The Last Dog on Earth

by Daniel Ehrenhaft

  “Sit.”“Down.”“Heel.”“Play dead.”

  There was really nothing more to it than that. Say the command; give a treat; ring a bell; bingo. Pretty soon the dog would do whatever you wanted. You wouldn't even have to use the treats for very long because soon hearing the “sonic cue” after the command would be rewarding enough. According to the books, anyway.

  Logan made sure all the bases were covered. For treats, he'd swiped the bacon bits from Mom's spice cabinet. For the noise part, he'd built a special device: the Logan Moore Sonic Cue Gun, or LMSCG. He'd taken the bicycle bell from Mom's old three-speed and fastened it on top of a water gun, then rigged the trigger with a bit of fishing wire so that when he pulled it, the wire yanked on the bell's ringer. All he had to do was aim the thing at Jack. Point, squeeze, brrring! It was pretty loud, too.

  “All right, Jack,” Logan said. “Time to do your business.”

  Jack stopped tugging at her leash. She sniffed the lawn.

  Logan tried to yank her over to the hammock. She seemed to have changed her mind about wanting to go there. And for such a scrawny dog, she was actually pretty strong. Logan had to shove the LMSCG into his pocket and use both hands to pull her.

  “Come on, Jack,” Logan grunted. “Come on. Right over here.”

  She started tearing at the grass with her front paws.

  Uh-oh. The hammock was close to the kitchen window. Mom and Robert were in there right now. The screen was shut, but the window was open. If Robert saw Jack ripping up the lawn … well, Logan would just try to keep quiet. Anyway, he was supposed to ignore bad behavior. Digging a hole in the backyard certainly fell into that category.

  Logan chewed his lip. He could hear Robert and Mom at the table.

  “… can't believe we let him bring that mutt home,” Robert was muttering. He sounded disgusted. “This is your fault. This has disaster written all over it.”

  “But I think it's good for Logan,” Mom said. “He feels that he made his own decision, you know? He's taking responsibility for it. It's not like we're forcing something on him again. I mean, you saw all those books he has on dog training. And besides, he does have a point about the money. You can still get a purebred Lab if you really want one—”

  “This house isn't big enough for two dogs,” Robert snapped. “And you know it. And what if Jack has this disease everybody's talking about? What if she's sick?”

  Mom sighed. “She's not sick, Robert. She was examined thoroughly. Look, just be patient, okay? Let's make the best of this.”

  Logan stared down at Jack.

  Come on, come on, he urged silently. Stop digging. Stop it….

  Suddenly Jack lifted her head and lowered her rear end. She peed, staring into space. She wasn't right under the hammock, but she was close enough.

  “Good girl!” Logan exclaimed.

  He reached into his front pocket for a handful of bacon bits. As Jack gobbled them up, Logan pulled the LMSCG from his back pocket. He had to struggle to hold on to the leash at the same time. It was all a little awkward. But he managed to get off a ring before she'd finished the treats. Jack wagged her scraggly tail and raised her eyes, as if to say, No more bacon bits?

  Logan grinned. “Okay, Jack,” he said. “Next time I'll—”

  “Logan! What are you doing out there?”

  Robert's nose was mashed against the window screen.

  “I …” Logan didn't know what to say.

  “Did you just let the dog pee on my lawn?” Robert demanded.

  (“My lawn.” Not “our lawn.” Not “the lawn.” Robert's lawn.) “Well, yeah,” Logan said. “I just figured it would be better if she peed out here than—”

  “Take her on the sidewalk, Logan!” Robert shouted. “It's bad for the grass! Get her out of the backyard! Now!”

  Jack's tail stopped wagging. She barked at the window.

  Logan turned away and pulled at the leash. But Jack didn't seem to want to move.

  “What's that bell you got there?” Robert asked.

  “It's supposed to help with the training,” Logan said.

  “Why do you need it? The Wallaces don't use a bell with Otis.”

  “I was just following the advice of the books,” Logan said.

  “What are you, an expert on dog training now?” Robert demanded.

