The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (14 page)

So I had something to look forward to, besides putting one foot in front of the other and entering the Sanctuary dining room by myself because Boomer
abandoned
me.

I went in. The doorway had wooden swing doors like a saloon in a western. Boomer was able to duck and go in at a crawl. That was the reason I couldn't see what I was about to walk into, before I did. I should have known it was strange that I wasn't hearing sounds of people together at a meal.

But first, the dining room: shabby-rustic, plain, warm, smells of burning wood, ashes, barbecue, meat, people, dog fur, furniture oil.

Something about it made me feel it had aged like anyone who hates being old but can't do anything about it except hang on to a personal dignity, the kind that only comes from inside out. It was smaller than I expected. There were exposed ceiling beams and bare floorboards so worn, they almost looked bleached. A fireplace with a floor skirt of flagstones took up most of one wall. Set above the logs was a shelf of an iron grill, where meat juices had dripped, so it smelled like the cooking was still going on.

Quilted shades, as dark brown as mud, were drawn as insulation on all the windows, so that the room had the feel of being sealed. The tables, four of them, left over from the resort, were oak and round, with high-backed chairs that looked like armless thrones. They were arranged to be close to the fire flaming low and bright in that hearth, but not one of them was set.

Two long tables stood parallel to each other just beyond them. These were conference-type, on folding legs. One was the buffet, although that's not the right word for it: a platter of brisket in strips, charred-attractive, enough for two sandwiches; a basket of homemade bread in crusty slices; a plate of lettuce, iceberg, just outer leaves sitting there limply; a plate of yellow squash slices lined with scars from the grill and looking rubbery; little bowls of mayo and a red-brown barbecue sauce; one plate, one fork, one butter knife, one napkin, one glass, and a pitcher of tea, cold, chamomile, the only tea I hate (I sniffed it), with lemon wedges tipping this way and that, as if they'd drowned and popped back to the surface, bloated.

It was a very depressing spread, except for the meat and the bread. Under it all was an old linen tablecloth, like a magnified lady's handkerchief from a couple of centuries ago. It dangled low, almost touching the floor, and I saw that, in the middle of it, two blond paws were sticking out, just by a few inches. The black nails were trimly clipped. Boomer. The spot where his face was hiding wafted in and out with his breath. I could see the shape of the end of his muzzle, pressed against the cloth like he was veiled. Of course he thought he was invisible. I guessed he was supposed to go back to his own area, after he delivered me. I won't tell on you, I messaged him.

The humans in the room who weren't me were at the other long table, without a cloth. Plates of partially eaten meals were strewn about. A giant-screen laptop sat on it like a centerpiece. Something was playing on the screen.

They were clustered around it: four women, one man, and Giant George. I tried to catch his eye, but he was riveted on whatever it was. He stood behind the woman at the keyboard. He looked older and almost a stranger, as if he changed into a man while I was upstairs having my nap. He was sandwiched between an almost old man and an elderly woman who reminded me of Mrs. Treats, in that ideal-grandmother way, but not so cushiony-looking. The man was soft in the face, his hair sparse and pale. He wore a jacket that was herringbone and very old-time English countryside, so I thought of the senior guy vet in that James Herriot series that's always turning up on PBS. I had tried to watch it one evening when I was waiting for the Sanctuary to let me know if they'd accepted me. But I had to turn it off because the episode only had cows and pigs.

And in fact this man was a vet. I had
nailed
that. He'd come up from the village hours earlier for a surgery.

I didn't know that yet. I only knew that three people were standing around a computer, and three were sitting. Giant George was in the same baggy, grubby jeans he always had on, although his sweater was a different one, clean, a pullover, baggy too, hanging on him like a cable-knit woolen bag. The Mrs. Treats–like woman wore a fleecy outfit of sweats with a zippered top, but it wasn't a hoodie. A white L. L. Bean–type turtleneck jersey was under it. Her outfit was dark gray. She wore no makeup, no jewelry, and neither did the other three women, who were dressed exactly like her but in other colors of fleece: forest green, a lighter gray, navy blue. If I had to arrange us all by age, I wouldn't do it one by one. I'd start at the bottom with Giant George, then me, then jump ahead by forty years or more for everyone else, like a group picture of young people and old, or grandchildren and grandmas and a grandpa, missing anyone in between.

