Dog House

by Carol Prisant

  On those mellow summer evenings after dinner, with Emma in one or the other of our laps, we’d talk softly into the firefly-lit dark about what still needed to be done in the garden and to the house. We were impressed by what we’d built. We gloated.

  C: Don’t you love the way the Victorian mound looks this year? It almost looks like something you’d see in a British park.

  M: That one piece of the mound seems to be less full of flowers than the other. I should go out there to check. Could be the sprinkler head is stuck or the line is clogged.

  C: Oh, don’t go now. Stay and talk. Do you think we should clip the wisteria this weekend?

  M: It’ll have to come to the top of my list.

  C: How come my stuff never gets to the top of the list? I need to see that list! Oh, look, the lightning bugs are coming out.

  M: Don’t let me forget to look at the sprinkler head. It’s beautiful tonight, isn’t it? We did such a good job pruning that old mulberry down by the water.

  C: Let’s put Emma inside and walk down there.

  And we agreed: No vacation in the wide world could ever offer a spot more beautiful, more serene—sweeter—than this.

  Chapter Seven

  Dogged

  Ah, but gentle Emma seemed to be aging faster than we were. She was slower on the stairs and happier just to lie among the flowers, butterflies be damned. And while she wasn’t ill, I’d already begun to have foreshadowings of loss. We’d become such slaves to this dear dog—our router of sparrows, our Hoover of crumbs—that I lived in dread of some Cosi-like wound. How had we become so invested? I began to entertain thoughts of a second dog—a backup, so to speak. Again.

  Waiting for the perfect opening—after Clear and Present Danger, say, followed by the diner for a beer, a bowl of minestrone, a small Greek salad, a plate of steak tidbits with well-done hash browns, one overcooked green and one soggy yellow vegetable and a tall swirl of white and chocolate frozen yogurt, all for $11.99—I broached it to Millard.

  You’d be wrong if you think you know him well enough to predict his reaction. Even I didn’t know him well enough.

  Because he liked it!

  He liked it!

  Mainly because of my plan, I think.

  Or the yogurt.

  I have to back up now to explain that for years, I’d been longing for a greyhound. Some secret and hubristic “Diana the Huntress” complex, I suppose; something I’m sure I should apologize for. And yet ... could there be any dog more regal, more elegant, more noble, more ancient (i.e., “antique”) than the greyhound? And since I’d long ago come to accept the fact that for better or worse, for profound or shallow, an embarrassingly large part of my life was about gathering beauty to myself ... my house, my garden, my antiques, my art, my car, my costly and endlessly new teeth ... a greyhound would be icing on my pink-rose-covered, three-tier vanilla and black-raspberry-jam-filled canine cake.

  It had been my original hope to rescue a track dog, because the unconscionable business of dog racing results in thousands of greyhounds—the losers, the raced-out, the ones with broken legs—being euthanized each year.

  Yes.

  That dream, however, had one major, major drawback: When smallish mammals inadvertently cross their paths, racing dogs—bred to chase a lure—are gone. They hit forty-five mph in three long strides, and there’s no calling them back because nothing stops a coursing hound. No whistle, no clicker, no squeak toy, no treat. Even dogs that were losers can run like the wind. And you remember, we were still living in an antique house. And antique houses are right on the road.

  I didn’t think I could deal with that anxiety.

  But then I learned about an exceptional breed. Well, it wasn’t a “breed” exactly. Like our JRs, it was a type, a mutt. And while it looked like a greyhound, it wasn’t. This marvel, only to be found in Great Britain, is the Lurcher. Go ahead. Laugh. Everyone does. But the name has nothing to do with staggering drunks or Boris Karloff and Frankenstein, but everything to do with Ireland in the Middle Ages, where the gypsies, I learned, bred the dog for stealth poaching; their Romani word for “thief” was lur. This legendary creature was crossbred to be as fast and quiet as a grey or other sight hound—but to be as smart, tenacious and trainable as its other parent, a collie or terrier more frequently. With always this single stipulation: The Lurcher couldn’t look like a greyhound, because only the nobility could own greyhounds, and the penalties were harsh. Like death. Or both hands.

