by Jon Katz
He grabbed her in a bear hug and spun her around.
She didn’t have time for rehearsing. She had to drive forty miles to Schuylerville. She patched together a kind of outfit—it was the best she could do on short notice—red patent-leather pumps, a sequined miniskirt, a sleeveless blouse, and one of Greg’s old cowboy hats.
She had six orange cones and some ramps she had bought for an agility class she and the dogs had attended for a while. The cones and ramps and two hoops were the only props she had at this point.
She didn’t know if the inn had a sound system, so she grabbed her boom box and two CDs—Shakira and Jencarlos’s Búscame. She gathered up the three jeweled collars and stuffed them in a bag, along with a Ziploc bagful of kibble. She grabbed the box of liver treats and the leashes, then she rushed out to the Honda with the three dogs. Greg came out and gave her a kiss and a hug, and wished her luck.
An hour later, she pulled up to the inn and parked in the rear. When she and the dogs got out, a security guard came up and yelled that no dogs were allowed. When she told him they were part of the entertainment for the Lions, he looked dubious. He got on his walkie-talkie to check with someone inside, then waved her on.
Inside, she found Charles McKinney. They decided to keep the dogs in a storage room until dinner was nearly over and it was time for the entertainment. He led her down a hallway that ran alongside the big hall where the Lions were noisily working through their chicken dinners.
There was a kind of homemade stage in the front of the big banquet hall, raised up a bit in front of the scores of big round tables where all the Lions and their spouses and guests sat. The platform was a bit cramped—maybe fifteen by thirty feet, with a satin curtain in the rear and a backstage area. The dogs had not been on anything like it before, which worried Kara a bit. There was a sound system, so she handed McKinney her CDs.
“We appreciate your coming on such short notice,” he said, adding that she would be paid after the performance. He said the Lions’ chorale would be singing on the stage after she and the dogs were through. She was a sort of warm-up act, he continued, smiling thinly.
“Thanks for the opportunity,” she said.
McKinney quickly showed her the storeroom, and asked her if there was anything she needed, then left hurriedly to attend to other business.
There was a freezer in the back of the storeroom, the motor of which kept clicking on and off. Ned and Sasha seemed anxious. Ned walked over to a cardboard box marked “Napkins” and lifted his leg. She shouted at him to get off. Candi growled at the freezer. Then the overhead pipes started clanking, startling all four of them.
She could see her reflection on the side of the freezer. She looked a bit Vegas, she thought, in her short skirt and revealing blouse. She put the sequined collars on the dogs.
Fifteen minutes later, McKinney opened the door. “It’s time to go on. I’ll show you the way to the banquet hall.”
Kara thought she was going to faint. She took a deep breath, took the dogs off leash, and jogged down the hall after McKinney. They waited outside while the announcer said the group was about to get a rare treat—a hot new act called “Tara and Her Dancing Dogs.” Kara heard murmurs of approval and some clapping, and then at Mr. McKinney’s cue, she opened the hallway door and charged in.
Onstage, she waited for the music. There wasn’t any. She looked around the room at the two hundred or so Lions, many of them still working on dessert, waiters and waitresses scrambling around the tables. The lights in the room went down, and two spotlights hit her right in the face. She wasn’t sure what to do until the music began.
The dogs looked at her expectantly, and she clapped her hands, reached for some treats and started to stomp her feet—the signal to the dogs that she was about to begin.
But the dogs didn’t dance.
Suddenly, Ned and Sasha bolted off to her left, while Candi waited, staring at her treat bag.
She heard some guffaws from the audience. Then she heard a crash and bang offstage where two of her dogs had run. A few people booed. Worse, a few more laughed.
A stagehand appeared at the end of the platform, hissing at her and pointing to the rear. She called Candi over to her and yelled to the audience, “Wait a second, folks!” and ran off to the side. More laughing.
It seemed the dogs had startled a couple of stagehands carrying some chairs and a lectern, and these had fallen on the floor. Sasha was still sniffing madly toward the rear wall, while Ned was circling in confusion.