  Why are you still talking to me if you want me to get Jack out of the backyard? Logan wondered. But instead of asking the question out loud, he bent down and picked Jack up, cradling her like a big baby, and carried her away from the window as fast as possible. In a situation like this, it was best just to get her out of Robert's sight.

  Not that Logan was going to stop training her to pee under the hammock. He was just going to wait until Robert went back to the car dealership.

  Weirdly enough, the hardest part of owning Jack turned out to be finding a toy that she liked.

  You couldn't just give her a toy, Logan realized. If you tried, she would sniff at it, then just stare at you as if to say, Come on, man. This is a fuzzy bumblebee. Don't insult me. Give me the good stuff.

  It was actually pretty funny. The day after she arrived, Logan took her to the pet store to load up on plastic bones and rawhide sticks and squeaky stuffed animals. She seemed pretty interested in the stuff while he was picking it out. Especially the bumblebee. She even barked at it. He spent nearly thirty bucks—just about every penny he had. But when he got home and dumped the loot in the middle of his room, she didn't even bother to look at it.

  Instead she headed straight for his closet and clamped her jaws around his baseball mitt.

  “No, no, Jack,” Logan whispered. “Drop it.”

  He bit his lip to keep from laughing. He didn't want to raise his voice. If Robert overheard him ordering her to drop the baseball mitt (the baseball mitt that Robert had wasted Robert's hard-earned money on, and why didn't Logan play baseball, anyway—didn't he know it was the greatest sport ever invented?) … well, in a nutshell, that wouldn't be good.

  Jack started shaking her head. She bared her teeth, swinging the mitt wildly from side to side—as if the baseball mitt were really just another meal.

  “Come on, Jack,” Logan whispered. “Drop it.”

  She swung the mitt harder.

  Logan darted forward and snatched the mitt from her jaws.

  “Play with your toys,” he commanded, holding the mitt high over his head. “Go on. They're all right there for you.”

  But Jack sat still on her haunches, staring at the mitt. A low growl rumbled deep in her throat. Maybe the dogs in those books were dumb, but Jack wasn't. She knew exactly what she wanted.

  “Come on, girl,” Logan pleaded. “This isn't a toy. Your toys are right behind you. They're all brand-new.”

  Jack's growl grew louder. Her eyes flashed to Logan, as if to say, So what if they're new? That's the lamest pile of crap I've ever seen in my life.

  Logan grinned. He shot an anxious glance toward the door. In a way, he could relate to Jack's frustration. After all, he always hated it when Robert tried to give him stuff that he didn't want. Like the baseball mitt. Or the model airplane set. Perfect example. Robert was the one who thought model airplanes were so cool. He'd bought it so he could use it. But after a while, he'd gotten bored with it (the way he always did), so it had been sitting in Logan's closet for months, collecting dust—until Logan had decided to build the LMMRC.

  The thing was, Logan had never even thought of it as a model airplane set. He didn't see it that way. He saw a box full of raw parts, the beginnings of a master remote control. So if Jack didn't see a dumb baseball mitt, but instead saw something else—a leather chew toy, the head of her worst enemy, a magical being that could spring to life at any time and kill everybody in the house when they least expected it … well, who was Logan to take that away from her just because of what people said a baseball mitt was supposed to be?

  “You know what, girl?” Logan whispered. “I'm sorry. Here you go.”

&nb
sp; He handed the mitt back to Jack.

  She snatched it in her jaws and started swinging it again—even more crazily than before. It flew across the room and smacked against the door. She barked at the sound.

  Uh-oh. Logan swallowed.

  “Logan?” Robert called from downstairs. “What's going on in there? That dog isn't breaking anything, is she?”

  “Uh, no,” Logan said. “She's just playing.”

  Jack pounced on the mitt and started banging it against the wall: thump-thump-thump.

  “Stop it, Jack,” Logan begged, even though he was laughing. He grabbed the mitt again and tossed it on his bed. She scrambled after it.

  “Logan!” Robert called.

  “Uh … um … don't worry,” Logan shouted back. He ran to the door and locked it, then hurried over to the bed and flicked on the clock radio on his nightstand. The tinny, static-blurred voice of a female news reporter filled the room.