  So the gypsies learned to breed dogs that were swift, silent and smart; that looked much like the dog on the side of the bus—but not.

  I LOVED the idea. Except for the fact that I couldn’t save a grey, it seemed best of all second-dog worlds: a greyhound-ish dog that was smart like a collie.

  And why did Millard like it?

  I’d sweetened the deal by telling him that I hoped to get a magazine commission to write about the Lurcher quest, which meant that my trip would be free.

  And so it was.

  But first, I had to track down Dale, the president of the British National Lurcher Club: a helpful, cheerful, dog-mad fellow whom I phoned in South Yorkshire to ask how I might go about fmding a collie-mix pup. And I learned from Dale—but why was I surprised?—tkat the nearest litter would be a four-hour drive from London. That basically, if we wanted to see absolutely the only Lurcher puppies in England in that particular week in June, we’d have to take a train first to Doncaster, where we’d pick him up, our more-than-obliging guide, and be driven to the source for truly superior Lurchers in Fell View, Low Moor, Kirkby Thore, Penrith, Cumbria. Translated into East Coast-ese—though imagine translating that into East Coast-ese—we’d be traveling all the way from Long Island to almost-Maine and back ... to pick up a mongrel.

  After crossing the Atlantic.

  In Great Britain, though? Big-time Romantic! The Lake District. Wordsworth. All that.

  It’s unimaginable, I know, but Millard and I rarely traveled at all. In addition to our having such a good time with our own house (and okay, to my panic attacks on planes), we were neither sightseers nor gourmet eaters nor hotel buffs. When we did go beyond our usual Pittsburgh or Georgia, it was inevitably for a purpose: visiting gardens, attending air shows, seeing editors. Buying a dog abroad had to be about the most purposeful thing we’d ever tried.

  That June, motoring toward Cumbria with the affable Lurcher man, I’m sorry to say I barely noticed the picturesque towns and spires of distant churches. I’m sure they were there, and I do have a clear memory of a great many sheep. Smoke white blankets of undulant sheep, in fact, and never a human at all. Which made for one endless ride. Though at long last, very deep—oh-so-deep—in this domesticated wilderness, we came to ... well, talk about your backyard breeders. Behind a remote, quasi-modern house we found the strangest farm scape either of us had seen—even factoring in Millard’s rural southern upbringing. The owner of this homestead, a lanky hairdresser-cum-poacher and his wispy, blond and equally lanky little girl, came out the front door to greet us and lead us around to a large yard bordered by ramshackle wooden sheds, each housing some unique “pet.” Not just dogs, mind you, but rabbits, owls, a fox, a polecat (think ferret), and a donkey, for openers. Mixed in with this menagerie were his fifteen adult Lurchers. Well, I’m afraid I lapsed into polite but stunned “Isn’t that interesting!” mode as the proud owner showed us around, and just as I was running out of smiles, fortunately, he knelt to snap the rusty hasp of one of the wooden cribs and opened a gate. Out sped an ink black greyhound. Not too big and none too clean, it was Mom, who, for a full twenty minutes, raced gleefully around the yard barking madly at the stolid donkey and us and the heady air of fell views, low moors, etc. Seven or eight of her six-week-old litter tumbled out of the crib right behind, among them my soon-to-be Juno. Had I been a more deliberative person, less impulsive, more practical, I might have noticed a little something about scruffy Mom.... some trace of the manic? But no, I was charmed out of my mind by
it all. In any case, a person doesn’t fly 3,500 miles, then drive four hours to decide she may be not so sure about Mom. In any case, can anyone walk away from a puppy, even one with a possibly crazed parent? Besides, the magazine’s photographer was standing right there to snap the schmaltzy moment. So I sat myself down in the midst of those squirmy pups and let them climb all over me, laughing with nutty delight and feeling like that old Kodak ad, but dirtier ... and very much older.

