Ivy Takes Care (7 page)

“How come the females are more costly?” asked Ivy.

Mrs. Perkins picked up a girl pup with a sherbet-pink tummy. “ ’Cause they’re gonna give you a lot of litters,” she answered. “Breed ’em and you’ll get the price back ten times over in a jiffy. Not that we do it for the money, mind you!”

One after another, Mr. Burgess cuddled the German shepherd babies in his arms. As the afternoon grew late, it was clear he could not bear to leave without one. Finally after much backing and forthing, Mr. Burgess chose a male with a black saddle on his reddish-tan back, black stockings, and a black-as-charcoal muzzle.

On the way home, Ivy got to hold the pup in the backseat of the car. She held his front quarters on her lap and whispered in his outsized ears. She stroked him under the chin. The pup curled up and went right to sleep with the rhythms of the stroking and the car swaying.

Mr. Burgess explained that
overshot
and
undershot
meant teeth not properly aligned.
Straight
stifles
were hind legs with no bend at the knee, and
fiddle fronts
were front feet that turned out. “All these things keep a dog from working to the maximum,” said Mr. Burgess, “and he won’t be in a show ring for long if he’s got any one of ’em.”

“What about
slaggy, draggy hindquarters
?” asked Billy Joe.

“Lots of shepherds are slanted down in the back,” said Mr. Burgess. “As if they were half sitting. It’s a poor trait to breed into a dog. I don’t like it.”

Mr. Burgess peered into the rearview mirror and smiled at Ivy, who held his pup in her lap. “All my dogs are named after German operas, but this one is different. He has a royal nose. I think he looks like the emperor Montezuma. I am going to call him Inca.”

They stopped to buy a wire-sided dog crate at the feed store in Carson. Then home they went, with a car full of dog food and toys and a brand-new collar and woven leather leash for Inca. Ivy did not mention to Mr. Burgess that Montezuma was an Aztec, according to her history book.

“How come you put him in that box?” asked Billy Joe. “Seems like you’re jailing him up, to me!”

“You’ll see,” said Mr. Burgess, stuffing a pillow and a towel into the crate. The next moment, Inca started chewing the pillow.

“No, Inca!” said Ivy, but Mr. Burgess said, “Put your hand in the crate with him, Ivy. Take the pillow out of his mouth. Say, ‘Leave it!’ and tap him on the nose sharply with one finger.”

Ivy took the pillow from Inca’s mouth and said, “Leave it!” over and over, tapping his nose and making her voice stern. “It’s not working, Mr. Burgess,” she said.

“It will,” said Mr. Burgess.

After ten more times, Inca stopped bothering his pillow. He put his head between his paws and mooned his eyes Ivy-ward.

“Now praise him,” said Mr. Burgess. “The treat is a message. It doesn’t need to be bigger than a good-size pebble.”

“Good dog!” Ivy said, giving Inca half a biscuit.

“He’s learned two things,” Mr. Burgess said. “Not to chew his pillow and the words
leave it.
Very important!”

“I want to do some stuff with him, too,” said Billy Joe.

“Good!” said Mr. Burgess. “See that hill on the other side of the paddock? First give him some water, then take him for a run all the way up there. When you come back, look for ticks and burrs. Let him empty himself out, and then give him more water.”

As Inca took off with Billy Joe, Hoover and Coover watched with cool eyes, barely thumping their tails in their sunny spots on the porch. Billy Joe sprinted up into the hills with Inca beside him. The puppy raced just as hard and fast as Billy Joe could go.

Cora Butterworth came out of the house. She stood and watched, hands on hips with a wet dish towel crammed in her apron. She grinned. “Mr. Burgess,” she said, “you’re good for that boy. He should run up there fourteen times a day, far as I’m concerned. Run the bejiggers out of him! Only time that boy isn’t in trouble is when he’s asleep or on the move.”

Inca was happy to drink his water after his big run. Contented, Inca curled up in his cage with his pillow without once putting his teeth into it.

“That’s enough for today,” said Mr. Burgess. “We’ll leave him here in my room and let him howl while we go to the big house and eat. He’ll learn that yowling gets him exactly nowhere.”

In the morning, Ivy played tug-of-rope with Inca, so he knew to play with the right toys and not chew up anything belonging to people.

Ivy could hear Mr. Burgess’s screen door squeak open at six a.m., much earlier than any of the other ranch guests. He fed Inca outdoors and kept him out until he relieved himself so he didn’t mess the house.

“The dog’s master or mistress is in charge of what goes in and what comes out and when,” Mr. Burgess explained to Ivy. Every time Inca was about to relieve himself, Mr. Burgess said the word
go
very loud. Then he praised Inca when he got it right. The first day was a Monday. By Wednesday, after hearing
go!
so many times, Inca got the picture.
Go!
was a clear command. He did not once mess up the house.

“All this eating and drinking and going to the bathroom outdoors!” said Ivy.

“That’s the way,” said Mr. Burgess. “It’s a day’s work training a dog, and you have to be as fair as a nun on a hockey field.”

It was Billy Joe who took Inca for his big run every afternoon. It was Ivy who did the obedience training. She learned to loop a choke-chain collar the right way so it didn’t hurt Inca’s throat and taught Inca the command
heel
so he’d walk nicely at her side and not pull.

Ivy pushed down Inca’s backside and taught him to sit, each time giving him a tiny bit of dried liver, which in Inca’s mind seemed to be the snack food of the gods. When Inca got it right, she smoothed his soft red ears between her fingers and told him what a good boy he was.