  Good, Logan thought. That should drown out Jack's shenanigans.

  “… and still, nobody can seem to determine the cause of the disease,” the reporter was saying. “So far, over thirty dogs in Redmont have died.”

  Logan's ears perked up.

  “We're fortunate to have with us here today Mr. Rudy Stagg, a part-time dog trainer based in Redmont, who's had lots of firsthand experience with the disease,” the woman continued. “Thanks for joining us, Mr. Stagg.”

  “My pleasure,” a gruff-sounding man answered.

  “So what's your take on all this?” the woman asked.

  “What advice would you give the dog owners of southern Oregon?”

  Logan stared at the radio. He'd heard this reporter before. He couldn't remember her name. But usually she sounded ditzy and lighthearted. Not today. Today she sounded downright depressed. Either that or angry.

  “I would tell them to keep an eye on their pets,” Mr. Stagg said. “And if they start acting funny—shaking, foaming at the mouth, that kind of thing—don't get near them. Call me immediately. My number is—”

  “Don't you think it would be a better idea for people to call the CDC?” the woman interrupted.

  “The what, now?”

  “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the woman said. “They're sending a team of specialists here to investigate the problem.”

  “Well, if you ask me, that's about the worst idea I've heard all year,” Stagg drawled. “Once the government gets involved, you lose all control. They come in here with their fancy thugs and their black helicopters and the next thing you know, you're living in a police state. Call me or do it yourself, but—”

  Logan flipped the dial to a heavy metal station.

  He hated listening to angry-sounding people. He heard enough of that just walking around his own house every day. But still, he couldn't help feeling nervous. The CDC is coming to investigate the problem. That sounded pretty serious.

  Forget it. Logan shook his head. He shouldn't worry about it. Whatever the “problem” was, it wasn't his problem. Jack was fine. The shelter guys had promised Logan that she was perfectly healthy.

  He glanced at her.

  She'd gotten back into his closet. Now she was chewing contentedly on one of the loafers that Mom and Robert had bought him for formal occasions.

  Logan smiled. Good girl, he thought. He'd always hated those shoes.

  Rudy Stagg's full-page advertisement in

  The Redmont Daily Standard, June 26

  AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DOG

  OWNERS OF REDMONT:

  PROTECT YOURSELF

  AND YOUR PETS!

  DON'T BE BULLIED BY THE CDC!

  Dear Dog Owners,

  My name is Rudy Stagg. Many of you already know me. I have been a home security consultant and dog trainer in Redmont for the past twenty years. I have an impeccable reputation.

  You may have heard public service announcements on the radio recently, telling you to contact the police or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention if your dog appears listless or ill. Everyone knows this is because of the strange disease that's been killing our dogs.

  But here's what you may not know: The CDC is an arm of the federal government. Once you hand your dog over to them, they will take it to a “quarantine center” and you will never see your pet again. What's more, the CDC will require you to move out of your house for forty-eight hours while agents “decontaminate” it. And if you have other pets, they will take those animals, too.

  Who knows what these people are really doing with our pets? Who knows what they're really doing in our houses?

  You are not obligated to hand over your dog to a stranger just because that stranger claims to have authority.

  Don't let them scare you. Allow your dog to die with dignity—and stand up for your right to live your life free of government interference. I am setting up a training program to instruct people on how to shoot their dogs in the most painless way possible. Lessons start at $45.00 an hour.

  To contact me for lessons or dog training, please call (503) 555-8764 or e-mail me at rudy@rudystagg.com.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  In less than a week, Jack started getting the hang of peeing and pooping outside the house. Logan couldn't believe it. Sure, she still slipped up every so often (she actually seemed to enjoy going on the floor in Mom and Robert's bathroom, which was sort of comical)— but at the end of day five, it was official: She'd only had one accident.

  The bacon bit–LMSCG combo was really paying off. Maybe he should write a book about training dogs. It was weird; he felt more proud of himself than he had in a long time—as if he'd just invented the coolest machine ever, like an ultrapowerful miniaturizing ray that would shrink Robert down to the size of a plastic soldier so Logan could flush him down the toilet.