Kara clapped her hands and stomped, and the three dogs more or less gathered around her, except for Sasha, who had her nose down and was trying to get around the curtain. Kara looked out at the crowd and put her hands up, a signal to the dogs.
Suddenly, Shakira came blasting over a loudspeaker, and Candi and Ned hopped up on their hind legs, circling twice before there was another crash from backstage somewhere and both dogs took off out the door they had come in through.
Kara was beet red, the audience was chuckling and murmuring. McKinney appeared, sweating and uncomfortable. This was bad.
Kara bowed, fighting back tears, and called to Sasha. “Hey!” she bellowed in a voice that could be heard distinctly from the back of the room. Sasha looked up and froze, as if she’d suddenly been awakened from a trance.
The dog hopped up on her two legs—Shakira was still blaring over the loudspeaker—and started dancing, although she seemed to be looking for the other dogs.
“Forget it,” said Kara, and shooed the dog from the back of the stage and out the door, where they found Ned and Candi also hopping up and down and dancing to the music. Kara clapped her hands and led all three dogs back into the storeroom. McKinney followed her in.
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “These things happen.” He gave her back her CDs and a check for $250 “for her trouble.”
Kara was sobbing when she called Greg on her cell phone. “We made fools of ourselves because I put them in a position they weren’t ready to deal with. I could just shoot myself. Now, nobody will hire us.”
When she got back, Greg was on the phone. He was smiling. He even greeted the dogs. Something was up.
“I just called Old Man Frazier,” he said. “He needs a driver to deliver mulch. He called me a month ago, but I blew him off. It pays fourteen an hour. Not great, but there’s overtime if I want it.”
Kara was speechless. This is not what she expected.
“But honey, driving a truck with mulch?” It wasn’t what he had wanted. It was below his capabilities.
Greg walked over, put his arms around her, gave her a big hug and a provocative kiss, tongue and all.
“Kara, you need to make this thing with the dogs work. You’ve been cleaning houses and running cash registers while I’ve been sitting around, and now it’s my turn to go to work and your turn to give what you want a shot. I’ll help you.”
Kara burst into tears. She hugged Greg, and patted him on his ass. He blushed. Enough said.
AS IT TURNED OUT, Greg actually liked his new job. In a couple of weeks, he was making enough money to cover the mortgage and most of their monthly bills, enough to give Kara some time to get her act together, he joked.
Kara decided to make the most of her chance. In exchange for maintaining the grounds and cleaning the clubhouse, a local Border Collie Association gave her morning use of their agility field, which had ramps, cones, hoops, and platforms.
Greg went off to work at seven A.M. But Kara was up at five, cleaning the house, doing chores, going online, reading her manuals and books. By sunup, she and the dogs were already at the agility course. She swept up the office, dusted, and emptied the trash bins. Then she went outside and cleaned up the dog poop, set up the cones, made sure all the bills and beams were set up properly.
After that, it was time to work. Dogs have short attention spans, so she decided to train in fifteen-minute intervals. She’d gotten chopped liver and raw hamburger and mixed the meat with a bit of molasses to make her ow
n training treats. She’d also bought a rubber fishing pouch—the kind fishermen used to put their catch in—to hold the treats.
She tracked down two dancing-dog troupes in Florida, and they graciously spent hours on the phone with her, talking about routines and training methods, especially about how to keep the dogs focused on the work when there were so many unnerving distractions.
So Kara arranged for other dogs to appear suddenly, to bark and run around. Sometimes Greg came by in his mulch truck to bang metal drums and dance and yell to make noise. Other times, people came by with their intense border collies and Australian shepherds, and they ran through the agility course right in front of the corgis. Kara threw treats on the ground and made the corgis stay. She turned on her boom box and played sound-effect CDs with cheering crowds, traffic jams, thunder. All the while, she had them dancing through the mayhem. When they paid attention, they got the liver-burger-molasses balls. When they ran off, looked away, barked, growled, or acknowledged the parade of loud and raucous distractions, they got nothing. No treats, no praise. She would simply walk off the portable platform she and Greg had built as a practice stage.
