Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life

by Cook, Claire

  He laughed. "It's all about working up an appetite. Red pepper flakes?"

  "No thanks. You were hot enough."

  He laughed again, put the jar of red pepper flakes down on his bedside table, slid a little closer to me. It wasn't the world's best line, but it was pretty flirtatious if I did say so myself. In a relaxed, carefree kind of way. Insouciant came back to me from my college French class of a zillion years ago. Sarah est une jeune fille insouciante. Maybe I could find a way to slip it into the conversation. Although I guess I'd have to upgrade it from Sarah is a carefree young girl to Sarah is a carefree no longer young woman. I took a bite of my pizza, put it down on my paper plate on the bedside table. Reached for my seltzer.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw John glance over at his bedside clock.

  "Am I boring you?" slipped out of my mouth. So much for carefree.

  John sighed. "I was just thinking about Horatio. I'm sure he'll be fine though. He's usually at puppy play care later than this anyway."

  I swallowed back my own sigh. Horatio was a dog. I loved dogs. Ergo, eventually I would come to love Horatio, too. Of course, it would be helpful if he'd stop trying to chew me to pieces, but I had skills. I'd worked with some difficult preschool students over the years, and come to think of it, some of them were biters, too. A combination of redirection, and firm, consistent time-outs usually did the trick. And just for the record, no matter how tempted you are and what the old wives' tales say, biting back doesn't work. It only reinforces the inappropriate behavior. And makes you look like an idiot.

  I reached for my pizza and took another bite. Then I leaned over and hoisted my shoulder bag up onto the bed and started rummaging for the T-shirt and yoga pants I'd buried in there.

  "Do you have somewhere you have to be?" John asked.

  I smiled. "I was just thinking maybe we could go get Horatio."

  His face lit up.

  The sun had come out, and while there wasn't actually a breeze, leafy green trees lined the sidewalks and acted a little bit like beach umbrellas. The tall buildings created more shade. The sidewalks bustled with sweaty people who had places to go and things to do. Maybe they were picking up their dogs early today, too. Or even their kids.

  "I've been doing some research," John said as we walked hand-in-hand to puppy play care, "and apparently Horatio sees you as a threat to his place in the pack."

  "Interesting," I said. I'd had more than my share of parent-teacher conferences that went something like, "But Aubrey feels threatened when we try to tell her when to go to bed." I mean, come on, Aubrey is three. She doesn't even know what threatened means. She shouldn't get a vote on bedtime.

  I chose my words carefully. "And I see the two of us as people and Horatio as a dog. Which means that essentially we're in two different packs."

  John turned to look at me. "It doesn't work like that for a dog. There's one pack and it's all about the pecking order within that pack. You're either above Horatio or below him."

  I stopped walking. I let go of John's hand and put my own hands on my hips. "And your preference would be?"

  He grinned. "Relax. Obviously, he needs to accept that you're above him in terms of hierarchy."

  I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead. "Well, that's a relief." I was kind of kidding and kind of not kidding.

  "And he needs to know that it's not acceptable for him to challenge your superiority."

  "I like the sound of that. Okay, so what do we do?"

  He put his arm around my shoulders and we started walking again. "Well, according to everything I've read, walking is the most effective way to establish pack order."

  I slid out from under John's arm and took a quick series of steps out ahead of him. I channeled Keli with one l and an i as I wiggled my hips, then executed a pretty respectable model's runway turn until I was facing him.

  "Ta-dah," I said as I extended both arms, palms up. "See, I've totally got walking down. The trick is going to be to keep Horatio from attacking me as I walk."

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  Dale Evans and Roy Rogers serenaded us with "Happy Trails to You" from outdoor speakers hidden somewhere up in the trees. John and I joined in as he held the gate open for me. Our voices sounded pretty good together.

  Happytails Puppy Play Care seemed a lot like a Bayberry Preschool for dogs. Puppies barked like crazy and ran around all over the place. They rolled in the grass. They knocked one another over. The only thing they didn't do was cry and ask for Band-Aids to put on their boo-boos.

