Joy Unleashed

by Jean Baur

  “Heck yes!” he said. “She can sit in my lap if she wants to.”

  That was not Bella’s idea of a good time, but she would take treats from his hand, and when distracted, would let him pet her. He wanted to know about Bella so I told him her story.

  “Aren’t you a good girl?” he asked, and I saw that the patients on either side of him were listening.

  “Yes, she is, most of the time,” I answered, figuring it was better not to tell him that she didn’t like a lot of other dogs, and could chew her way through anything.

  “Well, that’s all you can ask, isn’t it?”

  He looked at me and smiled, and I felt as if I were standing in bright sunlight. He had the most amazing blue eyes that sparkled and were full of life. I found out his name was Jim and after we saw him for several weeks in a row, he asked if he could tell me a story.

  “Sure thing.” Bella was tired, as this was always the end of our visit, and she sat down next to me.

  “When I was a young man, I lived in farm country and worked on the family farm. It was hard work and there wasn’t much time for socializing. But one day I had to go to the neighbor’s house to see if we could borrow a piece of their equipment, an attachment for the tractor. As I was driving our tractor down the road, I saw a girl on a horse riding bareback in the field next to the road. She had beautiful long, red hair and was galloping.”

  “I stopped the tractor and watched. She and the horse seemed like one thing, turning this way and that, skimming over the grass. And right at that moment, do you know what I decided?”

  I shook my head.

  “That she would be my wife.”

  He looked at me to see if I believed him. I did.

  “Course I had to meet her and I came to find out that she was only fifteen, but I had time. So we got to know each other and by the time she was eighteen, we were husband and wife.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s a beautiful story.”

  “But she died last year.”

  I saw a shadow fall over his eyes as if someone had turned the lights out. But in the next moment, his sparkle was back.

  “Wasn’t I lucky to have someone like that for all those years?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “You really were.” And I was thinking she was lucky to have him, too.

  “She was the best,” he said quietly, slightly shaking his head as if her loss was still unfathomable.

  As I walked out of the hospital, I thought of my husband, Bob, and how good it’s been to be married to him. We were coming up on our thirty-first wedding anniversary. All the way home, as Bella slept peacefully on the back seat, I thought about Jim and his wife and realized that, as he told me his story, we hadn’t been in the Cancer Center, and he hadn’t been a patient. Instead, he was a young man on a tractor, seeing a beautiful girl gallop across a field on her horse.

  Hospitals are like foreign countries—you have to learn how to get around and figure out the rules and culture. Therapy dogs were allowed in most areas of the hospital but not in the maternity ward or surgical areas. They were allowed in the Emergency Room waiting area but I didn’t go there—I thought it was too tense, and I wasn’t sure it was the right place for a dog. Or for Bella.

  We rarely received a request, so when Bella and I were at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital by ourselves, we signed in and took the elevator up to one of the middle floors and then followed a winding set of corridors to get to a nurse’s station. I introduced Bella and asked if they knew of any patient who would like a visit. Sometimes the response was immediate: “Oh, yes. Please see Room 405—the patient in the bed by the window. She loves dogs.” And other times it was “Just ask.”

  We avoided rooms where there was a lot going on: a doctor examining a patient, or the nutritionist or physical therapist at work. But family members often saw Bella as we walked by and asked us to come in. Bella and I always focused on the patient even if he or she was not being really responsive, as I saw this as our primary job. So while helping Bella past the visitors, we got as close to the bed as we could and then I asked if they’d like her to put her paws up.

  We were in the room of an elderly woman who was curled up on her side. Her daughter, who looked to be close to my age, was sitting in a chair next to the bed. “Look, Mom. A dog is here to visit you.”

  Nothing. No reaction.

  “Can I bring her closer?” I asked.

  “Sure,” said the daughter, moving her chair back.

  “Come, Bella,” I said softly, and she approached the bed. “This is Bella and she’s come to see you.”

  One eye opened.

