully when Jakob told me to heel. He took me to a kennel in back with two other dogs, Cammie and Gypsy. Cammie was jet-black, and Gypsy was brown.

Despite the fact that we were all caged together, my relationship with Cammie and Gypsy was different than I’d ever had with other canines. We were working dogs and didn’t feel free to play much because we always needed to be ready to serve our masters—most of the time we just alertly sat at the fence.

Gypsy worked with a policeman named Paul and was gone a lot, and sometimes I watched Paul and Gypsy work in the yard. They did it all wrong: Gypsy would just smell in between boxes and piles of clothing and would alert for no reason, though Paul always praised her anyway, pulling out a package from the items and telling Gypsy she was a good dog.

Cammie was older and didn’t bother to watch Gypsy, probably feeling embarrassed for the poor dog. Cammie worked with a policewoman named Amy and didn’t go out much. When he did, though, he went out fast—Amy would come get him and they’d leave at a run. I never knew what Cammie’s work was, but I suspected it wasn’t as important as Find.

“Where you working this week?” Amy asked Paul once.

“Back out at the airport until Garcia comes off sick leave,” Paul told her. “How’s life on the bomb squad?”

“Quiet. I’m worried about Cammie, though. His scores have been a little off; I’m wondering if his nose is going.”

At the sound of his name Cammie raised his head, and I looked over at him.

“He’s what, ten years old, now?” Paul asked.

“About that,” Amy said.

I stood up and shook myself off because I could sense Jakob coming, and a few seconds later he walked around the corner. He and his friends stood and talked while we dogs watched them, wondering why they didn’t let us out in the yard to be with them.

Suddenly I felt some excitement off Jakob. He spoke to his shoulder. “10-4, unit Eight-Kilo-Six responding,” he said while Amy ran over to the gate. Cammie jumped up. “Ellie!” Amy commanded. “Come!”

We were out of the yard and I was up in the truck in just moments. I found myself panting, picking up on Jakob’s excitement.

Something told me that whatever was happening, it was far more important than Find Wally.

Jakob drove us to a large flat building, where several people were gathered in a circle. I could feel the tension in them as we pulled up. Jakob came around and petted me but left me in the truck. “Good dog, Ellie,” he said absently.

I sat and watched him anxiously as he approached the group of people. Several of them spoke at once.