She carved out a dozen fifteen-minute training periods, beginning at seven A.M. and working through to two P.M. She began each hour with a different dance or act. First, they hopped around to a Latin-beat selection. Then, they did a rock segment, where they jumped up and down to the Who and the Stones.
She worked on a “Born in the U.S.A.” number, where the dogs raced in from offstage, jumped through three hoops, climbed to the top of a seesaw ramp, and did a kind of shake-’em-up corgi jitterbug.
There was one slow dance, where Ned and Candi sort of waltzed with each other to a Gershwin tune playing in the background. And then there was the Shakira finale, where all three dogs charged onstage and did a Rockette-style line dance. In between, they jumped through hoops, circled the agility cones, and then they danced in a circle around Kara while she raised her arms and did a cha-cha.
She eventually narrowed the acts down to three or four and concentrated on those, giving each a distinct name and musical background, and a different costume for her, so the dogs had plenty of cues.
KARA TALKED to neighbors, called schools and festivals, even tried to get an agent in New York City. No luck. One week, she put a small ad in the local Pennysaver offering her dog act for children’s parties. A week later, she got a call from a woman named Jean Kashimian, a social worker.
Jean said she wanted to bring her to the Green Valley Nursing Home’s Alzheimer’s/Dementia Unit to perform for the patients there, many of whom were enrolled in the county’s hospice program and were near death. Jean said Kara would have to present rabies-vaccination certificates, and they would put up a wire gate between the dogs and the patients at first, so there would be no potential for trouble. But the patients loved dogs, loved all kinds of animals.
Jean said they could pay $150 for a one-hour visit.
At first, Kara said she’d have to think about it. It wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but still, in the end, it was a gig, a chance to try out her training practices. She had to start somewhere. So she took the job after all.
One sunny, early winter day, she pulled up in her minivan to the sprawling, one-story nursing home. She had driven by it a thousand times, but never really looked at it before.
She took a deep breath, put the dogs on their triple harness, and let them out of the car. Jean was waiting in front of the main entrance.
“I can see you’re nervous,” she said. “Don’t be. They’ll love you guys.”
Kara signed in and walked with her dogs down four long corridors. Kara could smell the institutional food right away, the potatoes and soup. When they got to a door at the end of a long hallway, Jean punched in a security code.
She explained that the code had to be used, as patients sometimes got confused or tried to get out. “They all think they’re going home.”
They walked into an atrium. The dogs’ claws clicked on the smooth linoleum floors. Kara saw one elderly man strapped into a wheelchair shouting, “Martha! Martha! Martha!” over and over again. A woman next to him held her ears, and another was clutching her side in pain. Two women sitting on benches against one wall smiled and waved at her and the dogs. “Look, look, look!” said one, excited as a kid at a carnival.
Jean brought Kara and the dogs over to a small gated-off area that separated them from the patients. Immediately, one woman walked over and knelt to the floor. Candi came right up to her, waving her docked tail. The woman put her hands on her face and exclaimed, “Why, Spot! You used to be just a little poodle. And look at you now. You’re a big brown and white dog with the most wonderful eyes.”
Candi wiggled and squirmed with delight.
Another woman rolled up in a wheelchair. “This is my dog,” she said. “I used to have this dog.” She was smiling. Jean whispered to Kara that she hadn’t spoken in months.
A man came up and looked angrily at Kara. “Are you ready to take me home? I’m waiting to go home.”
No, she said, she wasn’t. He cursed at her, and pointed his finger, until a nurse came up and gently guided him back to a bench.
Kara plugged in her boom box, and took out the Bruce Springsteen CD. When “Born in the U.S.A.” came on, the dogs went up on their hind legs and danced for their lives.
The response from the audience was the strangest and most wonderful thing Kara had ever seen. People clapping, circling their wheelchairs, trying to dance with the dogs, yelling and shouting for joy. Afterward, Jean opened the gate, and the dogs rushed out to greet the patients, who leaned over to pet them and say hello.
One woman bent over so that she was almost nose to nose with Candi. “You remind me of my dog, you beautiful thing. My Hugo. I remember him.” The nurse said later it was the first thing Mrs. McCandless had remembered in a long time.