  “Would you like to pet her?”

  The other eye opened and there was an imperceptible nod.

  Very carefully I got Bella to put her front paws up on the edge of the bed and the woman lifted her hand and touched Bella’s neck.

  “Oh,” she said, and smiled.

  That was it.

  “Good girl,” I said to Bella as she put her paws back down on the floor.

  “That was beautiful,” said the daughter. “She hasn’t responded to anything in a long time. Thank you.”

  “You are very welcome,” I said, and we left the room, me wondering what this patient saw when she looked at Bella. Was she far away, as if in a cocoon, and then there were those brown eyes with the short white lashes, a face full of sweetness with freckles on her nose? Was that like a spirit, like wind blowing through the room?

  When my mother was dying, my brother asked her what it was like and she said softly, “Drifting. Just like drifting.”

  She wasn’t in pain, she knew we were there, and as the night progressed, as my brother and sister and I took turns taking cat naps, we sang to her—every song we could think of. Show tunes, the Beatles, Christmas carols. The room was dim and the nurses came by. They watched and listened. One or two even joined in. They told us the next morning, after she died, that it was beautiful. That it was a blessed way to go.

  Back in the hallway, I cleaned my hands from one of the wall dispensers and gave Bella a treat. “Good job, girlfriend.”

  Like any other work or project, a lot was unremarkable about our visits. We went into rooms, had short chats, often sharing Bella’s story (as it was classic Cinderella: Dead Dog Beach to Therapy Dog) and left. But there were moments like this last one that broke through the chatter, and busyness, and ordinary times, and I was stunned by what Bella could do. Stunned and so very proud.

  Now that we were living in Connecticut, I was determined to train Bella to run off-leash and come back to me. One of our favorite hiking places was Barn Island—a huge tract of land that ran along the coast, a preserve for hunters. Since it wasn’t hunting season, we hiked for about ten minutes, then unclipped her leash. She was a bullet and took off up the trail, suddenly stopping, veering off into the marsh grasses. We saw the tip of her tail appear, we heard splashing, and I ran ahead to make sure she was all right.

  “Bella! Right here!”

  I held my breath. I saw the look in Bob’s eyes, the fear that she was lost forever, and then the splashing got closer and a brown, mud-covered dog appeared at our feet looking very pleased with herself.

  “Good girl!” I said, as she hurled herself onto the grass path, rolling in ecstasy.

  “Let’s keep going,” I told Bob, and we walked through pin oaks and moss-covered trees. A forest at the edge of the ocean.

  Bella was like a yo-yo, darting off, coming back, a wild look in her eyes.

  “Don’t you think you should leash her?” asked Bob.

  “Not yet. This is so good for her.”

  This was a dog in dog heaven. She was covered in mud, panting, doing exactly what she wanted. After about a mile, we took a break and sat on a large rock in the shade. Bella flopped down next to us and I gave her a few treats.

  As we headed back toward the parking lot, Bella went into mach speed. It didn’t seem possible after what she had done so far, but now she was running on water. She
flew off a small mound of earth into the marsh, out again, up the bank to the trail, and off on the other side, never slowing down. When she got to a deep tidal pool, she swam, then flipped her body onto the sandy trail, rolling so hard that her head touched her tail. As soon as we caught up, she was off again, crashing through the woods, branches cracking, leaves flying.

  “How are you going to catch her?” asked Bob.

  “I don’t know, but I will. She’s got to get tired at some point.”

  “No sign of it,” said Bob, looking off into the woods where it sounded as if a giant was flattening the landscape.

  “Bella, right here!”

  I stood still and waited, hoping she would recognize my voice and remember that she was supposed to come.

  Silence. We waited. Finally, a hundred yards ahead of us, we saw her emerge from the water.

  “Stay, Bella!” I commanded, and she flopped down on the ground.

  We caught up, I clipped the leash to her harness, and gave her several treats, praising her profusely.

