Give the Dog a Bone (3 page)

Dr. Thames’s number was listed in the yellow pages. I called and a man with a deep, pleasant voice answered.

“Hi, this is Allida Babcock. May I speak to Terry Thames, please?”

“Allida. Yes, hello. I just now got off the phone with Mr. Culberson. He said you’d be calling.” He sounded less than thrilled.

“I’m wondering if we could get together briefly today to—”

“I’m afraid I’m booked from ten A.M. on. How would tomorrow work for you?”

“Ken is hoping to have me start working with his dog today.” I glanced at my watch. Nine-forty. “Are you available right now?”

“No, I have phone calls to return.” He paused. “I could try to squeeze you in afterwards and before my first appointment, but we’d only have a minute or two.”

“Even a minute would be great. Thank you. I’ll be right over.”

“See you then,” he said and hung up.

With our offices only five blocks apart and downtown parking a rare commodity, I rushed out and headed down the hill on Broadway on foot. I soon reached Dr. Thames’s office, one corner of a small wooden structure on west Walnut. The entire south side of the block was occupied by a red-brick office complex, but the north side featured a series of old, small houses like this one, which had been converted into businesses. With the mountains serving as a dramatic backdrop and with their well-maintained gardens and lawns, these erstwhile homes in the middle of the business district were picturesque—provided one ignored their surrounding superstructures and the ever-present traffic.

I entered his small but pleasant waiting room. The plush, pale blue carpeting probably had a nice, soothing effect on his clients, but would only have revealed the shedding of
my
clients. The room was deserted, and I listened for a moment for the sounds of activity from the inner office. Hearing none, I tapped lightly on the door.

“Just a minute,” came his deep voice.

A moment later, a tall, attractive, white-haired, fiftyish man opened the door. He wore typical business attire for Boulder—dark blue trousers and a pale blue collared sports shirt. Though his expression was inscrutable, his voice was nice enough as he said, “Hello. Allida?” He held out his hand, and I shook it.

“Yes, hi. Do you have some time to speak with me?”

“I suppose so. I’ve got all of five minutes till my first patient arrives.” Though this unenthusiastic response seemed to be aimed at eliciting an acknowledgment about how good it was of him to work me into his schedule, I felt I’d already done this over the phone.

He led the way into his inner office—also small, with a little writing desk in one corner and four maroon upholstered chairs forming a square. Two walls were lined with bookcases jammed with books and, on the lower shelves, well-used toys. He sat down in one of the four chairs and gestured for me to take the seat across from his. I sat down, and he regarded me for a moment.

“Well, Allida, I guess you and I are colleagues. You call yourself a dog
psychologist,
right?”

Though his voice was not blatantly snide, the implied snub was unmistakable and made me bristle. “You can think of me as a dog trainer who specializes in behavior problems, if you find that less offensive.”

He smirked a little. “I don’t mean to marginalize your profession. I’ve known Ken Culberson for quite some time now and have his best interests at heart. That’s not always the case with the people he chooses to bring into his life.”

“I’m sure that’s true. He mentioned the psychic he hired.”

“Perfect example. I want to prevent Ken from barking up yet another wrong tree.” He smiled at his quasi pun. I kept my expression blank, and he continued, “Several months ago, I referred him to a social worker to help him with basic living skills, such as, I presume, how to be more discerning in his business dealings. Since I’m so pressed for time, you might want to talk with her instead.” He rose as he spoke and went to his desk. “Rachel Taylor. She works for a private agency that provides care for adults with a wide range of needs and dependencies.” He fetched a business card and handed it to me. He remained standing, as if our discussion was over.

Pocketing the business card, I said, “I can understand your concern, but it’s a bit off-putting to be compared to some rip-off artist who passed herself off as a psychic. I intend to help Ken learn that his dog is just that—a dog— and teach him how to be a better owner.”

“That sounds reasonable.” He sat down again, but glanced at his watch on its black leather band.

“I just have a few questions. How long has Mr. Culberson been under your care?”

“I’d rather not answer that specifically. Let’s just say, long enough now for me to know him quite well.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Not in my opinion, no.”

“So I take it that he didn’t have anything to do with his wife’s death?”

Dr. Thames hesitated, then, as if weighing each word, answered slowly, “He did not kill his ex-wife, no.”

“In your opinion, would my convincing him that his dog does not possess his ex-wife’s soul be harmful to his mental stability?”

He stared past my shoulder at the door, then raked a hand through his white hair and leaned forward to meet my eyes. “That’s the million-dollar question. You see, Allida, I’m trying to rid him of that delusion myself. It would be far better for Ken if you would wait a couple of months before you embark on any of this.”

“Under normal circumstances, that would be fine with me. The problem is that Mr. Culberson is under the impression that Animal Control could take the dog away from him soon. And he exerts so little control over Maggie that that’s possible, especially if she were to bite someone.”

