Dog Tags for Christmas

by Lindsay McKenna

  Nodding, Nick said, “She’s doing well.” When the Lab was finished, he slowly produced the last piece of bacon, offering it to Lady. She came forward without fear, delicately taking the bacon from his fingers. Once again, she backed off.

  “She’s doing really, really well,” Holly said.

  “Sure is. I think time, Snowflake, and the bacon made the breakthrough,” he said, giving her a boyish grin.

  Lady came forward, touching Snowflake’s nose. And then, she turned, looking toward Holly. Nick watched as the Lab hesitantly turned and walked slowly down the alley once again. About midway, she halted, and looked over her shoulder at them.

  “She looks like she doesn’t want to leave us,” Holly said, hopeful.

  “Yes, she’s waffling.”

  Holly held her breath, watching the yellow Lab as she stood there, as if invisibly torn between wanting to come back to them, and leaving. Finally, her feral side won out and she walked toward the other end of the alley, tail tucked between her legs.

  “I wish she’d follow us home. It’s only half a mile to our charity. Think she would come inside our apartment?” Holly asked, hopefully.

  “I doubt that,” Nick warned. “She likes you and Snowflake, but she’s still unsure about me. I wouldn’t even try to get her inside our apartment because if she panicked, she’d tear it apart trying to escape. It’s too soon to even think about that, Holly.” Nick gave her a sad look. “Sorry, but this is a long-term kind of thing with an animal like Lady.”

  “But it’s so cold out here, Nick!” she grimaced, “and late December in Hamilton, the weather is going to get below zero. I worry for her. She’s a short-haired dog. I want so much to knit her a nice yarn coat that she could wear out here, but I don’t think she’d let me put it on her.”

  Nick watched Lady, who again hesitated at the other end of the alley, giving them a long, yearning look. Snowflake whined and then looked up at him. “Does she want to come back with us, boy?” He leaned over, patting his shepherd’s head.

  “Why is she hesitating like that?” Holly asked.

  “Dogs are pack animals,” he said. “She’s starting to bond with us, Holly. She doesn’t want to leave her pack, but she’s afraid, given her past. And fear is stopping her from fully trusting me, in particular. I think if you and Snowflake were here by yourselves, she might have followed you back to the van.”

  “She has to trust you, too,” Holly said, watching the Lab. “We’re together. We’re not separating you out because you’re a male and a male probably hurt her in the past.”

  “Well,” he said, rubbing one of Snowflake’s black and white spotted ears, “she’s wanting to trust me. We don’t want to know her past life before meeting us because it’s probably pretty brutal. I saw dogs like this in Afghanistan. They’re maltreated there all the time.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Holly said, holding up her hand. “I can’t stand to watch TV commercials where animals have been mistreated. I have to turn off the sound and then leave the room.”

  He gave her a warm look. “I love your soft heart, Ms. McGuire. You stay that way, okay?” he teased.

  Rallying, Holly saw Lady slowly go to the left and disappear out of their line of sight. “I wish we knew where she lived.”

  “I’ve stopped myself from snooping around,” Nick said, now urging Snowflake to get up. He walked over to Holly, placing his arm around her shoulders, walking her toward the curb where the van was parked.

  “Why?”

  “Because if we find her nest, she’ll have to move and never return to it. Lady has to have a sense of safety and if she smells me or Snowflake around it, she could feel threatened. She might think that I, as a man, have compromised her safe place.” His mouth firmed. “So, I don’t try to find her. She knows we’re going to show up at this alley three times a day now and she’s here like clockwork. It’s as good as it gets.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Get that worry off your forehead, okay? She’s gained a lot of her lost weight back and she’s getting fed well. Those things will help Lady not feel so cold even when the temp goes down.”

  Pouting, Holly muttered, “I don’t care. No animal should be out in this kind of winter weather.”

  He opened the van door for her. “No disagreement, but the ball is in Lady’s court, sweetheart.”

  She warmed to his endearment, sliding into the passenger-side seat. Nick placed Snowflake into the van and the dog came up to stand between the front seats. Holly petted his head, loving the gleam in his beautiful, blue eyes. “You really like Lady, don’t you?”