  “I bet she takes a long nap,” said Bob, relief written all over his face.

  “After a bath,” I said, smelling the brackish water and mud that coated her fur.

  There was nothing as exciting as watching Bella run. She flattened her body, crouched close to the ground, and became a blur—a white streak.

  I wiped her off with a towel before letting her in the car, and once she jumped up on the back seat, she was instantly asleep. This dog, this wild creature who was born to run, was anything but gradual.

  Chapter 15

  CANINE GOOD CITIZEN

  Winter–Summer 2011

  Yardley, Pennsylvania

  Cathy came to my rescue. Just after the holidays, when I was missing the focus that agility training gave Bella and me, she suggested we get Bella and Brandon certified as therapy dogs.

  “What would they do?” I asked, having a vague memory of reading about dogs who helped people.

  “Lots of things,” said Cathy. “They can go in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, the courthouse. Just about anywhere, I guess.”

  Cathy saw me hesitate. “They’re not service dogs. It isn’t that level of training. It’s more relaxed. I think they make people feel good.”

  “You think they’d pass?” I asked, still a bit bruised from my agility experience.

  “I don’t know, but wouldn’t it be neat to try?”

  I nodded, still not sure what to say.

  “Can you imagine taking Bella into a hospital? Wouldn’t she be awesome?”

  I had never seen a dog in a hospital, but the idea grabbed me. She would be something.

  “Are you okay about finding out about it and then I’ll decide?” I asked her. I was torn because I liked the idea, but felt stressed at work and wasn’t sure if adding another project made sense. I found myself exhausted at the end of the day, and I didn’t think it was my age, but more the frustration of always being behind. No matter how hard I tried, there were endless résumés to edit, more calls to return, more new clients to work with.

  Cathy was dauntless. “Sure thing.”

  But I realized I missed the special time that Bella and I had in classes. It was like going dancing—just that other person and no distractions.

  Before long, Cathy had done the research and found a local class that would help prepare us for the first requirement: passing the Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test. I loved this name; who wouldn’t want a dog who was a good citizen? I read up on it and learned there were two parts to this: responsible pet ownership for the humans, and good behavior for the dogs. If you passed this ten-step process, you received a certificate from the American Kennel Club.

  Cathy and I signed up, and on a cold, January night, she picked us up, Bella joining Brandon in the back seat.

  “This should be fun,” I said, intrigued by the idea that Bella could become a therapy dog.

  “I worry about Brandon and other dogs,” said Cathy. “You know how he is, Mr. Know-It-All.”

  “I think Bella is just as bad. She either loves other dogs or hates them, and there’s no middle.”

  We entered the training facility and were told to wait in the vestibule while the previous class finished. “Please don’t let your dogs bother the other dogs as they leave,” said the receptionist.

  Not a problem, I thought, keeping Bella on a short leash right next to me. A woman with a large boxer entered and sat opposite us. Bella’s hair rose and I saw her whole body tense. The dog looked at her like she’d make a good snack.

  “Leave it,” I told her, the most useful and least obeyed command in our repertoire.

  Cathy and I chatted and admired the other dogs, and finally Debby, our instructor, asked us to come into the training room in single file. We followed Brandon, as I knew Bella would behave behind her buddy. We were then seated in a row of chairs along one wall in a large room carpeted in electric green Astroturf. The boxer growled at the dog next to him.

  Fast as lightening, Debby was on him, pushing him onto to his side, shouting “No!”

  Cathy and I looked at each other and wondered what we had signed up for. When Debby saw the stunned faces of the class, she straightened up and said, “I’ve worked with this dog before. He has behavioral problems that we’re dealing with. Don’t worry about him, I’ve got him under control.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered to Cathy. Her eyebrows seemed stuck in the raised position.

  The woman who owned the boxer sat there as if she’d lost her last friend. Debby walked to the center of the room and listed the rules we must follow. No this, no that, no talking, no letting your dog get too close to another dog, no yanking on the leash, and so on. But at this moment, the rules sounded okay to me. I was excited to be doing something new, something where we could be more successful than agility, so I ignored my gut feeling about this trainer and decided the class would be a good experience—which it mostly was.

