The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (18 page)

I felt I should call her Luisa, as a way of making up for rigid self-centered Americans making everyone whitewash who they are. It turned out her name is Louise for real. She was gentle with me when she let me know I was stereotyping. I wanted to melt into a puddle a dog would rush over and lap up. But she doesn't have a Spanish-sounding accent.

She came into my class to
be my teacher.
Everything about her told me something was coming that I couldn't discover for myself—not in real life, and certainly not in a textbook or a manual. I remembered the story I'd told Boomer of the student monk and the fallen leaves. I remembered that, in the next part of it, while he was sweeping the patio, the older monk came over and picked up a leaf that only recently was part of a tree. He curled it, held it to his mouth, and blew into it, in some highly trained, skillful, Zen-like way, producing a soft and beautiful whistle. “For this, you need organized instruction,” the older monk said, because of course when the student tried it, all he did was cover the leaf with his spit.

Louise is someone who gives the impression of having many years of experience in yoga, even though she never once did it, or even considered it (I asked). She has a stillness that isn't stiff, a voice that hardly goes above a whisper. She ordered me to stand in a corner and observe her. It didn't feel like an order. It felt like a good idea.

She lined up the dogs in sits, Tasha and Shadow and Josie. Not Dapple, gone forever. Not Alfie, flat on his side, stretched out for a nap against a wall. Not Hank, busy with a bath and getting groomed.

That woman's calmness went into the dogs as if she'd put them under a spell. She had no treats. She only had herself. I was awestruck. She backed away from them a little more each time she did a call.

“Shadow, come!” Josie and Tasha didn't move as Shadow trotted to her. When he reached her, she leaned and patted him and told him to go back, and he did.

“Tasha, come!”

You'd think Tasha was in a ballet class, the way she stepped so lightly. You'd think she had a tutu on, like a dancing hippo in
Fantasia.
She didn't jump Louise. She didn't drool for a treat or try to tear off a sweatsuit pocket to see what was inside.

“Josie, come!”

For Josie, that whispery voice was louder. The little white dog heard her name just fine. But for who knows what reason, she decided to ignore it. Maybe she wasn't in a mood to do anything she was told. Or maybe she wanted to find out what would happen to her for being so obviously brazen.

“Josie, come!”

Again the same thing. And again. If I were in the position of the caller, I would have stomped right over to Josie to give her a piece of my mind, probably at the top of my lungs, to make sure she got it. Louise wasn't rattled, or even worried.

“Bad dog,” she called out, in a matter-of-fact way. “
Bad.”

Josie looked like she was thinking over what that meant. She looked like she was having an inner struggle, wondering if she wanted to be someone connected to that adjective. I loved what it was like to watch her decide, well, no. She went to Louise in a rapid strut that was just like the walk of a fashion model on a runway. She was totally posing. She had made up her mind that she was fabulous.

I thought Louise would want to punish her in some way for the brazenness. But she was only thrilled to have Josie with her at last. She looked down at her with eyes full of praise, and even though she didn't say to me, “Evie, never, ever give a dog who comes to you anything but love,” I heard that rule loud and clear, because, duh, if you call a dog to you and then you're in punishment mode, what's going to happen the next time you call the dog, and so what if you had to call the dog many times? Probably, also duh, the next time you call the dog, the dog will come faster, because of the
yay
you're giving.

Positive reinforcement isn't only about food treats! So I understood all that, and then I made a bet with myself that Josie wouldn't allow Louise to pat her.

She allowed Louise to pat her, lavishly. Josie, I was messaging her, not that she knew. I
hate
you.

Over and over it went. Call, come, one by one, with Louise backing away from them a little more each time. Everyone responded on cue. On the last round, when Louise was as far from them as she could get, she altered her tone into something more lively, like she was really excited. She called to the three of them at once. They took off like horizontal rockets, running to her with their tongues out, their paws barely touching the floor.

I put my hands together, clapping for them. Then it was my turn. Louise signaled to me to get them to run back to me, and I went, “TASHA-SHADOW-JOSIE, HEY! COME ON OVER TO ME!”