  Stub and butt wriggling, Snowflake whined.

  Nick grinned as he slid into the driver’s seat. “He’s head-over-heels in love with Lady. Never mind she outweighs him, is taller, and longer than he is.” He shut the door, turning on the engine.

  “I don’t think dogs see things like that,” Holly said, smiling, rubbing Snowflake’s thick, wiry fur across his back. The dog loved standing between the seats.

  “They don’t,” Nick said. “But they do have likes and dislikes, even in a pack. Snowflake is an alpha male. And Lady acts like an alpha female. So that’s part of the attraction.”

  “I wonder if she’s spayed or not?”

  “Probably not,” Nick said. “A lot of redneck owners who abuse their dogs by chaining them up aren’t thinking about such things.”

  “That’s awful,” Holly muttered, pulling her seatbelt across her body. “Is Snowflake fixed?”

  “Yep. The Army wants their dogs, whether male or female, not thinking about breeding. They all get fixed so they focus on the job they’re to do, not be distracted by hormones and such.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “I just wish pet owners would always be responsible like that. Too many aren’t.”

  “I know,” he agreed, turning the van around and heading out of town on sloppy, salty, watery Main Street. It was midday and the sky was turning gray with an oncoming front that was slowly moving into their area. The weather forecasters were warning of a major snowstorm across the Rockies. Because Hamilton sat on the east side of the mountains, they received a lot less snow, but they got the frigid cold.

  “I really think we made huge steps with Lady today. Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Tonight after we get our shut-ins fed, we’ll see if she’ll duplicate that same behavior.”

  “I think I’ll tell Myra to cook up some more bacon this afternoon,” she said, smiling fondly, her hand resting on Snowflake’s back.

  “Well, Lady can use that extra fat because she’s going to have to deal with below zero conditions this coming Christmas.”

  “I can’t believe it will be that cold! The weather is changing so dramatically!” she exclaimed. “Did you know that our average temperature is eighteen degrees in the winter?”

  “I know. And snow is accumulating a lot more this year than I’ve ever seen it before.”

  “This past summer, before you arrived home, we used to get around thirteen-inches of rain for the whole year. But we’ve had some hellacious fronts come through and dump a lot more than usual. The Bitterroot River flooded a couple of times because of thunderstorms in the mountains, and it all converged here, in Hamilton. No one has gotten flooded out—yet. But the weather is quirky and unpredictable.”

  Nick pulled into the charity parking lot and switched off the engine. “Mom was telling me about that flooding. Everything’s changing, that’s for sure. The forecasters are saying there’s a string of lows coming in off the Alaska Gulf and it’s going to deliver record-setting amounts of snow, along with off-the-charts temperature plunges.”

  “I worry about Lady.”

  “I know you do,” and Nick reached over, lightly touching her cheek. “She’ll survive because she’s a survivor.”

  “But wouldn’t she love a nice, warm room and a soft doggy bed like Snowflake has?”

  “I’m sure she would,” he said, opening the door. “Why don’t you and Snowflake go
inside? I’ll load the dishwasher. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Nick watched Lady quickly gulp her food, her shadowy form highlighted by a streetlight midway down the alley. It was around nineteen degrees out tonight and he and Holly were bundled up to ward off the sharp, gusty wind. Holly stood, moving from one foot to another, nothing but nervous energy. Nick knew she was worried about Lady freezing to death during Christmas week. Looking up, he saw a gunmetal-darkened sky promising snow fairly soon.

  “Here she comes,” Holly said, excited.

  Nick watched the Lab closely. This time she wasn’t as tense as she approached. She came up without hesitation to touch noses with Snowflake, who was wriggling his stub for all it was worth, saying hello to her. Lady gave Nick a passing look, and he saw the wariness in her dark, shadowed eyes, but her body wasn’t tensing up this time. All those were good signs as he watched the Lab go quickly over to Holly.

  This time Holly crouched down on one knee, lifting both her hands, and patting Lady’s head, shoulders, and body. The dog’s tail was like a metronome broadcasting her happiness over being showered with such genuine affection from Holly. After petting her, she gave the dog her bacon, which Lady quickly slurped down, and then looking at Holly, silently asked for more.

