The toy noisily hit the floor and rolled several feet, and Flint happily scampered after it. He snatched it up in his mouth and marched over to Joan and sat in front of her to offer it back to her. I could hear his voice in my head “Wow! I didn’t know that you liked to play fetch with me. Let’s do it again!”
Later that night as we undressed for bed, Joan pointed to a dark blue bruise low on her hip. “Your dog did this to me this afternoon! Burying toys in the sofa …” then her eyes filled with tears that she tried to hide by getting into bed and turning her back on me.
Sometimes even well-trained psychologists are slow to recognize the meaning of behavioral changes in their family members or close friends. But at that moment, seeing my wife’s annoyance and distress, I finally recognized the importance of the fact that over the past six months or so, Joan had been undergoing some major emotional turmoil. She was worried about her mother, who was growing frail and would soon have to move to an assisted living residence, as well as her daughter, who was considering some major life changes. Also, at this point in her middle age Joan had to deal with her own changing moods and energy level. The end result was bound to be a buildup of psychological stress and depression. Anger requires a focus and obviously, because of their previous history, Flint was the natural target for her.
Flint, of course, was not a completely innocent victim of Joan’s irritation. In fact, at the very moment that I had my flash of insight, I was tossing one of my socks into the open clothes hamper in the corner of the bedroom. Thinking that we were returning to our game of fetch, Flint leapt up to catch it, missed, and came down with his front paws on the edge of the straw clothes hamper, which toppled over, spilling soiled clothes on the floor. This was an interesting new situation for my dog, and he began burrowing through the clothes as though searching for some rodent, flinging dirty shirts, socks, and undergarments across the room. Her face buried in her pillow, Joannie fortunately didn’t see this.
I called Flint over to me and ordered him to lie down and stay in place while I scooped the clothing back into the hamper as quietly as possible. I then took Flint downstairs with me, poured myself a drink, and sat on the sofa to think this whole situation through. Since Joan was not there with me, Flint jumped up on the sofa as well. He checked the cushion to see if any of his toys were there, but when he didn’t find them, he simply lay down with his head facing toward me as though he expected me to tell him something. So I did.
“Well, little gray person, your mom is in a bad sort of psychological state and we need something that will distract her from her current troubles and have her focus on something more positive.”
“Do explain it to me, Dr. Freud,” came back the answer in a more condescending voice than I usually gave to him. I had no idea where all of this was going but kept on, since conversations with my dogs always seemed more productive than silently ruminating.
“The usual psychological recommendations include finding new interests, engaging in activities that are calming or that fill the mind and keep the person from becoming obsessed with his emotional state. It’s even better if those activities also promote a sense of achievement.”
“You could have her start to think about a new house out at the farm, since the old shack is falling down. Tell her that she has to design it and that she will have to be the contractor.”
“Hmm … That is an idea. Anyway, in addition to those kinds of activities, psychologists recommend that women who have a caring personality, like Joannie, but who don’t have any of their own children in the house to lavish care and affection on, should find someone to nurture, like a grandchild.”
“Well, you don’t have grandchildren living nearby. She could nurture me!”
“Sorry, Flint, but you are currently part of the problem.”
“Well, then, get her a puppy.”
“Yeah, that would be great. Two Flints—that would guarantee a speedy divorce.”
“No. Get her a Joannie puppy—something soft and cute and loving. Call it a therapy dog.”
At one level this was a ludicrous suggestion. On the other hand, it made a perverse sort of sense. Joannie loves small, helpless things. If I could find a dog that was gentle and needed care and affection, that might help provide my wife with some emotional support. The truth was that I had also been longing for a puppy. I actually believe that the perfect number of dogs in a house is three—an adult dog who keeps you company in the here and now, a puppy for the future, and an old dog for the memories. Although any new dog might be selected to please Joan, I would still end up as its principal caretaker and trainer.
“Hey, little gray person, I know that you understand how much I would like a pup, but I thought that we were discussing what to do for Joan,” I protested.
“We are. She’ll love a new puppy. Besides, another dog might keep me from getting bored and might keep me out of trouble as well. In addition, I might be able to train him to be my accomplice!”
The following evening Joan seemed to be in a good mood, so I started to present some ideas that I hoped she would like and that might also be therapeutic.
“You know, Joannie, I’ve just about finished paying off the mortgage on the farm, and since the little shack is falling down, I thought that we might think about building a proper house out there. We could stash the amount of money equivalent to our regular mortgage payments in a bank account and over a few years we could use those funds and my book royalty payments to start work on it. It will be a bit of a shoestring budget, since I don’t want to take out loans and be in debt again. That means that you would have to organize the construction and planning to keep us within our resources.”
Joan’s eyes lit up, and that sweet smile that I had been missing recently returned to her face.
“I could do that,” she said. “The adult education program here in the city has all kinds of courses on home design, contracting, and other construction-related stuff. Most are given in the evenings and they’re not very expensive. That could be fun.”
Since she was in a good mood, I broached the idea of bringing another dog into the house.