The three of them crowded around Louise and plunked down on their haunches and looked across the room at me. I really thought I was getting a unanimous “no,” and not in a brazen way. I was starting to feel hurt, as if they'd secretly conferred like a jury, in dog talk, and decided I was guilty of being a human they'd never want to go to.

But they were only taking a rest. I wasn't like a student monk with a leaf. Or I was like a student monk with a leaf who got the whistle in one minute. The dogs acted as if running to Louise was practice for running to
me.

I thought, maybe a command to a dog can be made like an
invitation.

Note to self: try to remember that.

Goodbye.
When the man and woman came up the front steps of the lodge, I happened to be near a window. I thought they were Dapple's owners, coming back to claim her again. They weren't. I should have noticed the different car, an SUV, impressive, a Lexus. A picture of a cactus was on the license plate. The leash they brought was a leather one, thin, strong, top of the line. The collar they brought was lined with sheepskin. Boomer met them at the door. It was time to say goodbye to Hank. I didn't do a good job of it. I just patted him and told him I was glad for him but not for myself, which I hope he understood meant, “I already miss you and it hurts.”

Haiku.
I tried to write a haiku about him. It didn't work out. I kept imagining him taking part in a totally international, major event, full of pomp and circumstance and drama: an Olympics for dogs. I pictured him gold-medaling in every event they had for jumps. Then I pictured him at the bottom of Sanctuary Mountain, getting ready to hurdle it. When he was up in his arc near the top, he'd keep going, like he was aiming to join the stars. It was night when I was having these thoughts. I looked up at the sky. I realized that the white powder above me was the Milky Way.

Then I tried to write a haiku about how I'd thought the mountain was so big and high, and it really wasn't, and that's why people stopped skiing here. That one didn't work out either.

Housebreaking.
I read an article about putting diapers on dogs. I went around for a while imagining Alfie in a diaper. But I don't think that's the answer. Tasha would think he had it on as a special present just for her. She would think ripping it off him after he filled it was the best thing that ever happened to her.

Alfie pooped in my class today when the only human was me, and I cleaned it up and didn't tell anyone. Tasha and Josie just wanted to smell it, as if maybe there'd be a different odor when it was on a floor indoors, but I noticed Shadow looking at Alfie with disapproval, frowning in a way that maybe Alfie noticed, male to male. So there might be some peer pressure going on. (To be continued.) (Or not.)

Insemination, artificial.
Now I know about breeding without dog-to-dog mating. Probably the husband and wife in the ranch house with daisies on the kettle couldn't take the risk of having boy dogs turn up at regular intervals for short-term visits. So where did they get the sperm?

“From sperm sellers, Evie,” said Giant George.

I can see where the husband and wife would find it easy to load a carton of puppies into their Buick, then drive them to a buyer. Maybe the buyer met them at the same gas station where the pirate and Yellow Jacket were waiting for Dapple.

Network, the.
I don't know anything about it yet. I'm in a country where I don't know the language. I'm at the fringe of a galaxy that won't offer me a spiral arm. No one tells me anything.

“You're so impatient,” said Giant George, like he's twice my age. “Aren't you supposed to be able to
speed down?
”

I didn't react. He takes it out on me that he keeps walking Alfie and can't get him trained. Shouldn't he be in school? Shouldn't he be doing something such as reading
Hamlet
and getting obsessed about it, like a normal teenager?

“I only read nonfiction about dogs,” he told me.

No.
(Note to self.) When you say no to a dog who's doing something absolutely unacceptable, would you please learn to stop being such a wuss about it? Everyone can't be a Louise. Stop acting like Louise imprinted you, like you're a baby duck.

Obedience, types of.
There needs to be another word for the kind of obedience that's the kind I want dogs I train to give me. But I go blank when I try to think of one. So I guess I'll stick with “invitation.” Or more specifically, “an invitation, dear dog, to which you really need not to RSVP in the negative.”