He snorted. “
Maggie
struck you as a possible
biter
?”

“
Any
dog can bite, especially a totally untrained one.” I was tempted to hammer my point home by informing him that goldens had the highest incident rate of bitings. I also knew, though, that that was a deceptive statistic, caused by the breed’s popularity.

He lifted a shoulder, his focus locked on mine. “You asked my opinion, and that’s it. We’re at cross purposes. My concern is for my client, Ken. Apparently yours is for the dog.”

“No, I’m saying that the two are inexorably linked. That Ken would be very damaged were his dog to be removed from his care.”

Again, he leaned forward. “Allida, I want to get Ken to a sounder place mentally. He’s at a critical juncture of his therapy. I don’t want you or anyone else getting involved and undermining my work with my patient.”

“Have you already expressed these concerns to Ken?”

“Yes, but he still wants to work with you. Against my advice.”

I rose, frustrated and annoyed. “Then we
are
at cross purposes, aren’t we? When I work with my clients, I see my role as twofold. I work to establish a healthy, mutually beneficial relationship between the dog and the owner. For that to happen, I need the owner’s cooperation and trust, which I try to earn. Frankly, I’m surprised that you seem so ready to dismiss the therapeutic benefit that a beloved animal can give to its owner.”

He got to his feet as well and stepped forward. Though he maintained a pleasant tone, he said, “Allida, you are not qualified to discuss what is or is not ‘therapeutic.’ ”

The remark galled me. I studied his face, but saw no registry of emotion whatsoever. I turned toward the door. “I’d better go before your patient arrives.”

He clapped his hand on my shoulder. I whirled around and glared at him. He said evenly, “You want to work with Ken’s dog, fine. Maggie’s so untrained she’s miserable to be around, yet he won’t go anywhere without her. That’s one of the issues we’re working to resolve. But let me warn you. If you take advantage of my patient’s financial situation or do anything that’s injurious to his precarious mental health, I’ll slap a malpractice lawsuit on you faster than you can say ‘Chihuahua.’ You got that?”

Chapter 3

Too late, various comebacks to Terry Thames’s verbal challenge ran through my brain as I made the short hike back to my office. Forcing myself to look at the situation from his perspective, I could understand his attitude. It irked me, though, to be presumed guilty until proven innocent. He was the one whose therapy had thus far failed to convince his patient that his dog was not his late ex-wife. Which one of us needed to validate his or her credentials?

He’d said that Ken was not dangerous, though he’d qualified the statement with “in my opinion . . .” Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but sometimes it’s appropriate to keep one’s expectations low when entering into a new relationship. I decided that I would indeed add Ken and Maggie to my list of clients, on a trial basis. I never could resist a good challenge; at five-feet tall, I’d been the starting point guard on my college team.

My first appointment of the day was with a rambunctious one-year-old Jack Russell terrier. The adorable Eddie on
Frazier
was no doubt partly responsible for the growing popularity of this breed during the last decade. Jack Russells’ intelligence and energy, when combined with lack of diligent training, made for exasperated owners.

My session with Eddie’s untrained alter ego proved to be a piece of cake compared to my next appointment with a beautiful buff-colored Akita mix, easily twice my size. The owner was a young woman who’d gotten the dog when he was a cute twenty-pound puppy. Now she was considering putting him up for adoption, unless a few hours under my tutelage could undo a year-and-a-half’s worth of her neglect. As I left, she said with a sigh, “If only you had a magic wand.” I managed to resist replying, “If I did, I’d bop you on the head with it.” I tend to be more patient with dogs than with their owners.

I grabbed lunch on the run, then drove to another appointment. Rapidly overtaking the sky, huge gray clouds now loomed over the mountains. The impending storm couldn’t be better timed. My next client was a seven-year-old yellow Labrador named Sunshine who, ironically enough, was afraid of thunder. Devil’s Thumb, the pricey neighborhood in the foothills where this Labrador lived, tended to get the brunt of the storm fronts. On two different occasions, Sunshine had injured herself badly when she jumped outside through closed windows in her crazed attempts to “escape” from the storm.

To date, the desensitization program we were using had met with only partial success. I’d given Sunshine’s owners an audio tape of thunderstorms, which they were playing at increasing volumes,
counter conditioning Sunshine by offering her treats when the taped noises began. We actually needed a good month or two without full exposure to a storm for the treatment to work, but we didn’t have that luxury. Today I’d come armed with phosphorus pellets, a homeopathic cure, which worked wonders on some dogs.

A thunderstorm began within minutes of my arrival. Sunshine went berserk—to use a less-than-technical term—and her owners opted for the pellets. I showed them how to drop the pellets into the back of Sunshine’s throat and told them to “wear gloves when handling the phosphorus” and to “exhibit confidence throughout,” albeit that was easier said than done. Sunshine was still drooling and an emotional wreck after the first dose, but calmed down after the second.