  At first, things got a bit better. It was fun to walk around the perimeter of the training room with Bella, and this felt easy after weave poles and teeters. Bella walked fairly well on a loose leash and followed me when we were instructed to make a U-turn and go in the opposite direction.

  I avoided the boxer and watched with pride as Cathy and Brandon looked as if they’d been doing this forever. Debby lined us up in two lines facing each other. We had to approach another team (handler and dog), shake hands with the handler, and say something like “Nice to meet you.” The dogs had to sit or stand quietly at our sides and couldn’t interact either with the other dog or its handler.

  Bella pulled and I saw her hair lifting off her back. “Sit,” I told her, and she did. But as soon as I said, “Nice to meet you,” she stood up, trying to get closer to the other dog. This was going to take practice. The next exercise was to let someone pet Bella. Because we were being trained along with our dogs, we had to ask: “May I pet your dog?” and as I said yes, I mumbled, “She’s a bit head-shy but likes to be touched on her neck or back.” I hope this wasn’t cheating.

  Debby came up to Bella to demonstrate for the class, and I could tell that Bella didn’t like her. “May I pet your dog?” she asked in her commanding voice.

  “Sure,” I answered, afraid of the lecture to follow.

  Debby bent down and reached for Bella’s head. Bella ducked.

  “Not good,” said Debby. “She needs to get comfortable with strangers petting her. Work on that.”

  I nodded, knowing that mentioning Bella was head-shy was pointless. If Debby had sat down on the floor or had come toward Bella more slowly, she probably would have been fine. But the test required this, so I needed to find a way to help Bella overcome this phobia. I wondered if, before she was rescued, someone tried to grab her by the head. Did she survive because she learned very early that people were dangerous? She could have seen other dogs hung, run over, set on fire, stuffed into plastic bags, or shot. There was a reason it was called Dead Dog Beach.


  As the weeks went by, Bella had to accept someone else brushing her and looking in her ears. She had to walk through a crowd of people and dogs and stay relaxed and at my side. She had to sit and stay while I dropped her leash and went to the other side of the room (she was great at this from agility), she had to come when called (again, pretty easy), she had to behave politely around other dogs as I greeted other handlers, and she could not react aggressively when a wheelchair came close to her or when someone made a loud noise by dropping a pan on the floor. Lastly, she couldn’t go crazy when I left the room for three full minutes. She could get up, she could look toward the door, but she couldn’t bark or show anxiety. I wasn’t sure how this one would go.

  I liked watching the other dogs and their handlers, except for the boxer. I couldn’t understand why Debby allowed a dog who was this disturbed in our class. When we worked on the petting-another-dog exercise, she asked for volunteers to pet the boxer and offered a rubber arm and hand so that it was possible to do this without being bit. I was so not interested.

  She called on one of the men in the class, who bravely took the rubber arm and stroked the dog’s back. The dog lunged at the arm and bit into it. Like a flash, Debby was on top of him, pinning him down and yelling “No!” My heart was racing.

  She asked me if I’d like to try. “Maybe he’ll be less afraid with a woman.”

  “No thank you,” I told her. “I’m not comfortable doing that.”

  “But you’ll be safe. I’ll hold onto him.”

  “No thank you,” I repeated and she got it—I wouldn’t do it. This may have been my first mistake.

  Cathy and I talked about it on the way home. “Should I have tried?” I asked her.

  “No way! I wouldn’t do it. That dog is crazy.”

  The owner had told us that the dog had been fine until she and her husband went away for a week and left the dog with their twenty-year-old daughter. One night she had a wild party and after that the dog became aggressive and wouldn’t allow anyone in the house except family. It was a sad story, but Debby reassured us that she had been working with this dog privately and would rehabilitate him.