Trained to Protect

by Linda O. Johnston

  As before, a couple of the students ran up to the dogs who were already there, including his Hooper, as well as Griffin and Peace, and greeted them effusively. He considered ordering them to back off but, heck, neither his dog nor Maisie’s was on official duty here and friendliness and affection seemed to be the key to therapy dog work.

  He watched as Elissa greeted the students, with Peace once more beside her, and asked a few general questions about each dog’s training to date, including after the introductory class.

  She was dressed casually, as was everyone else, yet her attitude made her seem more formal—and clearly in charge. She was definitely a pretty woman. She seemed quite interested in each person’s responses to her questions. But of course she cared about people as well as dogs. Why else would she be a nurse—or therapy dog handler?

  So why were there so many issues about her? Doug wanted to believe her. Did believe her. And yet the more he heard, the more he couldn’t help wondering what, if anything, could be real.

  Letting her dog push a kid out a window? Pushing him herself?

  He forced his mind back to the present. Their previous class here, before the hospital demonstration, had been mostly to introduce the students to the background and concept of therapy dogs and to provide more information about how they could be of great use in helping people. People who primarily had issues that presented mentally, such as fear of others or fear of a medical or other situation in which they found themselves, or even just a hint of depression.

  He’d enjoyed showing off Hooper’s excellent training and suspected his dog wouldn’t be showed much in this upcoming class that he didn’t already know, if anything. Same with Maisie and Griffin. But it would still be interesting to learn more about the basic commands therapy dogs were supposed to obey, as well as how those commands worked into the healing they provided.

  “Okay,” Elissa finally called as Amber, Sonya and Evan walked out of the ranch house and crossed the porch toward them. “Time to get started.” She motioned for the class members to join her along one side of the paved area while the folks from the ranch arranged themselves at the opposite edge. “First thing, as I’ve mentioned and showed you before, you and your dog need to work as a team—and your dog needs to recognize that. We’ll be going over some of the basic but critical commands today, and it’s important for them to know to obey you, but it’ll be because they want to and not because you’ll punish them if they don’t. That definitely doesn’t work for therapy dogs. They need encouragement and love to be able to convey that to your patients in the future.”

  Elissa looked from one face to the next as if trying to read whether they understood and were on board. Or maybe to make sure they knew she intended to make sure they followed her instructions.

  “Okay, please line up,” she said. “Peace and I definitely have that kind of relationship. We’ll demonstrate the most basic commands, then, one at a time, I’ll want you to work with your dogs and show whether they know the commands already.”

  No doubt about Hooper and Griffin, Doug was sure. Those two might be K-9s with lots of special training and skills, but they were also part of Maisie’s and his family.

  Apparently, Elissa was more concerned about her other students, those not paired with trained K-9s. Maisie and he, with their dogs, stood closest to her, but she moved away to face them all again. She briefly had Peace demonstrate some of her skills. Then she said, “First, let’s have...Barker show his stuff.” She gestured toward the Doberman mix and his owner Kim.

  Kim looked young to Doug in her shorts, tank top and flip-flops, but even kids could train dogs. And Dobermans, though they could be aggressive, were smart, so he anticipated this trial would go well.

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  Over the next several minutes Elissa told Kim which commands to direct to Barker. Sometimes she spoke them out loud, and at other times she showed a gesture to Peace, who obeyed them either way perfectly. Between each command, Elissa waited a few seconds while Kim told Barker what to do then rewarded the dog with a whole lot of praise and hugging, and a little treat.

  Barker did fine with “sit,” “stay,” “down” and other directives, even “roll over.” But he didn’t seem to get “shake.” Doug wondered how important that was but figured shaking paws could be meaningful to engage the subject of a therapy session and allow that kid or needy adult to believe the dog wanted nothing more than to be in his presence and play with him.

  How would Hooper do? Griffin? Perfectly, Doug felt sure.

  “That was wonderful,” Elissa called to Kim when they were done. “There are more commands we’ll go over, and we’ll try them in different venues, even stressful circumstances, but Barker’s definitely off to a good start.”

  Next in the spotlight was Astro, Jill Jacobs’s Jack Russell terrier. Doug wasn’t surprised when the dog hardly obeyed a single command. “Sit” was the only one he appeared to pay any attention to, and then he ignored Jill when she told him to stay. In fact, he seemed determined to ignore her and run in circles around the training area until Elissa told Jill to attach his leash again. Praise or other rewards? They definitely weren’t earned, even though Jill tried to show the little fireball dog some love with hugs—when she could grab him close to her.

  “Looks like we have some work to do here,” Elissa said when they were done.

  Jill, who appeared to be in her early thirties—and clearly unhappy—nodded. “Like I said last time, I really hope you can help me learn a way to slow him down safely and act like the sweet, loving dog he is.”

  Or that Jill wanted him to be, Doug thought. But of them all, he suspected Astro might be the only dog who wouldn’t become an acceptable therapy dog.

  Next was Jim Curtis, with Bandit. Jim was the most senior of the handler students, and his Lab mix was already well trained in the basics, though Bandit probably had lots to learn as a therapy dog. Still, he seemed likely to succeed.