  When I looked more closely, I realized puppy was actually a stretch for some of them. One black Lab racing around with a plastic squirrel in his mouth even had some gray whiskers embellishing his muzzle. This made me feel a little bit better about the age of some of the Bayberry kids, usually boys, whose parents didn't want them to head off to kindergarten until they were sure they were going to be the biggest and brightest in the class. Lorna and Gloria and I joked that if this trend continued, the preschool students would eventually be older than some of the more recently hired teacher assistants.

  Happytails even had some of the same playground equipment as Bayberry. A tri-colored corgi pup with impossibly short legs dribbled an orange foam playground ball around like a soccer star. A golden retriever and a puppy of indeterminate origin pulled opposite ends of a purple-striped hula-hoop, both snarling dramatically. When the golden opened its mouth to bark, the other puppy raced off, bumping the enormous hula-hoop along beside her. Puppies ran and crawled and wiggled their way through the exact same foldable green nylon play tunnel my own students couldn't get enough of.

  Horatio poked his head through the flap of a doggie door at the top of some cement stairs leading up to a building. He flew down the stairs and ran toward us, barking like a maniac, and then hurled himself at John.

  When John bent down to greet him, Horatio covered his face in puppy kisses. I watched them, smiling until my face hurt. Then I tapped one foot for a while. I mean, how long does it take to say hello to a dog? I killed some more time looking around the fenced-in play area, wondering what kind of puppy I'd choose if I ever decided to commit to a four-legged someone of my own. A dog is a big responsibility. At least with a husband, he can trade you in for a chatty younger woman with most of her eggs still in place. When a dog is over you, it can't just sneak off to go looking for a new owner. There are leash laws.

  A woman wearing a Happytails T-shirt waved as she walked in our direction. Her wiry red curls, short forehead, and long nose made her look remarkably like a cocker spaniel. When she handed Horatio's leash to John, it finally broke up their love fest.

  "Who was a good doggie today?" she said it a high-pitched, goofy voice as she bent down to scratch Horatio's chest. "Were you a good doggie today?"

  Horatio looked up at her adoringly. Before John could introduce us, Cocker Spaniel Lady ran off to rescue a big mixed breed puppy with floppy ears that had been backed into a corner by a yappy little ball of strawberry blond fluff I was pretty sure was part Pomeranian.

  John waited until we got to the sidewalk to hand me the leash. Horatio looked up, as if noticing me for the first time. He growled, low and mean.

  "Good boy," John said, like wishing could make it so.

  Horatio wagged his tail.

  "Good boy," I echoed. I didn't believe it for a second, so I reached my non-leash-holding hand behind my back and crossed my fingers as I said it.

  Horatio lunged at me with a burst of speed from his greyhound genes. Then he tried to separate my hand from the leash like a Yorkie gone wild.

  I threw my end of the leash at John. It dropped to the sidewalk, short of its mark.

  Horatio darted down the sidewalk like a rocket.

  I gasped.

  John took off after Horatio. He executed a super hero lunge and managed to land on the leash with both feet.

  "Sorry," I said, once I'd caught up to them.

  "I know you are," John said, "but
it's a busy street. I don't even want to think about what could have happened to him."

  "But he attacked me," I said. I looked down at my hand, hoping for blood.

  "He didn't attack you. If he attacked you, you'd know it."

  John and I looked at each other. I wanted to stamp my foot, take my toys and go home. I had a funny feeling John wanted me to do the same thing.

  Horatio wagged his tail in triumph.

  Horatio gloated and led the way while John and I walked quietly behind him. We turned off the busier main road a few blocks from his condo. Then we cut down an alley.

  "Where are we going?" I asked. I didn't think Horatio would be able to talk John into dragging me down a dark alley so he could do away with me, but it never hurt to ask.

  "We're approaching the condo from another direction," John said.

  "Okay," I said, as if that made sense.

  "It's important for Horatio to think that he has no choice but to follow you into uncharted territory."