Yet these old women looked rugged and strong and also sharp in the eyes, probably as a result of mountain air. And which one was the alpha?

The standing one, in the dark gray! The Mrs. Treats one! I recognized her, just as the dogs had, Tasha and Shadow, when they heard her voice on the answering machine. She lifted a finger to her lips to signal
keep quiet please and do as you're told,
before she told me I was late for dinner by twenty-five minutes, and please would I fix myself a plate and go back to my room with it, and stay there until morning?

There was no harshness. I had the feeling that any one of those women would have said the same thing to me, the same way. The word
please
was definitely involved. Alphas don't say
please
.

Everyone, even Giant George, turned their heads to look at me in a not completely hostile way. But I felt like I was
five.

At last I paid attention to the laptop. I thought for a moment they'd tuned in to a movie, or a news report, with the sound off, for some reason. But then I noticed that the woman at the keyboard, the navy blue one, had a headset on, and the two at her sides, green and light gray, were whispering into cellphones.

I looked at the screen. I'd walked into the control center for a rescue, somewhere in the outside world, where dogs were in a place they needed very much to get out of. I saw the gleam of a flashlight or headlamp on rough terrain—a road or driveway, dirt, stony, like a NASA video of Mars. The gleam moved forward: a shaft of thin light in foggy darkness, revealing up ahead the glint of a metal fence, then a section of what seemed to be a run-down wooden shed. My heart started feeling squeezed, as if grabbed by a powerful hand. I could sense the tautness of the anxiety around me through my skin, as if my whole body was prickling from burrs. I smelled sweat as it was happening, male, female, dampening the underarms of the turtlenecks, the fleece zip-ups, the baggy sweater, the tweed of the vet.

“Please point to the fence so we can make sure they're in the building,” whispered the woman in forest green into her phone.

“No one's coming out of the house. Roger that, I heard you,” whispered the woman in light gray into hers. “But keep someone posted.”

The light cut away. I saw weeds poking thickly and tall between links of the fence. I did not see a dog from my angle, but the woman in navy blue in front of the keyboard gave a little gasp, and the green one whispered, “We see him too. Yes, they've got him muzzled. No barking.”

“Tell them to get that one first, please,” said the dark gray one.

“He's going to need triage,” whispered the vet.

“Fuck,” whispered Giant George, then, “Sorry, I couldn't help it,” and the dark gray one turned to me, tipping her head to mean
go.

I don't know how I brought off giving in, not that I was meek about it. I kept thinking how I didn't want them sending me back to Mrs. Auberchon, where it could happen that no one came to rescue me ever. But I had a question. It occurred to me that I could put myself in a good light by being eager to get to work studying. Everything that happened at the inn with Giant George and my four dogs, it seemed to me now, was a combination of practice and testing for my actual course of training.

I said to the dark-gray one, “How about my training books? Or one, if you've only got one? I'm thinking I could do some reading. You know, like homework, even though my course hasn't started.”

“Evie,” she responded, “it's been started.”

She was completely matter-of-fact about it, and also: no more questions; you are dismissed. At the buffet, I placed myself by invisible Boomer, my feet near his paws. I made like I needed to reach down and scratch my ankle. Lifting the cloth, I fed him the chunkiest strip of the brisket, which of course he was dog-praying for. He followed me out of the dining room of his own free will. He stayed behind me closely, and I thought, oh, that's what they meant in the breed book about dogs doing
heeling.

No one said good night to me. I ate in the hall while Boomer looked up at me with eyes of absolute trust—I mean, he totally trusted me to cut him in on my supper. I ended up giving him about a quarter of a sandwich. I tried to hear what was going on behind those saloon doors, but I didn't hear a thing. I left my empty plate and glass and napkin on the floor. Boomer licked my hands extremely intensively, partly to praise me for doing the right thing by him. But mostly he was looking for traces of food, and then we parted ways—he to his crate, me to my room.