  Laughing, Holly slowly stood up, her hand on Lady’s head. “No, I don’t have any more, girl.” She gestured toward Nick. “He has some for you, though. Go to him, girl.”

  Nick crouched down after telling Snowflake to sit, which he did. His partner knew what was going to happen next as he reached into his pocket and drew out a piece of bacon. He called softly to Lady, who turned, looked him up and down, and then willingly made her way over to him. She took the proffered bacon, standing, chewing it with relish, but not moving away from him as she had this afternoon. Nick was sure the dog was cold. And he could see her weighing her proximity to him. As he continued to talk to her in a low, soothing voice, he gave her a second and third piece of bacon. Making no attempt to reach out and touch her, he was surprised when she boldly came forward, her face almost in his, cautiously sniffing him. He remained still, allowing her to smell him from his head, shoulders, arms, and chest.

  Nick understood what she was doing: familiarizing herself with his scent. What was going on in her dog brain right now? Was she tucking away his scent in her memory and putting it in the “safe” category? Or the “food” category? She wouldn’t have come up and sniffed him at all if she distrusted him. She’d have backed off as she had so many times before.

  “I think she’s saying hello to you, Nick. That’s the first time she’s smelled you.”

  He gave a bare nod of his head, not wanting to startle Lady, who remained close, still testing the air around him. The Lab could smell one last piece of bacon he had tucked away in his pocket, and he grinned, keeping his eyes averted from hers. Dogs, like all other animals, often took direct eye contact as a threat or challenge. Nick wanted Lady to consider him part of the pack, but not the leader.

  Lady moved to his left side, pointedly smelling, and making noisy chuffing sounds near his left pocket where he had the Ziploc bag with the last piece of bacon in it. He suppressed a chuckle, spoke quietly to her, and kept his movements slow as he retrieved it. To his surprise, she sat down, watching with great interest as he dug into the pocket, thumping her tail with anticipation. To sit down meant she felt a certain kind of comfort level with him, even though he was a man. His heart soared as he realized he’d built up her trust one meeting at a time, one piece of bacon at a time. Labs were gluttons when left to their own devices. They’d eat anything. And it was the lure of the bacon that had finally melted that barrier between her and him.

  Nick didn’t take Lady’s acceptance of him lightly, however. They had a long road to go yet, and he wished that they were further along in their trust issues. That way, he might have been able to get the dog into the garage beneath their apartment and make her a much warmer and comfortable place to stay.

  As he eased his hand out of his pocket and extended the food to Lady, she took it with great delicacy, sitting there, munching it with great relish, smacking her lips, her pink tongue on the move. Nick smiled as he saw the pleasure come to her expressive, gold face, her dark eyes glistening with pleasure. Wanting to reach out and touch her gently, he stopped himself. Snowflake, when off the leash and at the apartment, would come up for pats from him, sometimes nosing his leg or licking his hand. His shepherd wasn’t shy about wanting that physical contact with him. He wondered if Lady would be the same. She finished off the bacon, licking both sides of her muzzle one last time. For a moment, she really looked into his eyes. Nick felt an energy, a probing coming from her, but couldn’t define it.

  Lady stood up, shook herself, and then wandered back to Holly. It was time for her to go. Lady said goodbye to her, came to Snowflake, touched his nose, and then stood there, staring up at Nick.

  He didn’t move.

  Turning, Lady ambled down the alleyway again, with that same hesitation.

  Nick tried to swallow his disappointment. A feral animal couldn’t be forced into anything. It had to be on the animal’s time, making it their decision, not his or Holly’s. He knew how much she wanted to try and get Lady inside for this coming round of bad weather. She would worry herself to death about Lady. But there was nothing he could do about it. To reach out and try to place a collar on Lady, or in any way manhandle her to get her into the van and then take her to the garage, would shatter the trust that had been built up between all of them, tonight. No, they all had to be patient. Very patient.