Play.
Tasha puts her jaws on Shadow's neck as if she plans to remove his throat. Shadow tips his head and lets her chew him. That, I've figured out, is playing.

Tasha puts her jaws on Shadow's neck like she's interested in finding out what his fur is like, through the sense of taste. Shadow narrows his eyes and shows his teeth. That means not playing.

Assignment to self: either never let Tasha near Shadow, or figure out how Shadow knows her intentions toward him, before her jaws get hold of his neck.

That might be too advanced for me. I might be experiencing impatience.

Racing, greyhound.
Quietly, Louise mentioned that it might be useful for me to search on my own, in my room, for videos of greyhound racing, not that she'd ask me later if I'd done so. It was entirely up to me. She also suggested that I look at their faces.

I didn't want to do it, which I know was totally counterproductive of me and also
childish,
like, do not even tell me what to do with my own Internet time. But that was from being used to looking things up on my own, just because I'd thought of them myself. I only resisted a little while.

I ended up hitting video frames into stills so I could look at the faces of dogs who'd just crossed the finish line. The question I wanted to answer was, does anyone look like they had a good time on that track, aside from what you'd expect in terms of being exhausted from giving it your all? I could not answer yes to that question.

One of the videos led me to a blog of a genial, folksy former newspaper publisher who took up greyhounds in his retirement. He races his dogs all over America. His initials are the same as Mark Twain's, and that's who he compares himself to, calling himself the Mark Twain of dog sport. The theme of his blog is how happy he is, how he learned to mellow out and find meaning and satisfaction by being part of the animal world. Even at races where his dogs perform badly, he's still happy. All the dogs he owns are under the age of four, although he started buying greyhounds nine years ago. I posted a comment. I said I was new to his blog and I'd love to know what happened to the dogs he'd owned before, the ones too old to race. He didn't answer. The next time I checked, my comment had been removed.

I must not feel sorry for Alfie. I must keep just saying no to pity.

Scum, human.
I understand the reason why people would run a breeding business in secret, where dogs they cause to be pregnant are kept in cages. It's the same with people who would push a dog out of a car in a strange place, by way of abandoning the dog, and the same as humans who would keep their dog on a chain, et cetera: they are scum. It's not enough to say you hate such people. You have to also say they are scum.

“Evie,” said Giant George when I told him this, “wait till the pitties arrive.”

I'd forgotten the pitties were coming.

Second chances.
“We're big believers in second chances,” said the man of the couple from the desert, putting Hank's new collar on him. Meanwhile, his wife was holding the new leash and nodding in agreement, while also stroking Boomer, who'd placed himself close to her. He'd never miss a chance to be patted.

Hank knew what was going on. The instant he felt the soft fleecy lining of that collar, he sighed and went relaxed. I hadn't known how much tension was inside him until I realized it was gone, poof, like turning off the current in bad, buzzing wires. By the time the new leash was snapped on, he was Basil. He'd erased us. I remembered that Second Chance was the name of the organization behind the adoption commercial I saw.

Sex.
This is the first time I ever lived somewhere where no one is having sex. I just wanted to mention this.

Tomorrow.
I still haven't met Dora. I don't remember what I read in the breed book about terriers, Scottish. I haven't had time to look it up. I've read the notes on her. I'm trying to gear up for whatever's coming with the pitties. I can't do everything at once.

I keep telling myself, “I'll go see Dora tomorrow.” I don't think I'm being a coward about what I have to know, when it comes to things I'd rather never hear about. More scum things: a dog left alone in an apartment people moved out of. Forever.

Maybe there's a limit to how much one person can take in.

Or maybe there is only infinity about that, like pi.

Volunteers.
I think there are twenty of them altogether, coming and going in no set pattern, some more than others: men, women, all ages, but all grown-ups. They come from the village and the towns off the main road. They seem to have a sort of club. Mostly what they do is take the dogs out for exercise. They all appear fit, and tend to leave their cars at the bottom of the road, so probably it's exercise for themselves as well.