by Jean Baur
Like preparing for the CGC, we practiced endlessly. We took walks in new neighborhoods, we went to PetSmart, we drilled every night after dinner, we sought out kids on bikes and skateboards, we walked in town where there was traffic and more people, we brought Bella with us on our monthly car trips to our house in Connecticut where we hoped to move once we retired, or I should say once Bob retired. I hated the word, hated the concept, as I liked to work. And at almost sixty-five, I still felt energetic and committed to my work as a career coach and author.
But when I sat still, when I thought about this carefully, I admitted to myself that I was frustrated, that my world was too small, and that much of the joy had gone out of my work. I was going through the motions, I looked forward to cancellations (my case load had doubled), and I was always behind. This made me bored and cranky. I was still good with my clients, as I had a deep empathy for people who had lost their jobs. From more than seventeen years of experience, I knew how to motivate them and help them with creative solutions. I listened carefully, but I felt worn down and trapped. I didn’t see choices, or a way to make this job better, and I felt entitled to this job. The worse it got, the stronger I felt about this.
I knew I was in trouble. One of the most annoying phrases I delighted in telling my clients was, “All jobs are temporary.” But, like Alice in Wonderland, I didn’t heed my own advice. I didn’t prepare myself for the very real possibility that I would lose my job. As the fall progressed, I had received emails and attended meetings about a firm my company planned to acquire. It was a smart way to reduce the competition, and this other firm was skilled at doing more with less, skilled at streamlining procedures to increase profits. It all came down to math, not what real services were offered to people in transition. But I figured if I could adjust to the new system, I would be retained and personnel from the company we were buying would have to go. That made sense.
And I was proud of what I’d done in my work. On top of the daily counseling load, I had designed classes that were practical and popular, facilitated a weekly team, and had written a book on getting through job loss that had received strong media attention and was given out to all the career consultants at last year’s annual meeting. I thought of these things like insurance that would prevent my name from ending up on the list of those being let go.
Each day, however, was a bit like walking on quicksand. It made me tense. I told the office administrator that I was going to lose my job. She laughed and told me I was crazy. Sometimes I told her that I was going to be notified that week or that day. She rolled her eyes and told me to get a life. I put a photo of Bella on my desk. I told my clients about preparing for the therapy dog test. I told them we were going to volunteer at the local hospital. Some thought this was wonderful, while others looked at me as if I were losing it. It was the one thing in my life, other than our wonderfully expanding family, that pulled me out of this trap, that made me happy.
Cathy and I walked our dogs together, both of us worried about their interactions with other dogs. I thought she had an advantage, as Brandon was a bit older and his personality was more laid back than Bella’s. Kim and I often called him Mr. Cool because he had a confident, relaxed manner. But not my Bella. With those wonderful terrier genes, she was wired. She was pure energy, and I was so glad that I’d started letting her off-leash where it was safe: in the woods, or in the large field near our house. I often brought a ball thrower and hurled a tennis ball as far as I could, and off she went—a streak of white—running back to me with her prize. She never tired of this game. In fact, nothing seemed to really tire her out except a full day at doggie daycare. Then she could barely stand.
On a warm day in late fall, Cathy and I, plus our two dogs, headed up to Doylestown to take the therapy dog certification test. It was being held in a fire station, and we knew that there would be at least two evaluators and a few other dogs. She and I talked nonstop during the forty-five minute drive, burning off a bit of our nervousness, afraid of the disappointment if we failed.
Cathy parked her car and we got out, giving the dogs plenty of time to sniff around and do their business. Cathy’s appointment was right before mine, and I was happy to see a bench outside the firehouse where Bella and I could hang out in the October sun.
“You are going to be great,” I told Cathy, and then they were called in, and Bella and I waited. It seemed like forever. I talked to Bella, I sat, I got up, we practiced a few commands, and then I told myself that I needed to relax. Such good advice, but impossible to follow. Finally, Cathy and Brandon came out. Cathy was grinning ear to ear and Brandon was his usual nothing-can-bother-me self.
“You passed!” I said, and she nodded.
I gave her a quick hug and one of the evaluators came to the door: “Jean and Bella.”
“Here we are,” I said, and we followed her inside the building.
I had to fill out a form and Bella stayed quietly beside me despite the two other dogs in the room. They were far enough away that Bella ignored them.
“Let’s have you walk around the room with Bella on a loose leash,” said one of the evaluators.
I did this and then she had me put her in a sit-stay and I had to drop the leash and walk to other side of the room. She then had to come to me when I called her. She was perfect!
I was asked to have her sit on my left while one of the evaluator dogs, a huge German Shepherd, walked in a circle around us. I saw Bella’s hair rise and I repeated sit and stay, but when the dog got behind us, it was too much for her and she got up and whirled around.
“Bella, sit!” And she did. She didn’t growl, didn’t go after the other dog, but was clearly afraid.
The other evaluator put a chunk of salami on the floor and asked me to walk Bella past it and tell her to leave it. I could see her interest in the meat, but I kept her moving and she obeyed. Then both evaluators came at Bella with a walker and a wheelchair and dropped metal pans on the floor. She was calm and collected and looked up at me to see if this was all right.