  And all he'd done was housebreak a wild mutt. Or come close, anyway. He probably could have trained her completely, too, if Robert hadn't been around.

  Robert just didn't understand the “ignore bad behavior” part of dog training. Whenever he came home from work, he would follow Logan and Jack from room to room, waiting for Jack to mess up. It was the same old script every single night. The house was starting to feel like the set of a bad TV show.

  Robert: That dog better not be going into my bathroom.

  Logan: If she does, just ignore her.

  Robert: Ignore her? That's easy for you to say. It's not your bathroom.

  Logan: Yeah, but I'm the one who has to clean it up.

  Robert: Look! There she goes! I knew it! Bad girl! Bad!

  Logan: Shhh. All you have to do is pick her up and take her outside.

  Robert: While she's taking a leak? Are you out of your mind? Bad girl!

  Logan: If you keep talking to her like that, she's going to develop a neurotic habit and pee in here even more. If you want her to stop, pick her up and take her outside—

  Robert: Bad girl! No! Bad! Do something, Logan! Do something!

  The funniest part (or unfunniest, depending on how you looked at it) was that Jack would usually start barking at Robert at this point. Sometimes Jack would bark so viciously that Robert would get a little nervous. Then Robert would start in on Logan again, and Jack would just bark even more loudly. And all the stupidity would have been so easy to avoid—that is, if Robert had bothered trying to learn anything about dogs.

  The only reason Jack barked at Robert was to protect Logan. Jack thought of Logan as her master. The pack leader. So if Robert yelled at Logan, he was threatening the whole pack order. Logan wasn't just making this stuff up. He'd read it in all those books. He was the one who spent the most time with her; he was the one who disciplined her; he was the one who fed and rewarded her—so obviously she would think of him as her master.

  Of course, it would never occur to Robert that any creature could possibly consider Logan a master. Robert was the master. The All-Knowing Dictator of Everything. Period, infinity, until the end of time.

  * * *


  “We have to get rid of that dog,” Robert said one morning.

  Logan stopped chewing. He glanced down at Jack. She was sitting beside his chair, looking up at him with her bright eyes. Then he turned to Mom, who was concentrating very hard on buttering her toast. He put down his spoon and swallowed, his thoughts racing. Was this something about that dog disease?

  “Why?” he asked finally.

  “Because you aren't training her right,” Robert said. He glowered at Logan across the kitchen table. “I found bite marks in my tennis racket. Now I'm going to have to get a new one. You know how much a brand-new tennis racket costs?”

  Logan stared back at him, feeling a weird rush of both anger and relief. So this wasn't about the dog disease. He pushed aside his bowl. “Where did you leave the tennis racket?” he asked.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Robert asked.

  “You just have to be careful, that's all,” Logan said. “If you leave things lying around, Jack will probably find them and chew on them. All puppies chew on things.”

  “Otis doesn't,” Robert said.

  Logan shot another quick glance at Mom. She was still hiding behind her toast. Typical. Well, maybe Logan would apply some of his dog-training techniques with Robert. He could ignore the guy. If he ignored Robert's stupid behavior, maybe Robert would stop acting like an idiot all the time. Anything was worth a shot.

  “Otis isn't a puppy,” Logan said. He stood and rinsed his cereal bowl. “Jack's still less than a year old. I've gotten her some chew toys, but she doesn't really like them.”

  “So how come she doesn't ruin your stuff ?” Robert asked.

  “She does,” Mom said. “Jack chewed up Logan's nice shoes.”

  Logan turned to Jack. She was still eyeing everyone's food. Can you believe that? he asked Jack silently. Mom actually stuck up for me! Somebody should call that woman news reporter, pronto, because this is a great moment in history, far more important than any dumb disease; it is a milestone, and will probably never be repeated in our lifetimes.

  “Logan hates formal occasions,” Robert said. “He probably gave Jack those shoes on purpose so she could ruin them.”