Afterward, as I pushed out the door, her owners thanked me profusely. I tempered their enthusiasm with warnings about relapses and a rehash of instructions for how they could handle this on their own next time.

My day raced along, and at six P.M., I pulled into Ken’s trailer park. Maggie ran up to my car before I was in sight of unit thirteen. Aware that some hot rod could zoom around the corner at any moment, I hit the brakes and opened my door, intending to get out and coax her into the back seat. Before I could even get my seatbelt unfastened, she leapt onto my lap, squeezing her large, furry body between me and the steering wheel.

“Maggie, back seat!” I said, wasting valuable air to do so. I tried in vain to push her off me, but there was no room for me to maneuver.

The dog gave me a wet lick on the face, which, with my arms pinned, I was helpless to prevent. Then she turned to face forward and look through the windshield, honking my horn in the process.

My cheeks grew warm. This was not one of my finer moments of canine management. The very last thing I wanted now was to attract attention;
I
sure as heck wouldn’t hire me, were I amere witness to my current predicament.

I sucked in enough air to say sternly, “Maggie, down!”

No reaction.

I bounced in my seat as much as I could and ran through any other command she might know. “Off! Move! Down! Go away!”

Nothing.

“Don’t you know even one command?” I whined, which only inspired her to turn around again and pant into my face.

In a move born from utter frustration, I tried to make myself sound more like her owner and cried, “Mary! Get the hell off me!”

Still no reaction. With effort, I managed to reach around her and shut off the engine. I considered my limited options. My car door was open, so I might be able to slither out from under Maggie head first onto the street. Either that or I could whistle as loud as possible right in her ear, which would be unpleasant for us both—for the dog’s sensitive eardrums and for me as she scrambled to get away from the sound.

From somewhere near the car, a person groaned. A moment later, I recognized Ken’s voice as he said, “Ya see that, Allie? This is the other reason I gave up my car. Mary here always insisted on driving.”

He leaned toward me and tried to grab his dog, which would have been much easier had he put her collar on her as I’d instructed him to do earlier. “Come on, Mar—Maggie. Get out of there. Give the poor dog gal a break.”

It wasn’t bad enough that I was pinned into my car? Now I was being called a “dog gal”?

“Hey!” he cried, beaming at me. “I just realized something. If you worked with cats instead of dogs, your nickname could be Allie Cat. Like an alley cat. Get it?”

I had no response to the remark. After a minute or two of tugging and cajoling, Maggie hopped down onto the sidewalk. Finally free, I rocketed out of my car to stand beside the two of them. I brushed paw prints off my now mottled khakis.

Ken was still wearing his too-short brown slacks and his teal shirt with the undershirt showing. His bald head was dappled with beads of perspiration. “Sorry ’bout the mud. You was headin’ over to see me, right?”

Short on patience, I growled, “Listen to me, once and for all. This—” I gestured with an open palm at the golden “—is not your ex-wife. This is a dog. And, frankly, even if she
does
possess your ex-wife’s soul, I don’t care; she’s in a dog’s body now. You cannot, repeat
cannot
, treat Maggie like a person. She can’t roam the streets of your trailer park unleashed. It is too dangerous. Sooner or later she will get hit by a car, or she’ll bowl over some little toddler who’ll get badly hurt, thanks to you.”

I paused to take a breath and let my words sink in. Ken’s affable expression was unchanged, so I continued. “She has to be taught simple, doglike commands, such as: Sit. Stay. Lie down. Come. And that all-important ‘off.’ Now if, for any reason, you can’t accept what I’m saying, I will help you find a trainer you can relate to better.” I combed my fingers through the bangs of my sandy-colored hair and said evenly, “Am I making myself clear?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Yes, ma’am. Yous any good at your job?”

I glanced at my car and said, “Not counting the past five minutes or so, yes, I am.”

“Then what would I want to hire someone else for?” He waggled his thumb. “You can’t go ’n’ leave your car in the middle of the road like that. Follow me to my place.” Just then, Maggie started galloping down the sidewalk. “Better yet, just follow my dog.” He gave me a sheepish grin, then pivoted and lumbered down the sidewalk in the same direction as Maggie.

I got into my car, repeating the phrase “job security” to myself as I followed them. Moments later, I arrived at unit thirteen, and Ken let me inside his home.

His living space was just as cluttered and disorganized as I’d imagined it would be. The furnishings in the living room were hidden behind numerous stacks of newspapers. He led me to the kitchen, which had been essentially converted into a workshop. Electronic parts and gadgets covered nearly every flat surface, including the top of his computer.

“Sorry ’bout the mess,” he said, pulling out what appeared to be the only chair in his home that wasn’t buried under newspapers or tiny gadgets laid out on paper towels. “Not much reason to clean up the place. Maggie here never seems to mind.”