“Joannie, I’ve also been thinking about the problems that you’ve been having with Flint. I think that one of the reasons that he gets into trouble is that he is bored and is simply looking for something to amuse him. I think that a puppy might help to keep him busy and out of trouble.”
Joan was now staring at me with saucer-wide eyes, but I continued.
“Remember that when we got him, I told you that when he was around five years old, I wanted to add another dog to the house, and Flint is—”
I never got to finish that line of thought, since Joan interrupted in a voice that sounded a full octave higher than her usual tone of voice.
“I won’t have another terrier in my house!”
“I promise that it won’t be another terrier.”
“If we get another dog, it has to be the opposite of Flint in every way. It has to be quiet. It has to be loving. It should not be destructive, or chase glints of light or tufts of lint, and it should act like a normal dog. I don’t even want a dog that looks like him! No pricked ears, no carrot-shaped tail, no hard coat!”
“I promise that the next dog we get will not be at all like Flint,” I said as I grabbed Flint’s leash and told Joannie that I had an errand I had to do. I was really dashing out of the house before Joan could think up a set of counterarguments against our acquiring a new puppy. I already knew that I wanted a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, a very affectionate breed, and I had been gathering information with the idea of getting a second dog for over a year. However, I would not mention the new pup again in front of Joan until it was a reality.
As we walked down the front steps, I found myself smiling and said to Flint, “Well, it looks like you’re going to get a new brother.”
“Great,” came the response in a particularly silly voice. “It might be nice if you got us a cat at the same time so that I could teac
h him how to chase it.”
CHAPTER 18
WIZARD
Wiz.
Joannie began to immerse herself in courses and books that would allow her to design and build our farmhouse within the limits of our budget while Flint continued to find ways to unravel her emotionally.
Flint’s newest obsession was shoelaces. My guess is that it all started with long shoelaces that flap about when people walk and are commonplace on runners or other soft shoes. These, like fringes, probably triggered Flint’s hunting instincts. Instead of chasing and attempting to bite at a shoelace in motion, which could be dangerous because he could get kicked in the process, he adopted a catlike stealth strategy. Flint would wait until people were quietly sitting at a table and then surreptitiously creep forward until he was next to a shoe. Then with the dainty and precise movements that one might expect of a neurosurgeon, he would use his teeth to gently untie the shoelace without attracting the wearer’s attention. Once undone, the two strands of laces were stretched out in front of the shoe, and he would move on to the next closest shoe. If, perchance, the laces were tied using a knot that was not easily undone, he did not worry at it, but rather proceeded to look for an easier target. Since Joan usually wore runners around the house, and since she usually tied her laces into a simple bow that could be easily undone by pulling on one or the other loose end, her shoes were often the objective of his sneak attacks.
Neither of us noticed Flint’s new pattern of behavior at first, although Joan did complain once or twice that modern shoelaces must be made of some new material that is more slippery, since her laces were coming undone so frequently. I had found my own laces untied a couple of times and had simply switched to a more secure type of knot even though I had no idea why they were loosening. Of course, there is nothing terrible about untied shoelaces, unless you stand up and one of your feet happens to be standing on the shoelace from the other foot, in which case you can easily stumble and lose your balance. This had happened to Joan a few times, but fortunately each time she was next to a table that she was able to grab and prevent herself from falling.
I discovered that Flint was doing the untying one day when I wandered out to the kitchen to refill our coffee cups and on returning noticed Flint lying on his belly under the table and very gently pulling at Joannie’s shoelace. My immediate urge was to stop him with a loud, “Flint, no!” but that would have alerted Joan to his latest example of misbehavior. So instead I simply mentioned to her that her laces were untied and then set myself the task of thinking about some kind of solution to the problem that I could devise without her knowledge of my dog’s newest set of misdemeanors.
Later that afternoon, I went to a pet supply house and purchased a bottle of an odorless product that claimed that it could deter pets from chewing or mouthing anything that it was sprayed on. It did warn that the product, although quite safe, tasted quite noxious, so users should avoid getting it on their hands and also be sure that it had fully dried before handling things treated with it.
That night, after Joan had gone to sleep, I rounded up all her shoes that tied with laces and then sprayed the shoelaces until they were thoroughly saturated with this deterrent liquid. I then replaced her footwear in its usual place and went to bed.
The following morning was a Sunday, and I often try to make a special breakfast on Sundays. This morning it was freshly baked biscuits with butter and a variety of cheeses, served with a Louisiana-style coffee with a hint of chicory. I have to be careful preparing food like this because Joannie’s sense of taste is much more sensitive than mine, and just a pinch too much chicory could easily have made the coffee too bitter for her. Joan came to the breakfast table dressed in jeans and T-shirt, wearing her favorite pair of running shoes. I smiled because I knew that her laces were quite safe. I wished that I could see Flint’s reaction when he first took the noxious-tasting shoelace in his mouth and wondered how many times he would return to try again before giving up.