“Nobody comes here, not even their families much,” Jean said. “It means the world to them to see a dog. This is better than I’d hoped.”
It took an hour for Kara and the dogs to get out. The corgis loved the attention.
Jean signed Kara and the dogs up for weekly visits to several nursing homes in the area. They said they could pay her $400 a month for five visits. Kara agreed.
Two weeks later, she got a call from a man named Harry Avanti. “I’m a local theatrical agent, from Albany,” he said. “I don’t handle Brad Pitt, but I have fun. I represent acts for weddings, county fairs, corporate meetings. My daughter-in-law, Jean Kashimian, always talks about the work you’ve been doing in the nursing homes. I’ve got a gig at the Columbia County Fair and one at the Washington County Fair. Your act is a natural. One thousand dollars for three performances over two days, two in the evening, one matinee. If this works out, I’ve got a dozen kids’ parties coming up. I get fifteen percent, do all the bookings, and collect the money for you. What do you think?”
For once in her life, Kara was speechless. She couldn’t believe it. She wanted to scream for joy, but just stood there opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish.
“Kara?”
“I’m just thinking,” Kara said, trying to play it cool. “Okay, yes,” she said. “Yes.”
Lucky’s Day
WHEN PETE AND SALLY’S ALARM WENT OFF AND THEY STIRRED IN bed, the first part of Lucky’s day began. He jumped up onto the bed to say good morning. Usually he got a cuddle, but today Pete and Sally were in a hurry, hopping out of bed and into the bathroom with just a cursory pat on Lucky’s head.
Lucky was a small brown mutt with big ears and a short stumpy tail. The shelter people called him a “Heinz 57,” as he seemed to be a little bit of everything. They told Pete and Sally that he might have been abused, which helped solidify the idea that the little dog needed to go home with them.
Pete and Sally did not believe in buying a dog when there were so many that needed homes. Lucky knew the word “abused.” He heard it often, whenever he misbehaved, bark
ed too much, growled at someone, peed on the floor, or looked particularly sad. Usually, those behaviors would result in more food and attention, so he began to think it was an important word.
Every morning while Pete and Sally got ready, Lucky lay at the foot of the bed, waiting for them to lead the way downstairs. For Lucky, going downstairs meant it would soon be time to have breakfast. But first, he was let out into the yard, while Pete or Sally yelled after him, “Good boy, Lucky, do your business!” which he did. As soon as he returned to the house, it was time to eat.
Some mornings, Pete or Sally would take him on a walk through the neighborhood, but that usually happened on days when they didn’t have to leave. Lucky watched closely to see where they looked—if they looked at the coat rack, he would get a walk. If they didn’t, he usually wouldn’t. This morning, he didn’t.
Lucky didn’t know where Pete or Sally went, which made him anxious, as there was no way to keep an eye on them when they were gone. He often ran to the door, hoping to be taken along. A few times he raced past them and got as far as the car, but Pete or Sally always brought him back in.
“Get back, boy,” said Pete, leaning over to stroke him.
“I always feel bad leaving him,” Sally said almost every morning as she tossed a biscuit down on the floor to make Lucky feel better. “I bet he just mopes all day.”
Lucky looked Pete in the eye, then Sally. As they moved to put on their coats, he whined and barked. “It’s okay,” said Sally, reaching down to pet him. “We’ll be back.”
Pete gave Lucky another treat to reassure him. But still, he looked stricken and Lucky knew it tore their hearts. As they headed for the garage, Lucky stared with a haunted look out the window. He whined and barked until they had gotten into the car and driven away.
ONCE THEY WERE GONE, the second part of Lucky’s day began.
Pete and Sally went right out of Lucky’s mind as soon as the car was out of sight. They simply vanished, and although he came across their smells all day, and certain things triggered images and memories of them, he would not otherwise think of them again until he heard the familiar sound of their car pull into the drive some time later. Lucky had no consciousness of what he could not see, no sense of the passing of time, no notion of the difference between one hour and one day. And he had a lot of other things to think about.