“Good girl,” I told her.
I also had to walk up to one of the evaluators who had her dog with her, shake her hand, and Bella had to stay calmly at my side. She did this. I tried desperately to read the faces and body language of those two women, but couldn’t. Would they say no because Bella didn’t stay seated when the dog circled her? Why couldn’t they have used a smaller dog, one that Bella wasn’t afraid of?
I don’t remember the rest of the test; it flew by in a blur. Finally, they called us over to the desk and handed me some paperwork.
“Did she pass?” I asked, with my heart in my mouth.
They smiled at me and one said, “Yes. She is going to be a fine therapy dog, but since she’s not perfect with other dogs, it’s your job to take her to places where this won’t be an issue. Don’t volunteer at the courthouse where dogs are in close quarters. And keep working on her social interaction with others dogs. She is clearly a sweet dog and great with people.”
I was wondering if it was okay to hug them. I was wondering if my feet were still on the floor. How could it be that they saw in Bella what I had known all along, even at our worst moments? At almost five years old, she had a new calling. A job. With my temporary certificate in hand, I walked out into the autumn sunshine where Cathy and Brandon were waiting. Without words, she knew the answer and we gave each other a big hug. We did it! We both had certified therapy dogs.
Chapter 18
WHEN A DOG IS LIKE A TEENAGER
Fall 2012
Stonington, Connecticut
Anyone who’s had dogs, and especially people who have trained their dogs, knew these moments: the well-behaved dog who never stole food, but ate all the hors d’oeuvres on the coffee table when you scooted into the kitchen to get someone a refill of their drink. Or the dog who jumped up on a friend when they came to your house, or ran out in the street, totally ignoring you. In Bella’s case, when excited, she nipped at the bottoms of people’s pants.
She didn’t hurt anyone, but some people don’t like their pants nibbled. Over and over, we pretended to be strangers coming to the door. We rang the bell, and then whoever was in the house with Bella said, “Stay!” The moment the door opened, she hurled herself at the intruder/guest and squealed. Even if it was just us.
My training mantra was consistency and repetition. Do the same things and continue to do them over and over. That was the key. Certain commands like sit were rock solid, but the ones I forgot to practice were like algebraic equations—quickly forgotten. I moved to plan b and put Bella in a bedroom when the grandkids arrived, as her greetings made a whirling dervish look sluggish.
Now it was the fall of 2012, almost Bella’s one-year anniversary of being certified, and we’d survived Hurricane Sandy. Because we were close to the water, we had to evacuate and spent two nights at Bob’s sister’s place on higher ground. But we had been lucky—our house was unharmed. Water from the cove flooded the field opposite our house, but not us. It was a terrible day, a Nor’easter was hitting us hard, and it was windy, cold, and wet. Our power was out. We were glad to be back home but there wasn’t much we could do. I made tea and toasted bagels on the gas grill outside, and we had soup for dinner. It was like camping and was fun for about one meal, but after a few days, it was tiring and we were worried about the dropping temperatures.
I needed to get out of the house, so I told Bella we were going to work. She looked at me but didn’t move, didn’t do her usual okay-let’s-get-going dance.
“Come on,” I urged, shuffling her out the door and into the car. I checked to make sure I had my blue volunteer jacket, treats, poop bags, a towel for Bella, and my cell phone. I was good to go. The hospital parking lot was full near the volunteer office, so I drove into the parking garage and finally found a place on the second floor.
As I reached across the back seat to slide her Easy-Walk harness over her head, she backed into the far corner.
“Right here!” I commanded in a don’t-mess-with-me voice.
She moved further away.
“Hey! Get over here.”
When that didn’t work, I grabbed her collar and pulled her to my side of the car. Now I was irritated.
“You need to listen to me!” I told her as she avoided eye contact with me. I could hear my mother’s voice in mine, as well as echoes of the times I had reprimanded my children. Part of me realized this was pointless, while another part didn’t care. Bella was supposed to obey. I attached her leash and gave it a tug. She jumped out of the car, sulking like a teenager.
We took the elevator down to the ground floor, ran through the rain to the volunteer office, and signed in. By the time we were up on the fifth floor, we had both recovered. We visited an elderly woman whose daughter was sitting next to her. As soon as she saw Bella, the daughter said, “Oh, I miss my dogs!”
I asked about her dogs and found out she lived in Vermont. I gently steered Bella toward her mother, who didn’t seem one bit interested in a dog, but who did want to talk. I listened, answered the daughter’s questions about Bella, and after a “Nice to meet you,” moved on.
We saw a few more people and then entered a dimly lit room. In the far bed was a woman of about forty, her head turned to the side, her whole bed lined with blue rubber mats. A padded cell.
“Would you like a visit from a dog?” I asked softly.
Her eyes moved to my face and that was it.
“This is Bella, if you’d like to see her.”
Nothing.
I stood at the foot of the bed and waited. I wondered if she was in terrible pain.
“Nice to meet you,” I whispered, and we left.