  I wanted to explain that this was uncharted territory for me, too. Dogs loved me. Kids loved me. Basically, everybody loved me. Well, not everybody, but there was enough of a consensus that I shouldn't have to feel like a pariah just because one poorly behaved puppy had it in for me. I mean, how many people loved Horatio? As far as I could tell, only one: John Anderson. Maybe two if you counted Cocker Spaniel Lady, but it was her job to love him. Okay, three if you counted Keli.

  Could you actually lose a guy to another woman because his dog liked her better? It seemed far-fetched. Ha. Far-fetched. I smiled at my accidental dog pun. I'd have to remember to write it down so I could try it out on John when things were a bit less stressful.

  The alley turned out to be fairly well lit. It led us to a quiet side street. There was nobody else in sight on the sidewalk and practically the only cars on the street were parked. I still didn't want to take the leash again. I could tell John wasn't quite sure he wanted to trust me with it either.

  What I really wanted was a do-over. Not of John handing me Horatio's leash as we left Happytails, and me actually hanging onto it this time. Not even to being back in bed, surrounded by pizza crusts, when instead of suggesting we pick up Horatio early, I'd just keep my big fat mouth shut.

  If only we could rewind all the way back to just before John got Horatio. I remembered it so clearly. We were at the holiday symphony, standing in the little foyer behind the first balcony, checking up on my father and taking a little break from the rest of my family. Every relationship that moves forward has that first big turning point, and this was ours. We'd just finished a sweet, optimistic kiss, and we'd decided we were going to try to make things work.

  And then John mentioned that Clementine, the personality-challenged Yorkie that lived in his building, had just had puppies. He was thinking of getting one. He wanted to run it by me first.

  This time I'd say, not yet. Let's figure out how to become our own pack first. Maybe quit our jobs, move to a deserted island, or a place where we don't speak the language, where we don't have to decide whether to be city mice or country mice. Where my family can't change your name, where your lack of family doesn't make me feel self-conscious about my surplus. Where we don't get so tangled up in the details of our lives that we start to forget the crazy wonderful miracle of finding each other at all. And this time we really would put all our focus on trying to make it work.

  John stopped walking. "Okay, I'm going to hand you the leash now, and I want you to hold on tight and make sure Horatio stays behind you all the way back to the condo."

  Horatio and I looked at each other.

  "In a nutshell," John continued, "the trick is that you've got to own it. Shoulders back. Head up. No tension in the leash because Horatio might interpret it as fear or doubt."

  "No fear, no doubt, no worries," I said. "We got this. Right, little guy?"

  Horatio let out a bratty growl. I wondered if I could bribe his mother into taking him back. John reached down to pat him, which it seemed to me was only reinforcing his penchant for bullying.

  John tore himself away from Horatio to look at me. "Don't forget, you've got to show him that you're completely confident he'll follow you anywhere."

  "Should I blow in his ear first?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Never mind. Old joke."

  John didn't even smile. "Whatever you do, don't let him pull in front of you."

  I threw my shoulders back and lifted my head up. "Just let him try."

  John handed me Horatio's leash. Actually he wrapped it around my wrist twice and then helped me thread my hand through the loop. Then he made sure I was gripping it hard enough to turn my fist purple. I was no expert, but it seemed to me that if Horatio tried to take off, a broken wrist was a real possibility. I had a quick scary image of my hand dangling uselessly from a mangled wrist and John saying Don't be ridiculous. If he wanted to break your wrist, you'd know it.

  "Ready?" John asked.

  I swallowed. "Ready as I'll ever be."

  John walked ahead of us.

  "Heel," I said when Horatio tried to take off after him. I threw my shoulders back, attempted to keep the leash tension-free, which is a hard thing to do when a dog is trying to leave you in the dust.

  I took two steps forward. Horatio pulled in front of me.

  "Heel," I said again. I yanked him back. I took another two steps. Horatio surged ahead.

  I pulled him back again.

  Two steps forward.

  Yank.

