Hayley, impressed with his acknowledgment of the reality, though saddened by his blunt reminder, sighed deeply and echoed his concern. “I don’t like it either, but we don’t always have a choice. This time more than ever.”
Doc Pelot looked at both of them and tried to end the debate before it really got going. “Listen, however bad it is putting these dogs in kill shelters, it’s better than asking me to put fifty dogs and cats down on some snowy afternoon because we haven’t found a home for them. That’s what the city has instructed me to do. Now, I’m not going to do it, so you two are going to have to figure out something else. But I say that if we’re lucky enough to find a few shelters willing to help us out, we better not turn up our noses or turn down a helping hand. That’s the way it has to be.”
Todd felt cornered and didn’t know what to do. Still, this option was unacceptable to him. “I’ll find families for all of them.”
“You’re going to have to hurry. Less than three weeks and forty-eight dogs and cats needing homes? That’s a very tall order.” Frustrated, Doc Pelot shuffled off without saying another word. However much Todd, the young idealist, hoped for the best from the world, it would be Pelot, the old vet, who would be left to deal with a real-world mess.
After Mary Ann got home from Crossing Trails High School, she and George addressed invitations to their annual holiday party, always held on the last Sunday before Christmas. Given the fifty-year history of their event, George suggested to her that it would be easier to send out an announcement when they finally decided not to have the party. That would save them a great deal of work.
She rubbed his shoulders to show her gratitude. “Good try, George, but keep writing.”
George brought up his call to Ed Lee.
“Do you think he’s interested in Todd?” Mary Ann asked.
“I don’t think he would have offered to interview him if there wasn’t at least a chance. He said the industry has changed a lot in the last twenty years. He emphasized that it was a big business with lots of computers.”
“That’s obvious, George. What do you think he was really trying to say?”
“I’m not sure,” he hedged, which was a whole lot easier to say than what he suspected Ed Lee meant. There were probably limited opportunities for Todd in a modern, high-tech dairy operation. Still, it was a job, a good place to start.
“When is Todd coming by?”
“Soon. I told him we would put an extra plate out for him and that you were making that tuna casserole he likes.”
“I’ll finish up dinner if you’ll set the table.”
“Deal.”
About twenty minutes later Todd came through the back door, kissed his mom on the cheek, and asked, “So what’s the big news Dad was talking about?”
She pointed to the living room. “Go find out.”
Todd settled into a chair across from his father’s recliner. Christmas sat beside him and Todd tucked his hand into the dog’s collar.
George looked up from the paper. “Hello, gentlemen. How are you?”
“We’re good.”
Todd and Christmas both seemed to stare at George, eager for the scoop. George could tell that after spending the entire day at work with Todd, Christmas was glad to be home. The shelter was a high-energy place for an older dog. A spot by the fireplace suited him just fine. George wondered if it was time for Christmas to retire from his shelter duties with Todd and start taking it easier. He then realized that whether it was time or not, it was about to happen. George felt a little sad about the dog’s advancing age. “You both look good to me, but maybe a little tired.”
Hearing George’s voice, Christmas wagged his tail and got up off the floor. George called the dog over to his side and gave his black fur a good rubdown. The dog appreciatively nuzzled George with his nose as if to say, Yes, George, I’ve missed you, and I will enjoy taking things a little easier.
Once satisfied that the old dog had been shown the proper respect, George turned his attention to his son. “The reason I asked you to stop by is that I’ve got good news. You’ve got an interview out at the dairy. Ed Lee, that old friend of mine I told you about, wants you to give him a call. Do you think you might like working with cows?”
Todd did not hesitate. “I like cows, but I like dogs better.” Todd then pondered the details. “How much money do I make?”
George put his hand out like a traffic cop. “Whoa, Todd. Not so fast. I said you have an interview. Remember, that just means they’ll talk to you. If they think you’re a good fit, then they’ll offer you a position and tell you the salary.”
“I think I’m a good fit.”
“We’ll see. Most people think they’re a good fit.” George tried to go over the interviewing process with Todd and then, taking Ed Lee’s advice to heart, cautioned Todd about the differences between a shelter and a dairy. “Todd, you need to understand that a corporate dairy is about making money with cows; a shelter isn’t about making money with dogs. The dairy is a business.”
“I like money.”
George tried to make it clearer. “The shelter business is about keeping dogs and cats safe. The dairy business is about making milk. It’s different.” George was not sure how to explain it any better, but he tried once more. “In a dairy, the cows are like workers that stay for a long time, and in a shelter the dogs are like guests or friends that are staying overnight with you and then going to their new home.”
Todd looked back down at Christmas for reassurance and said, “I’ve already been wondering about not having a job. I think I need to make it work even if a dairy is different from a shelter.”
George assented. “I think you’re right. This might be the best thing on the job menu.” He handed Todd a piece of paper. “Here is his number. Tomorrow, call Ed Lee, set up an appointment time, and see what you think.”