The hallways were busy. Patients were being transported on gurneys and the cleaning crew was taking out mountains of garbage bags. After visiting several more patients, we got into the elevator and Bella relaxed. I could feel her unwinding. I didn’t know what this work did to her but it was demanding: so many sights, and smells, and noises, and unpredictability. With her keen sense of smell, it must have been like me going to a rock concert without ear plugs—totally overwhelming.
“One more stop, girlfriend,” I told her, glancing at my watch. I tried to keep our visits to an hour so she didn’t burn out.
As we entered the Cancer Center and passed the private rooms, I realized I was looking for Gloria, a young woman we had met a few weeks ago. She had been lying on a bed, wrapped in a white blanket, with tears streaming down her face. I had hesitated at the door, not wanting to embarrass her or intrude, but she had turned her head and when she saw Bella, she simply said, “Oh.”
“This is Bella,” I had said, moving a bit closer. “Would you like to see her?”
“Oh, yes,” she had responded, and Bella gently put her paws up on the edge of her bed and let her pet her head. I was speechless.
“She is so cute!”
I then told Gloria that Bella had been rescued from Puerto Rico, and she told me that was where she was from. As we talked, her hand never left Bella. She was connected to her soft fur and strong, lean body. She stopped crying.
“I wish my daughter could see her.”
“How old is she?”
“Ten.”
And then we had the brilliant idea of taking a picture of Bella and her on her cell phone. She handed me her phone and I took the picture. When she looked at the photo, she smiled and said, “She is going to love this.”
I had nodded, beaming like a proud parent, thinking to myself, Look what you’ve done, Bella. Look how Gloria went from tears to smiling. Look how you changed everything.
We didn’t talk about her cancer or her treatment. Just the dog, a wonderful dog who got over her shyness and had let Gloria share her sadness with her. When it was time to leave, Gloria said “Thank you.” And that was all I had needed. The rain, having no power at home, Bella’s stubbornness, and anything else that was bothering me was gone.
This time, all the private rooms were empty and only four people sat in the infusion room, plus the nurses. Bella put her paws on the side of these patients’ recliners and I handed them treats to feed to her. While we were at one end of the room, another patient arrived—a large, strong man with huge hands and long hair pulled back into a pony tail. I didn’t see him at first, but he saw us and said, “Hey, little white dog!”
I remembered him from several weeks back, a dog person who raised German Shepherds.
We went over to his chair once he was hooked up and chatted about dog temperaments. He said, “My dogs never bit anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
“What?” I asked, startled.
“Yeah. The guy who tried to break into my house. He got a nice deep puncture wound in the butt.”
I laughed, and as the woman in the chair next to his joined in, it felt like a party. We were trading stories, being pulled into each other’s lives.
I told them about my sister’s dog, who bit the liquor man and a visiting minister when we were kids.
“They know,” said the huge man.
“But not the Fuller Brush Man,” I added.
“Oh, that takes me back,” said the woman, and we discussed the neat traveling cases those salesmen had—full of brushes of all kinds. It seemed like a magical and distant world.
So, while powerful chemicals dripped into their veins, as a war to survive was being fought, we transported ourselves back to the 1950s. And Bella was the catalyst. She was the one who had started this.
“As a kid I was up before 5 a.m.,” said the huge man, “and hitched a ride on the milk truck. It was our way to get places.”
I could see him running after the truck, could see that boy now in this man, just as I could hear the glass bottles clanking in their wire baskets. And I was struck how, at that moment, his youth was there. It shined through his face, changing him. Bella stared at my pocket, wondering when the next treat would appear.
“I didn’t forget you,” I said, giving her one last treat as we said good-bye.
Bella curled up in the back seat of the car and took a nap. She had done her thing and now it was time to rest.
“Good girl,” I told her. “You did a fine job.”
She closed her eyes and rested her head on her hind feet.
As I was driving home, I thought about what a man had said to us as we left the Cancer Center waiting room: “You come here to make people feel better? Is that right?”
Without asking, he had taken the leash from my hands and held that link to Bella.
“Yes,” I had said, “that’s Bella’s job.”
What I didn’t say was that it was reciprocal. That coming here and to the rehab facility made me feel better, too. It never failed. My teenager had a gift.
Chapter 19
REVOLVING DOOR
Fall–Winter 2011
Yardley, Pennsylvania
I was proud of my work, in particular how I related to corporate executives, hourly workers, scientists with PhDs, Wall Street traders, welders, you name it. What made me good at this were two things: I was an extrovert and loved meeting new people, and I listened carefully. I took notes. I listened for what my clients said and didn’t say, and I watched their faces, their body language. Sometimes I thought of myself as yeast; I had a quick wit, a good sense of humor, and I used that in work where many people were hurt or discouraged. This helped them get over the shock of job loss, and encouraged them to start recovering and look for new work.
Some days I forgot about the shadow hanging over the company I worked for. I forgot about the merger, the rumors, the threats of job loss, and just did my work. On this particular Thursday afternoon in late October, I was meeting with a woman who had to be at least seventy years old. She was in a panic and had taken a job at a local warehouse, moving boxes of books. I couldn’t see her moving much of anything, but she was so desperate, so sure she was facing immediate ruin, that she leapt at this low-paying job where she couldn’t succeed.