I was ready to toss and turn in bed, but the same thing happened to me that had happened my first night at the inn, only faster. It was a total, instant pull of gravity into sleep. The only thing I was aware of during the night was the knocking on my door, muffled, persistent, entering whatever dream I was having, probably about dogs. I roused a little, wanting it to go away. The door was cracking open. In the shadows appeared a figure. Giant George. He was back to being a boy, hobbity, Newfie-like. If he thought I'd let him crawl in with me, he had another thing coming, not that I was planning to actually bite him.

He was excited but spoke softly. “Evie,” he said. “They've got the dogs. Every one of them is a pittie. They got them all out, half a dozen, all alive. No one was shot at. I mean, no one got hit. I'm sorry they didn't let you watch. Good night.”

All of that went into my dreaming, although I heard the word
pittie
as
pity
.

And then it was the next morning and
oh my God I'm going to a class.

A
LLIANCES
.
WHAT DOGS
will form in a basic obedience class, often against one another, as in cliques, but always together against the boring, horrible teacher.

Class.
I don't get an orientation? What about giving me advice? It's my first mountain morning, and I'm supposed to pretend I'm the teacher?

Family.
Abused rescued dogs don't get to be in training with a member or members of their human family. They have no principal person or persons. They are orphans.

Well, I'd wondered already if I wanted to be a trainer in classes without humans, not that this was what I'd had in mind.

I looked around at my orphans and saw the blanks in the air where members of families should be. I tried to take care of the blanks by imagining that family members were waiting nearby out of sight, like parents of kids in school on teacher-conference days, or parents of someone who was living, say, in a treatment or rehab program not far from their homes, and the program had regular things of, oh, let's get the family in here, because if one member has a problem, it's everyone's problem too, automatically, because that's what a family
is.

Is it too idealistic of me to agree with that definition of a family?

Maybe. But maybe not.

Gains.
Better word than
goals
. I was saying, “So, dogs, what are we working on gaining here today?” I thought that appropriate answers would be things like self-esteem, or learning how to stop being sad about previous-life experiences with humans they had belonged to, as in, I need to stop wishing the humans I belonged to didn't make me so sad.

But it can be a gain to not have any biting, and not have any raised hackles.

Gentle.
Good adjective. Good non-alpha thing to be. Good thing to aspire to, but not until you're ready to stop being a softie, desperate to be liked and admired.

Housebreaking.
Trainers have to deal with bodily functions. I hadn't thought about this. The only toilet training experience I was ever involved in was my own. Why couldn't I remember my own toilet training and apply it, not that a toilet would be involved? Why isn't there such a thing as litter boxes for dogs? (To be continued.)

Learning.
Dogs don't want you to teach them. They feel they know everything already. Sit? Stay? Come? Down? Drop it? They're saying, you can't possibly think we'd listen to you. They're saying, didn't anyone tell you we're basically wolves? They're saying, teacher! Leave us dogs alone!

A new male, a greyhound called Alfie, feels that coming to class means curling up in a corner and being still. When I explained that this wasn't allowed, he bristled and showed me his teeth. I don't have notes on him yet, but I know he was a racer. He thought he had the right to never move again. Also, he was not interested in learning this thing called housebreaking. Did I know where he used to live? He used to live in a
stable.
I hated it there, he was telling me, but that's who I am.

A new hound mix, female, white with large brown spots, and tall and fearful and constantly cowering, let me know that if I tried to speak to her, never mind teach her, she'd become so upset, her heart would stop, and she'd be dead. No notes on her either, but I think she had it bad, maybe even worse than all the others. Her name is Dapple, for her coat.

Josie was yap, yap, yapping like a wind-up toy with a battery that would never wear down. She was telling me she didn't want to come close to me. She felt that all she needed to learn was how to look even cuter, so her photo could go on Internet adoption sites, and she could stop being miserable like an orphan in a novel by Dickens. Why wasn't anyone teaching her to be cuter? Why wasn't she getting lessons in how to pose for photo shoots? And oh, one more thing: she felt she'd already taught me what would happen to me if I tried to pat her, so let's not even discuss it.