ON THURSDAY afternoon, after Todd exercised the last dog, he took a break from his shelter duties to gas up his truck. While he was filling up he called Ed Lee and confirmed his interview time. He checked his messages and saw that Brenda had called again. Todd called her back. She had some ideas she needed to investigate further and wanted to know a good time when she might get back to him and Hayley, perhaps in a joint phone call. Todd switched to his calendar function and they agreed that the perfect time for her to call the shelter would be during Friday’s staff meeting. Brenda gave Todd a hopeful hint: “I’m getting excited about this idea. I’ve just got to convince some people to help us out.”
“You’re the Problem Solver.”
On Friday morning Laura and Todd crowded around Hayley’s desk for their weekly staff meeting. This time the agenda was not about dog food or heartworm updates. They were trying desperately to formulate strategies to save their existing pet population and address the future needs of a county that would soon have no animal shelter. They had each committed to show up at the meeting with an idea or two. For his part, Todd told them that he had enlisted the Problem Solver, but they were going to have to wait awhile before they could talk to her. “She has to stay late working on the evening news, so I don’t think she gets up this early.”
Hayley floated her idea next. She suggested that they might donate their cages and other fixtures to another like-minded shelter. In exchange for giving them their equipment, they might ask to transfer four or five dogs and cats to the other facility. Hearing no objections, she agreed to make some inquiries.
Laura passed along the gist of her most recent discussion with Hank Fisher. “He told me that he was talking to his lawyer and the mayor to see if there are options for converting our shelter into a private not-for-profit corporation.”
Doc Pelot was older, but his memory was vivid and crisp. “Hank and I talked about this idea of his years ago—before the county and the city took on the shelter partnership. It would require raising donations, which won’t be easy these days.”
Laura agreed. “That’s right, but Hank thinks that someday Crossing
Trails could have a scaled-back facility without the county’s help. He told me to pass along that he is feeling much better. He hopes that over the coming days he will get his strength back and be able to pursue these ideas further. He also said”—Laura tried to mimic the old man’s deep gruff voice—“Tell them to take good care of my dogs!”
“You tell him to worry about his own health, and that my dogs and cats are doing just fine.” Doc Pelot lit his pipe and got back to his major worry. “I had an idea of my own. What if we contacted the chamber of commerce and got every member to sponsor one dog or cat? They could take one of our pets during the day and show him off, sending out e-mails to their customers. Again, it’s a way to get our pets out into the limelight so they can strut their stuff.”
The others were impressed by the old vet’s marketing savvy. Hayley encouraged him to pursue it. “Sounds great. Can you do it?”
“Honey, I’m not too old to pick up the phone.”
Todd checked his watch. “We need to call Brenda.”
Hayley put her desk phone on speaker and dialed the number of the TV station.
After introductions were exchanged, Brenda got to her forte: problem solving. “I am so sorry to hear about the shelter, but I’ve been working on an idea that just might work. It’s not an original idea, but I saw a story from one of our affiliates in Minnesota, and it occurred to me that we might be able to pull off something similar here. According to my research, only twenty percent of pets are acquired from shelters.…”
Hayley confirmed her research. “That’s right. It’s a problem for us. People convince themselves that they have to have a very specific breed of dog, so they go to breeders or they make an impulse purchase from a pet store.”
“So, imagine this.… What if I could get you space in one of the busiest malls in the Midwest, for one afternoon only, to market your pets to thousands of shoppers?”
Laura bit. “That would beat the heck out of waiting for them to somehow come to us, but how could you do that?”
“To start with, I went to our news director and dug through hundreds of press releases. It wasn’t hard to find one from the Mall of the Prairie. They would love for us to do a story on their Santa, their reindeer, and their giant tree. We won’t though, because it’s not that newsworthy. So I called Joan, the mall’s publicity director, and shared with her an idea that just might make the Mall of the Prairie’s holiday event newsworthy. The mall management might be able to make some prime space available for an afternoon at no charge. Of course, they’re gambling that furry warm puppies and kittens might be an even better draw than an old man in a red suit.”
Hayley was starting to see where this was going. “When is the event?”
“That’s the hard part. It’s on Sunday.”
Laura’s jaw dropped. “You mean this Sunday—in three days!”
“That’s right. If you’re interested, I’ll let Joan know and she’ll call you to make the arrangements.”
Doc Pelot didn’t care if they needed to be ready in three hours. “Tell her to call. We’re in!”
“I can’t do a story on just your shelter, but I can do something on all the shelters in the area and focus on your event at the mall as the backdrop. It’ll get you a little attention.”
“That’s good! We’ll take it.” Todd looked at his fellow workers, hoping they too were pleased.
They broke up the meeting feeling a little less overwhelmed. Todd was relieved that everyone had liked Brenda’s idea, but during the entire meeting he found his mind wandering to his date night with Laura. Before she left the shelter, Todd took her aside to discuss her choice of restaurant. “Do you think instead of Dutch food, we could have pizza?”
Laura laughed. “Todd, Dutch treat means we each pay for our own; it’s not a kind of food.”
As Todd got more comfortable in his relationship with Laura, he became less embarrassed by his miscues and took them in stride. He thought about it for a minute and said, “Oh, I didn’t know that. Can we still do pizza?”
Laura hugged him gently. “Of course. Pepperoni?”