“Did Mary used to object?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Nope. Not so long as I di’n’t mess with her stuff or her personal space. Mary was really into marking territory. Just does it in different ways nowadays.”

At that, I made a mental note to myself to keep the conversation off Mary. Hanging on the wall was what looked to be a patent, now so yellowed with time that it was illegible. “Are you an inventor?” I asked.

“Used to be. Way back, I used to repair TVs and would tinker around with the rejects and odd parts. Wound up inventing a type of circuitry that made for the faster, denser screen sweeps ’n’ clearer picture we got nowadays. You know how folks are about their TVs. Can’t live without ’em. Made me a rich man. But you know the inventor I admire?” Without awaiting my reply, he went on, “The guy who figured out to put the magnet on the electric can opener so’s the lid won’t fall into the soup.” He tapped his index finger against his bald temple. “That’s what I call good thinking.”

“Yes, now that you mention it, the magnet was a nice touch.”

Ken, noticing that I was still standing, rose and cleared off a second seat at the table by dumping its contents onto the floor. Then we both sat down. He grinned, took a deep breath, and placed his hands on his knees. “So, Allie. Where do we start?”

With his perfect segue, I pulled from my pockets the two devices that I’d found the most beneficial in my years of training countless dogs. Showing him the first device, I explained, “This is a clicker. As you can see, it’s just a little rectangular plastic device with a metal piece inside that makes a clicking sound when you push it with your thumb. You use it to signal when the dog is doing what you want her to do.”

Ken said, “Cool!” and took it from me, clicking it wildly till it sounded as if he were giving rapid-fire Morse code.

I held up the second object. “This is a type of collar that lets you control the dog’s head position during leash training, which you’re going to be doing a lot of. I also have a third tool, which you heard me use on Maggie back at my office. It’s a noisemaker for startling the dog when she’s misbehaving. Used correctly, it can get quick results.”

I showed him how to fasten the Gentle Leader collar— by offering a treat that coaxed Maggie to stick her muzzle through the loop, and then fastening the clip behind her ears. “She’s probably going to try to rub this off on the carpet,” I warned.

Maggie, however, had other ideas. She shook her head a couple of times, pawed at the strap across her muzzle once, then took off at a dead run. I’d never seen a dog actually try to outrun a collar like this, so the reaction caught me by surprise. She barrelled straight toward— and then through—the screen door.

“Maggie, come,” I automatically called after her, in yet another waste of my vocal chords.

“Oh, crap,” Ken said. “She knocked down the door again.”

With Ken lumbering behind me, I raced through the door and into Ken’s backyard after the dog. She had built up a full head of steam and was soon out of sight. A sturdy-looking, square-jawed woman watched us from her position on a small lawn adjacent to Ken’s.

“Maggie,” I cried again, clapping my hands. It was no use. I turned to Ken. “Do you have any idea where she might be going?”

He shook his head and shrugged for emphasis. “Could be anyplace, really, though she’ll prob’ly stick to the trailer park. We better split up. She was headin’ due west, so I’ll go northwest, you go southwest.”

“I’ve got a spare leash in my pocket. Do you have hers with you?”

“I’ll go get it,” he said and pivoted on his heel to return to his trailer.

I glanced at the square-jawed woman. She was staring at me so blatantly that I decided I might as well acknowledge her presence and walk up to her.

“Hi. Did you happen to see which way Ken’s golden—”

She shook her head and gestured for me to keep quiet. In a hushed voice, she asked, “You got a death wish or something, lady?”

“Pardon?” She didn’t answer at first, so I added, “I’m just here to work with Ken’s dog.”

She pointed with her impressive chin in Ken’s direction, who had just disappeared inside his home. “You’re not safe with that maniac. Believe me. I know. These walls are thin. I’ve lived here as long as they did.”

“
They?
Meaning Ken and Maggie?”

“Not hardly. I mean him and Mary. Back when she was still alive.” The woman brushed her unkempt black hair away from her eyes, staggering slightly in the process as if she were intoxicated. She looked past my shoulder and I followed her gaze.

Ken had emerged from his trailer and lifted the leash to show me. He waved at the woman beside me and called pleasantly, “Hello, Ruby.”

She lifted her chin and waved, but her expression bore no warmth.

He called to me, “I’m headin’ out now. To look for Maggie.”

We watched as Ken started to head northwest in search of his dog. Under her breath, Ruby asked me, “You ever see any pictures of her? Of Mary?”

“Yes, why?”

“ ’Cept for your hair and face, you’re a dead ringer for her. And I might just mean that exactly.” She let out a laugh that was halfway between a guffaw and a cackle, while I mused that a lot of us were “dead ringers,” except for our hair and faces. “He’s got a thing for small women. A dangerous thing. He killed her, you know. Ran her down with his car.”