  Then came Paul Wilson, with Ollie, his French bulldog mix. Paul looked more in his late thirties or early forties and wore slightly dressier attire than everyone else, consisting of a nice button-down shirt over his jeans. Seemed a bit too dressy for a dog training class, but guidelines weren’t strict on clothing.

  Doug was a bit surprised, though, when Ollie, too, didn’t seem to obey the rules, at least not much. French bulls were trainable with practice and patience, but maybe Paul hadn’t spent enough time with him.

  And Paul as a trainer? Doug couldn’t really tell. Although the guy did provide praise each time the dog obeyed, he seemed a bit remote, maybe even confused. Doug wondered how close he and his dog were.

  In fact, after Ollie complied with “sit” and “down,” and somewhat with “stay” but only for a few seconds, Paul approached Elissa looking rather embarrassed. “Sorry. I just adopted Ollie and thought he’d had some training first. I’ve done some work with him but he doesn’t always seem inclined to do what I tell him. That’s actually one reason we’re here, not just to turn him into a therapy dog. I’ll be happy if he learns to listen and obey those commands.”

  “Me, too,” Elissa said. “Just be sure he recognizes that you’re new best friends.” She aimed a smile at Paul, who smiled back—which irritated Doug. Was flirtation a part of her class? “And be sure to work with him to interact gently and caringly with other people. That’s the most important thing.”

  Doug was glad when Elissa walked away from Paul toward the last two people in the class—Maisie and him. Not surprisingly, Griffin obeyed every command with no hesitation, earning praise from everyone, including the ranch folks at the edge of the training area. And Maisie made it clear how much she loved him and how good he was.

  Then it was Doug’s turn, and Hooper’s obedience surpassed even Griffin’s. Doug found himself heaping even more praise than usual on his dog.

  “Good job,” Elissa said when t
hey were done, smiling at him. “Now, everyone, we’re going to start at the beginning again, and each of our dogs will work on ‘sit’ even if they know it. It’s important that, in a therapy assignment, the dogs listen and sit and stay calm even at first, to help ease any fears the patient has. And of course, we’ll ramp up the love and encouragement.”

  That part of the lesson continued for twenty minutes. All the dogs, even Astro, seemed fine with following that command. Staying worked reasonably well with them, again except for Astro, and Ollie didn’t appear to mind staying as long as he wasn’t required to do so for more than a minute.

  And so forth. The class continued for about an hour, and Doug was amazed that, as Elissa wrapped things up and prepared to tell them all when the next class would be, he felt a big sense of accomplishment—a sense that should have belonged only to Elissa. But he felt proud of her.

  The four non-cop class members left soon afterward, thanking Elissa profusely and promising to work hard with their dogs so they should all have perfected the commands by the next class, which would be in three days. All these people lived in Chance or not far away. Although this class had been on Wednesday, a weekday, the next one would take place on Saturday, which was easier since three of the four members had day jobs and had had to take a bit of time off that day, as before.

  As they all stood near the base of the house’s porch, Elissa told Amber she wanted to discuss scheduling with her, possibly to make the timing better for potentially larger classes. But she also glanced toward Doug as she spoke, and he heard what she wasn’t saying.

  As she’d mentioned before to him, she wanted to tell Amber about the latest issue—the apparent social media posts claiming she was involved not only in poor therapy issues, but possibly a child’s death.

  He wanted to be there with her. He’d make sure of it.

  But first, he had to talk to Gil to see where his research stood.

  Chapter 17

  Elissa wasn’t sure how so many mixed emotions could flow through her this way. She was definitely pleased about how her class had gone this morning. Sure, most of the dogs needed more training in the basics, as did their owners. But she felt certain they’d all learn enough to continue: the owners to feel confident in their dogs and show it, and the dogs to obey more commands pertaining to therapy training and demonstrate their caring natures toward people—although Astro, at least, might require some special hands-on work from her, which was fine.

  She’d felt ecstatic about the class, happy to watch Maisie and Doug show off their well-trained and clearly beloved dogs...and now couldn’t help the misgivings and more that she felt as she, Peace beside her, followed everyone remaining toward the house.

  She knew she had to tell Amber about the latest accusations against her before she did anything else.

  She’d hoped to at least have Doug’s backup, but he had walked away with Hooper. A necessary doggy outing? Or was he also walking away from her?

  She didn’t feel comfortable waiting to find out. Evan headed back to his house since he had a K-9 training class scheduled at the ranch that afternoon he wanted to prepare for. That left Elissa with Amber and Sonya, and they all walked up the steps onto the porch, including Peace. Sonya had her cell phone in her hands and seemed to be texting. Maybe that would give Elissa an adequate excuse to talk only to Amber. Her mother appeared a lot more suspicious of all that was going on around Elissa.

  But before Elissa could take Amber aside and figure out how to start this latest difficult conversation, Sonya turned to them and sent a big smile in Elissa’s direction. “Hey, dog therapy specialist. I just learned of a special assignment for you.”

  “Really? What?” Elissa knew she should bring up her issue first, but she couldn’t help being curious.