“I’ll see you later.”
With their feet resting on a pet crate that was serving as a de facto coffee table in Todd’s cabin, Laura and Todd finished off a large extra-cheese, extra-pepperoni pizza and an order of breadsticks. They leaned back, ready to burst, and Todd used the remote to start a dog-training video that had arrived the day before. The opening segment showed a professional trainer working with dogs and the human partners they were soon to be paired with. Each canine and human team was working together to perform a variety of tasks. The narrator explained, “The Heartland School for Dogs is a not-for-profit organization that provides guide, social, and service dogs to hundreds of deserving individuals in over thirty-four different states.” The camera then cut to a shot of a dog helping a man in a wheelchair change his shirt. The dog grabbed the cuff of the sleeve in his mouth and gently pulled.
Todd had become a big fan of the Heartland School for Dogs and had made more than a few calls to Julie Bradshaw, the head trainer and expert dog handler featured in the videos. Shy was not a tag anyone ever tried to hang on Todd. When he hit a training plateau with Gracie, he would just pick up the phone and describe the problem to his new friend Julie, who seemed to enjoy helping him and hearing all about Gracie and Laura’s unfolding partnership.
The more time she spent with Todd, the more Laura found herself being drawn to some of his clothing choices. She had taken to wearing black Converse tennis shoes. In contrast to her always crisp nursing uniforms, she was already inclined toward tattered and ripped blue jeans. For date night she decided to wear the Pet-a-thon T-shirt Todd had given her. He had received the shirt in exchange for a twenty-five-dollar donation. When she wore it the first time, he had commented, “You sure look a lot better in that than I would.”
Resting on his haunches, with Todd’s left arm draped around him, was Christmas—also alertly following the dog-training action on the screen. Striking a similar position, nested under Laura’s right arm, was an equally enthralled Gracie. Class was in session. All four sets of eyes were mesmerized by the skills they were witnessing.
About fifteen minutes into the video, Todd was ready for a break. He paused the video and looked at the white retriever. He said her name in a firm way to signal that he was about to ask her to execute a command. “Gracie.” After he was sure he had the dog’s attention, he started a complex series of commands that had taken him two months of Friday afternoons to perfect. “Refrigerator!”
Even though he thought he was doing everything just like in the Heartland video, for the first month he had gotten nowhere. Todd had e-mailed Julie Bradshaw a video, and she could tell right away what he was doing wrong with Gracie.
“Todd, you can’t combine that many steps,” Julie had told him. “You have to break it down and teach her one step at a time. Each step has to be broken down further, too.”
Gracie stood in front of the refrigerator waiting for the next command and Todd issued it: “Tug!”
There was an old towel tied to the handle of the refrigerator door. Gracie grabbed it and pulled the door open. Tugging had started out being a game and then, slowly over a few weeks, Todd was able to move the tugging toy (a towel with knots in it) onto the object that he wanted her to open. Because of the suction, the door on the old refrigerator was difficult to open. In the beginning, he had had to open it for her and repeatedly praise her. Now she confidently gave it a sufficient yank on her own.
Todd issued the next command: “Dr Pepper.” Gracie then reached in and gently removed a plastic bottle of soda, holding it near the top where the bottle was narrower. According to Julie, the ability to handle objects gently is one reason that retrievers often make such great service dogs. She told Todd, “Retrievers have very soft mouths. They can pick up a piece of paper without wrinkling it or even staining it with saliva.”
“Close the door!” Todd commanded. Gracie posi
tioned herself on the other side of the door and used her front paws to push the door closed. This move was also anything but easy to execute. Todd had had to break it down into several steps and make a game of jumping up on the wall and then expanding the jumping command to include cabinet doors, bathroom doors, kitchen drawers, and, ultimately, the refrigerator door.
“Fetch, Gracie!” Gracie brought the plastic bottle to Todd and gently released it to Todd’s control. Todd profusely and excitedly praised Gracie and then fed her one of the small training treats.
Several months earlier, when Gracie had successfully completed “refrigerator retrieval,” Todd had made a video of the whole process and e-mailed it to Julie. She had e-mailed him back: “A+ work to you and Gracie!”
Although they had never met in person, Julie and Todd enjoyed sharing dog-training stories. Julie was curious about Gracie and Laura’s unfolding partnership, and Todd was more than willing to keep her posted. After a few exchanges of videos and e-mails, Julie knew that Todd had limitations, but at the same time it was obvious to her that he had an instinctive talent for dog training that could not be taught.
Todd printed out the e-mail from Julie Bradshaw and showed it to Laura. Although she was fully capable of getting her own soda, and rarely asked Gracie to do such things for her, she nonetheless appreciated Todd’s carefully choreographed training exercise. She realized that for the wheelchair- or bed-bound individual, these skills were at the very core of what service dogs must learn to do.
Todd handed Laura her Dr Pepper and hit “Play” on the remote. Todd was impressed by Julie and her dogs and put words to what he expected his own dog must be feeling: “I know; you’re good too, Christmas!” He then pulled the Lab closer. “You’re fantastic.”
A Christmas Home: A Novel Page 8