I poured our coffee and watched Joan break open a biscuit with her fingers. She dabbed on some butter and inserted a piece of cheese. It pleased me to see her enjoying something that I had made especially for her. However, as she bit into it her face took on a look of true disgust.
“Ugh!” she said. “What is wrong with these biscuits? They taste awful!” She spat the half-chewed piece into her paper napkin and then grabbed my napkin and used it to wipe her tongue. She then dashed for the sink, quickly filled a glass with water, swished a mouthful of it, and spat it out. She repeated this process several times, accompanying the performance with sounds like “Ack,” “Yuk,” and “Blah!” along with several rounds of mopping her tongue with a paper towel until whatever she was tasting faded away.
I quickly sampled a bit of the biscuit on my plate and it was fine. Then it dawned on me. Perhaps her newly treated shoelaces had not been quite dry when she put them on today. If that were the case, then some of the dog-repellant compound could have transferred onto her fingers when she tied her shoes. Since I knew that she came directly from dressing to the table, it was likely that some of that noxious-tasting compound might still have been on her hands. I like to use a muffin tin to make biscuits since it gives them some shape and they come out a bit more moist. The biscuit was fresh from the oven, hot and steamy. The steam and even some perspiration from her fingers could have been enough to reliquefy the compound and allow it to be transferred to the biscuit, causing it to taste bad enough to ward off even a hungry dog, let alone a woman with very sensitive tastebuds.
My problem now was how could I get Joan to clean her hands without revealing what I had done and in the process opening the issue of a new pattern of misconduct by Flint? I quickly improvised—to be more accurate, I quickly devised a string of lies to cover for my dog (and me).
“Oh, I used an old sack of flour, from the back of the cupboard for the biscuits. I thought that it was okay, but maybe somehow it had gone bad or rancid. We have a new unopened sack. I’ll make you a new batch of biscuits. Could you wash the muffin tin for me while I mix them up?”
Joan tossed the offending bit of food into the trash can and went to the sink to clean the muffin tin that I used when I made biscuits. “Use lots of soap and water to make sure that there is no residue that might flavor this batch,” I added.
I watched her run soapy water over the muffin pan and in the process over her hands, removing any trace of dog-repellant from her fingers. Rather than waste the perfectly good first batch of biscuits, I quietly set them aside to be Flint’s dinner. Joan agreed that the second batch of biscuits tasted fine. My secret dog behavior modification scheme remained undetected and Flint avoided having another item added to my wife’s growing list of his delinquencies. The noxious-tasting compound did work, because the epidemic of untied shoelaces disappeared from our lives, but I never got to see Flint’s reaction to the foul-tasting shoelace. I was quite sure, however, that Joannie had acted out a very creditable version of what his response must have been when she encountered the repellant-tainted biscuit.
The shoelace incident convinced me that I had best get that second dog quickly before Flint invented another form of misbehavior that would get Joan to focus on him again. The dog I felt that Joannie needed had to be a kind of “love sponge,” emotionally supportive and loveable in a way that Flint would never be for her. This fit the description of a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, which is a toy breed. Although very popular in the United Kingdom, the breed was then relatively unknown in North America.
Small companion dogs have been around for a long time. The dog I was hoping to get first made its appearance in sixteenth-century England, and is recorded as being a “spaniell gentle, otherwise called Comforter.” These little dogs were favorites of the British Royal House of Stuart—Charles II in particular.
Tradition has it that Charles kept one or two of his dogs with him at all times. One day, as the king was about to enter the House of Lords, the Sergeant at Arms informed him that
the dogs could not accompany him. “Only lords may enter, my liege” he stated. The king promptly issued a decree conveying a hereditary title upon his dogs, making all of their breed members of the peerage. Not only does that entitle them access to the House of Lords, but also to all public and government places. Also, in theory since the decree has never been revoked, if a Cavalier King Charles spaniel were to scratch at the gates of Buckingham Palace, by tradition, it must be granted entry.
These dogs became so popular among the aristocracy and prosperous families that that were casually referred to as “royal spaniels.” They appear in numerous paintings spanning the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, and were the subjects of such well-known artists as Titian, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, and Reynolds, among others. Over time they began to be considered more of a lady’s dog. To emphasize that role, they were crossed with pugs and some other toy breeds to produce a smaller dog with a dome-shaped head, low-set ears, a much shorter muzzle, and a pushed-up nose. This is the breed that is currently known as the English toy spaniel in the United States and as the King Charles spaniel elsewhere.
In the early part of the twentieth century Roswell Eldridge went from New York to England looking for toy spaniels that resembled those he had seen in some of the old paintings. He specifically liked the look of the dogs in the 1845 painting by Sir Edwin Landseer, The Cavalier’s Pets, but all he could find were the newer versions that he referred to as “short-faced Charlies.” Rather than give up on his quest, he offered a large prize for the best examples of the old-style dog, which resulted in the “reestablishment” of the breed. It would now be called the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, incorporating the name of the breed’s most ardent patron and giving some recognition to Landseer’s painting.
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