  Still, how to choose? It seemed to be coming down to the all-black licky one or the dear little sleepyhead brindle, which—I’d been nicely, pointedly, and repeatedly told—was the favorite of the owner’s little girl. The raincoat I’d worn had two big pockets in it, and I was all for taking both until Millard’s panicky face signaled otherwise. But which? I appealed to our Lurcher guru, who took us aside and explained—with handy live models nuzzling our cuffs—that:

  “Your top-notch Lurcher should be up on its toes, so to speak, not a ‘flatfoot.’

  She should be athletic and have a good thick coat.

  She should be fast, really fast.”

  I put the two pups on the ground to watch them run, but they wobbled and rolled, and one progressed dopily sidewise while the other lay down to snooze. Which is no doubt why, muddy and happy and out of my depth for the only time, perhaps, in my sadly opinionated life, I left a big decision to someone else. Dale picked the brindle, the little girl’s pet.

  Aargh. I steeled myself. After all, how much do you sell your daughter’s pet for?

  The tall breeder stood silent in front of us, seemingly focused on the sheep-strewn hills and considering, possibly, his dear little girl, the length of the trip from London, our obvious intention to buy, our (possibly costly?) pseudo-Brit clothes, our patent American-ness, and I inwardly shut my eyes.

  “Well, you know,” he began, in that tortured Northern accent (see The History Boys and Billy Elliott), “she’s my Margaret’s favorite, so we won’t want to give her away. Still, it hardly seems right to sell an untrained dog.” He frowned and looked hesitantly Millard’s way.

  “Does one hundred twenty pounds seem too much? ”

  I gasped.

  Oh, not enough! Emma had cost ... well, you don’t want to know what Emma cost. A trio of root canals for me, to start. (And if it were my habit to descend to punning, I might ask if that’s why they call them canines. But it isn’t.) Yet I might go on to remind you that entry fees at Westminster, and dog kennels with hot tubs come dear. Very dear.

  Millard and I agreed to offer him more money, both in the spirit of fair play and the hope of leaving one British poacher/hairdresser with a better opinion of Yanks than he’d had going in. Although come to think of it, we might have left him thinking that Yanks were as naïve and spendthrift as they’d be saying at the local pub. Although on the other hand, all the way up there in Fell View, Low Moor, Kirkby Thore, Penrith, Cumbria, England, could be they hadn’t heard of Yanks.

  On the other hand, could be the whole “daughter” thing was a setup.

  Very late that night, we returned to our cozy London hotel with Juno in our prepurchased Harrod’s travel crate as big as a small sports car, and the next day, when they offered to feed and water her while we went out, I developed a serious crush on London doormen. Who doesn’t love a puppy, after all? Who doesn’t love Brits?

  Emma didn’t.

  Though at least she didn’t get physical about it. You may have noticed somewhere in the above that we’d gone to girl-with-girl. Toward the end, you see, Billy had truly scared me. Scared me to the extent that the dreaded two-bitch combo had grown to have actual appeal. After all, if both anmals were spayed, what could they find to fight over? Other dogs? Hurtful gossip? Men?

  Well, love, of course. But everyone fights over love.

  And we would be ever so fair. (Forgive me. I pick up attractive speech patterns easily.) Then too, since both my dogs were of English ancestry, on the flight back with Juno I’d begun to imagine a Virginia and Vita thing. Nothing physical, of course. Just soul mates. Or possibly, given the fact that both were expats now (and Emma had added poundage as she’d aged,) a Gertrude and Alice thing. To my baffled dismay, however, gentle Emma hadn’t taken more than a sniff of Juno before deciding that she loathed her.

  And Emma never changed her mind or learned to like her even a little. Neither, actually, did any of the other dogs that ever lived with Juno. It was as if she’d been born with an alien scent.

  Citronella, maybe?

  Cat?