  December 23rd

  Holly said goodbye to their last shut-in, making sure Mrs. Cannon had been taken care of. Nick stood out in the hall with the sack containing items that would be washed back at the charity. The first weather front had come through. It dropped only two-inches of snow, which wasn’t much, but the thermometer went down to zero overnight. Always worried that her shut-ins would not be properly warm, Holly took extra time to ensure they had socks on their feet, sturdy knit slippers that she’d made for each of them for Christmas, and that their heating source was working properly.

  Bundled up, they hurried to the van, Snowflake off the leash trotting at Nick’s side. Gusting wind cut through the Main Street area. Holly noticed no one was outside in this life-threatening temperature unless they had to be. Worried about Lady, she compressed her lips and climbed into the passenger seat after Nick had opened the door for her. He stashed all the sacks in the back while Snowflake leaped in, taking his place between them. She patted his head, smiling into his darkened eyes, the blue color in them illuminated by a streetlamp near the vehicle. Her breath was white.

  “This reminds me of Afghanistan,” Nick growled, shutting the door and turning on the van. He cranked up the heater.

  “The cold?”

  “Yeah, we were stationed near the Hindu Kush Mountains and we froze our asses off,” he grumbled, pulling away from the curb.

  “What did you do for Snowflake?”

  “I put protective, sheepskin-lined paw boots on him for starters. Dogs can get their pads frostbitten, and the type of work we did was always in rough, rugged country. He’s got a really thick coat so I never put any cover over his back.”

  “Those paw boots sound like a godsend. I wonder how Lady’s paws are holding up?”

  “Well,” he said, reaching out and squeezing her knee, “she’s not out in this weather. She’s hunkered down in her nest, wherever it is. Her paws will be tucked up beneath her body, so she’ll do okay.”

  “This is just awful weather, Nick,” Holly said, chewing on her lip, frowning as she watched the buildings as the van moved past them.

  “Not nice,” he agreed. “At least your shut-ins are all doing good. No heaters have broken down, there’s ample propane or oil in tanks for others, so they’ll be okay as this series of storms passes through.”

  “Can dogs get their ears frostbitten?”

  He glanced at her as he
drew the van up to the curb between the two brick buildings. “They can, but it’s rare. Are you concerned Lady’s ears might freeze tonight?”

  She opened her gloved hands. “Yes, I am. I really worry for her out in this. I mean, you don’t see any animals or humans out tonight, Nick.”

  “There she is,” he said, pointing toward the alley. “Waiting for us.”

  “Oh, good!” Holly said, relief in her tone. She quickly climbed out, her boots crunching in the few inches of snow frozen on the sidewalk.

  Nick gave her a tender look and kept the van on, wanting to keep the interior heated. They would be good and cold by the time they came back to it. He saw Holly slipping and sliding, arms out from her body to balance herself across the icy expanse as she went into the alley. Lady was already trotting up it toward her. Smiling, Nick placed Snowflake on his long leash, climbed out of the van, and grabbed Lady’s dog bowl that he’d made up earlier. Tucking the other bowl under his arm and grabbing the quart of warmed water, he called his shepherd out of the van, and then slid the door shut. Snowflake was leaping around and Nick laughed as they made their way around the vehicle and over to the sidewalk. The stars were out, huge, twinkling globules in the ebony-velvet, night sky.

  He watched where he was walking, balancing the bowls and water, and holding on to his dog’s leash. To his delight, he saw Lady come up to Holly, wagging her tail wildly, licking her gloved hand, really glad to see her. She leaned over and gave the dog a hug, her arm going around Lady’s neck. For a moment, Nick hesitated, expecting the dog to jerk back or react. But Lady didn’t, much to his surprise. Holly kissed the top of her broad head, hugged her again, crouching in front of her, running her hands all over her long, lean body.

  Nick didn’t want to scare Lady, so he approached slowly, well within her line of sight. The Lab saw him and looked up, unwilling to leave Holly’s warm, loving embrace. The cooing sounds of love she was bestowing upon Lady made her gold eyes glisten.

  Nick saw Lady wag her tail at him in a friendly fashion. He told Snowflake to sit and his dog obeyed. Placing the leash holder next to him, he left a good six-feet between himself and Holly. Placing the food down, he stepped back, calling Lady to come and eat.