  Release.

  Two steps forward.

  Yank.

  Release.

  Rinse. Repeat.

  I had my doubts, but we eventually made it all the way to John's condo. John pushed himself off the front steps, where he'd been waiting for us. He held the door open. "Make sure you walk through the door first," he said. "That's key."

  I managed to get one foot in the doorway first. Horatio jumped over my foot and darted in front of me. He made a beeline for the stairs.

  Unfortunately, his leash was still attached to my wrist.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  "So then what happened?" Lorna asked.

  It was the first leg of our annual spending of the end-of-the-year teacher gift certificates. Certificates to nail salons outnumbered local restaurants two to one this year, perhaps because of the recent opening of a new Marshbury manicure place called In Good Hands. It was a lovely thought that the parents of our students believed they were in good hands, but it could just as easily have been symbolic of the fact that, once again, the Bayberry teachers had spent an entire school year working their fingers to the bone.

  I sighed and adjusted the Ace bandage on my wrist. "Well, let's just say we went straight from romance to R.I.C.E."

  "You did the right thing," Gloria said. "You have to give props to all those painful first aid classes they force us to take every year. Gotta love R.I.C.E.—rest, ice, compression and elevation will do it every time." She reached over from her pedicure chair to elevate my hand a little higher. "And as soon as we move on to drinks, I fully intend to donate my ice cubes to the cause, honey."

  "You're too kind," I said.

  Lorna leaned over and patted my good hand. "I think you should have made dog lover take you to the hospital, just for the drama of it. And to shame that nasty little mutt of his, of course."

  "He's not nasty," I said. "Just nasty to me."

  "Which one?" Gloria said. "The dog or the dog lover?"

  "The dog," I said. "The dog lover, I mean, John is a little bit like one of those parents whose kids can do no wrong though. If he had to choose between the two of us, I'm not sure I'd put my money on me."

  Our pedicure chairs were three in a row, set up on a tiled platform raised slightly higher than our footbaths. Our three pedicurists sat on stools below us, focused on our feet and completely ignoring the rest of us. They talked amongst themselves, atonal syllables bouncing all over the place, in a language I couldn
't place, though occasionally I'd recognize something like Disney World. I glanced around the salon, hoping for a flag I could identify from our Flags Around the World unit at school.

  "Clearly, you need to put him on a program," Lorna said.

  I turned in her direction, careful not to move my toes or my wrist. "Which one?"

  Lorna twisted in my direction. Her pedicurist yanked her back by the ankle. "Ouch. The dog. What's his name . . . Hamlet."

  "Horatio," I said.

  "Nothing pretentious there," Lorna said.

  "Be nice," Gloria said. "It's the ultimate loyalty name. Remember, Horatio was willing to drink the rest of the poisoned drink that was meant for Hamlet?"

  I shook my head. "This Horatio would find a way to make sure I got the poison."

  "Maybe the mutt's trying to beat you down until you pull an Ophelia," Lorna said.

  "Never happen," I said. "Too many swimming lessons in my formative years. Plus, I'm a floater."

  Lorna cleared her throat. "As I was saying before we went all Shakespeare, what you need to do is put the canine on a behavior mod program." She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "Remember Spartacus MacLeish from, what, three years ago?"

  Gloria burst out laughing.

  "Cut it out," I said. "Sparty was a good kid. At least eventually."

  "Sure he was," Lorna said. "All it took was getting him to stop biting the other kids, plus that poor guinea pig."

  "And," Gloria said, "let's not forget peeing in the sandbox—"

  "Give him a break," I said. "He had a cat at home. He thought it was the boys' bathroom."

  "Riiiight," Gloria said. "His parents might have bought that line, but you're better than that, honey."

  "Anyway," Lorna said. "Remember, we finally got all the adults in the building to watch him nonstop, and every time he'd accidently do something right, we'd praise the living shit out of him."

  "Ohmigod," I said. "Remember how confused he was? After a while, he couldn't tell bad from good and he just did what we told him to."