  But okay, Juno was a little weird. If you touched a paw, she’d shriek and leap away. If you stood up to answer the phone, she’d yip and jump up, too. She was the most hyper dog we’d ever owned, and I assumed it was because—though I’d hoped for a greyhoundlike Lurcher and Juno was three-quarters greyhound—she’d taken after Dad, the border collie. Or—and I’m still suspicious about this—strange things happen to nice little dogs in the bellies of airplanes.

  I’m a cinephile, perhaps you’ve gathered, and I refer you now to the deathless film Babe. Remember those pig-disdainful but articulate and clever sheepherding dogs? The dogs dear Babe so longed to be? Those were border collies. And our Juno—in metabolism, smarts and shedabihty—was a border collie, too. Oh yes, she looked like a smallish greyhound with a heavier coat, upstanding ears and the face of a fawn, but in her beating-too-fast little heart, she was all collie—herding us on the stairs, herding us on the lawn and herding us to the john. (Shut the bathroom door, and she’d be pacing outside when you emerged.) And Juno was the proverbial junkyard dog. She slunk. Instead of being tall and regal like the greyhound of my dreams, she grew up to be middling and skinny and slinky. And stranger yet, for the first few years we owned her, we never saw her sleep.

  I mean it.

  I still have the photo of the sleepy puppy she was, so I know she knew how to sleep, but it may have been our American air or something in our dog food or something that had occurred along the way (that plane?) that kept her continuously awake. So if she slept when we slept, we never got up early enough to catch her at it. Day and night she paced, watched, guarded.

  There did come a day, though, when at last we saw her asleep—she was three or so. There on the sofa she lay, in dead-roach position: on her back, four variously bent legs in the air. Now I’ve read that when dogs sleep that way—exposing their bellies to the world—it means they feel utterly secure. And considering that had we not plucked Juno from the farm, she might have spent her life poaching Cumbrian rabbits and sleeping with polecats—presumably belly down—I was thrilled to have her feel so safe.

  Nevertheless, her omigod-I’m-dying shriek was hard on us.

  We’d built a tidy dog run next to the house. One night, when Juno was still a small puppy and Millard was sitting outside with her for the day’s final “walk,” she was busily exploring the semicircular basement window well, daintily tiptoeing along its brick lip when somehow, she fell off. From the bedroom, I heard high-pitched, terrible screams and dashed out the kitchen door to find her writhing in the yard. I scooped the howling puppy up in my arms. I’d never heard a sound like that.

  “Oh my god. What happened?” I shouted at a frightened Millard.

  I was scared and I was mad. It would be just like him to be idly watching an airplane or lighting his pipe while some helpless pup in his care was eating a beetle or breaking a toe. I glared at him.

  “I don’t know. I was just sitting here, watching her, when she fell off the edge of the window well.” He tried a grin, and brushing his hand through his black hair, wiped his pipe tamp on his sock.

  “She fell in it?”

  “No. The other way. She fell on the gravel.”

  Fell on the gravel? That was a four-inch drop.

  I put Juno down gently. She cried aloud and limped around pitiably on three legs.

  Millard watched her, helplessly contrite.

  “Well,” I ventured, softening, “maybe it’s serious. Let’s get her to a vet.”


  At midnight, where are you going to find a vet? At the all-night veterinary hospital, naturally, about a forty-five-minute drive away.

  Wrapping our precious puppy in a blanket and settling her tenderly on my lap where, motionless and limp, she continued to whimper and cry, we left Emma in charge of the house and went for an emotional late-night drive.

  There’s nothing quite so reassuring as the lights of an all-night hospital.

  Where, in a glare of white fluorescence, we gratefully handed our puppy into the arms of a kind, concerned vet who immediately, gingerly, set Juno on the floor to gauge the severity of the trauma. I couldn’t bear to look.

  But Juno walked! She walked! On all four feet! A miracle!

  Oh god.

  It turned out she was—maybe—um, slightly bruised.

  Did we want the largish bill now or should they mail it?