  “I just got a text from Petra. We’ll need to call her for details, but I gather a new patient who’s just been admitted to Chance Hospital is a senior who’s depressed and needs some cheering right away. Could you go there this afternoon?”

  She wished. She really wanted to just say yes—but she had to let them know the latest accusations against her.

  “Maybe, but before I can agree to it, I have something new to tell you about. Another untrue accusation and it’s—”

  “It’s definitely fishy,” said a voice from behind her as footsteps sounded on the wooden steps they had just walked up. Doug was joining them with Hooper.

  “Fishy how?” She had to ask.

  “Our tech support guy at the department has been looking into the allegations, and from what he’s found all the nonsense on social media has come from unidentifiable sources—at least not identifiable yet by him, and he really knows his stuff.”

  “But what are the allegations?” Amber asked. Her eyes appeared suspicious and, after everything else that had happened, Elissa could understand why.

  Taking a deep breath, she revealed the situation at the hospital where she had worked in San Luis Obispo, and the death of the young boy soon after seeing a therapy dog to help his mental health. “I heard about it while I was there and was never really certain which dog and handler had been working with him closest to the time of his death. No one really talked about it much.”

  “But it wasn’t you and Peace.” Amber made a statement, but a question was in her voice anyway.

  “Not then, though we’d had a couple of sessions with him weeks earlier.” Elissa felt her eyes tear up. “But now, in addition to everything else that’s been happening—”

  “Someone’s accusing Elissa of somehow causing the boy’s death, too,” Doug broke in. He now stood beside Elissa on the porch with the dogs at their feet, but he maneuvered around Peace to put his arm comfortingly around Elissa, though only for a moment. Still, that brief touch helped to calm her. “However, like I said, the allegations are coming from very suspicious sources.”

  “I just wish—” Elissa began then stopped. What she wished was for all of this to go away. But it wouldn’t just happen because she wanted it to.

  If only she knew some positive steps she could take to ensure it would end—right away.

  But for now... “I wish it would just stop,” she said in a voice that sounded somewhat strong, at least to her. “Since it’s been continuing, I can understand if you lose trust in me. As I said before, if you want to tell me to leave the Chance K-9 Ranch—well, I’d hate it, but I would go. And, Sonya, if you don’t want me to follow up with Petra’s patient, I’ll understand that, too.”

  To her surprise, Sonya was the first to respond, and in a positive way. “The heck with all that nonsense!” she exclaimed, although she looked at Doug. “Your tech guy says it’s nonsense, right?”

  “Right,” he confirmed.

  “Well then,” Amber said, “no issues here. I like how your class went this morning, and if you want to go with Peace and help that needy senior at the hospital this afternoon, do it.”

  “Thank you all,” Elissa said, relief flooding her. “I won’t let you down.”

  Turning to look at Doug, she found him smiling at her.

  And hoped she could make good on that promise...particularly with the man who had been helping her so wonderfully.

  * * *

  If he’d had any genuine doubts about Elissa making up the stuff going on around her, Doug didn’t now. In his brief conversation with Gil, he’d heard how confused yet determined the tech expert was. “It’s one of those situations where things apparently got routed through servers all over the country, maybe all over the world,” the techie had said. “Genuine posts can usually be linked to a source, or even a person, but not these accusing Elissa of having something to do with that kid’s death.”

  “So why would someone do that?” Doug had asked, although he suspected he knew.

  “Obviously he doesn’t want to be linked to it, to have his—or her—identity discovered.”

&
nbsp; They’d talked a few minutes more. Gil had sounded somewhat stumped when Doug asked if he could, in fact, figure out who’d been doing that.

  “Possibly,” he’d said, “but it’ll take a long time, a bunch of research—and I’ll need to get the okay from some higher-ups to spend that time while I’m on duty. I’ll work on it, too, when I’m not at the station if I can’t figure it out here, but it’d be better if I can continue here with what I’m doing.”

  Doug had assured him he’d head to the station in a short while and the two of them could then seek that okay. He’d also had to convince Gil there was a good reason for a local cop to do this, a good connection to the town of Chance: the threats to the K-9 Ranch. It wasn’t all about Elissa, he’d assured the techie—who blatantly asked Doug if he had something going with the lovely, sexy and possibly threatened woman.

  “Don’t I wish,” Doug had told him—unfortunately somewhat truthfully. “See you soon.”

  Could Elissa be doing all this herself? No way, Doug thought now as he headed back to the station.

  Although, for his own peace of mind, he might inquire about her technological skills...

  * * *

  Elissa drove Peace to the hospital with her, separately from Amber and Sonya since she wasn’t sure how long she’d stay there, and the others wanted to return to the ranch in time for Evan’s class that afternoon. She was excited about engaging in a real therapy session without it being part of a class this time, although she would again have observers. Perhaps, given more notice, she would have invited the prospective handlers she was teaching now to watch. It would have been another good experience for them. But this time, she and Peace would do it all themselves, without an ulterior motive like teaching anyone, and with the idea of comforting a person really in need.

  Although, as she parked in the hospital lot, she decided that, as a new teacher of therapy dog handlers, she could use this as a lesson of sorts even though her students weren’t invited here.