“Oh, I wish you were mine!” Ivy whispered to him, but she knew there would be no expensive German shepherd show dogs in her future.

Ivy didn’t give Inca too much to remember at once.
Heel
was easy.
Sit
took a few days, because Inca’s tail was so waggy and he sat on top of it while it was going like a windmill, and then he’d fall over and bite his own tail to get it to stop.

Everyone in the guest lounge at the Red Star Ranch laughed at this, but Mr. Burgess held up his hand.

“No, please,” he said, “dogs hate to be laughed at, so you’ll just have to chuckle into your root beer so he can’t hear you.”

Mr. Burgess showed Ivy how to make Inca lie down by putting the treat between his sitting front feet and giving it to him only when he lay down.
Down!
was hard. Inca was a big, squirmy puppy, and when Ivy pushed him down, he rolled over and kissed her.

“Don’t let him do that!” said Mr. Burgess. “Training is work. Shepherds love work, and they understand when you take it seriously.”

Come
and
stay
followed on from
down.
“German shepherds live to serve,” said Mr. Burgess. “They love to follow commands. So, when we’re finished with the basics, we’ll have Inca jumping hurdles and picking out the toy I want him to fetch from a whole pile of toys.”

Mr. Burgess taught Ivy to teach Inca one new skill at a time, and they went over and over the commands until the puppy knew these were the most important words in his life. Ivy never used the word
no
because Mr. Burgess said everybody used
no
a thousand times a day, and the dog could not understand it after a while.
Leave it!
was a much clearer command.

“He’s the best dog who ever lived!” Ivy said to Mr. Burgess.

“No,” said Mr. Burgess. “He’s just a good shepherd. They’re all that way.”

On the last night of Mr. Burgess’s stay, everyone sat down to a So-Long-It’s-Been-Good-to-Know-You supper, which was a Red Star Ranch tradition. Ivy’s mother made leg of lamb and served it up to the guests with mint sauce. Inca sat by the sofa. He was not allowed to beg at the table and knew he would be banished from the room if he did. His gimlet eyes didn’t miss a piece of the lamb as it went from guest fork to guest mouth. Ivy kept a little piece of gristle aside for Inca to have in the kitchen later, when he followed his
down
and
stay
commands.

Suddenly the telephone rang. It was for Mr. Burgess. When he returned to the supper table, his face was pale with worry. Sweat gleamed and beaded on his forehead. Ivy thought it might have been Mrs. Burgess making a nasty call. That would not have been the first time an unpleasant phone call had happened during supper at the Red Star. Maybe one of his shepherds at home was hurt or sick.

“Mr. Burgess?” said one of the new women guests, Mrs. Blanc. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you look as if you’d seen a ghost!”

Mrs. Blanc was a peppy little lady whose husband had made her give up the piano, her one joy in life. Mr. Blanc had cut a hole in the side of their apartment house in Pittsburgh and pushed the piano out through the hole, crashing it into the cement backyard, five stories down. This was according to Billy Joe, who happened, completely by accident, to run across one of Mrs. Blanc’s letters after she’d thrown it in the trash.

Mr. Burgess leaned back in his chair and looked down the table at Ivy, who was serving vegetables to the guests.

“That was American Airlines,” he said, his voice unsteady. “They have the vet’s certificate that I sent them so that Inca can travel with me on the plane tomorrow. Trouble is, they won’t take a pup this young. What am I going to do? I have to get home on tomorrow’s flight. My brother can only stay with my shepherds at home in Teaneck till tomorrow night. Oh, holy moly mackerel, what am I going to do?”

Ivy knew the answer to the problem before she served the next spoonful of peas.

“Well,” she said, “as you know, I have an animal-care service, Mr. Burgess. I can take care of Inca until he’s old enough to go. Then we’ll put him on a plane and fly him to New Jersey, if you make the arrangements.” She caught her mother’s eye, and her mother nodded. More money in the envelope marked
U.
was a good step along the way.

“I’ll help, too!” said Billy Joe.

All the color returned to Mr. Burgess’s face. “You will?” he asked shakily. “It would be for almost three weeks.”

“Sure,” said Ivy. “I’ll keep up his training, too.”

“I’ll run him up into the hills every day of the week,” put in Billy Joe.

Mr. Burgess was so happy that he offered Ivy a ten-dollar bill and five to Billy Joe, right there on the spot.

“You don’t have to do that, Mr. Burgess,” said Ivy. “I never charge but twenty-five cents a day. Three weeks is just five dollars, twenty-five cents.”

Billy Joe’s eyes said,
Shut up, Ivy,
from across the room, but Ivy never shut up just because that silly boy wanted her to. She was saving her money for vet school. Billy Joe claimed he was saving his money for a beat-up motorcycle, except he never really saved it. He usually lost it in the laundry and his mother kept it, because she said all money found in the wash was hers to claim and give to the church, and if he didn’t lose it, Billy Joe liked to spend every dime that came his way on bubble gum and fireworks.

Mr. Burgess made Ivy and Billy Joe keep the money. “Cheap at the price!” he said. “Besides, you’ll need some of it for dog food. Now, I say root beer all around!” he announced happily.

When supper was finished, Mrs. Blanc went to the old, carved-up piano in the lounge. She banged out “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” which was one of ten songs, all of them Christmas carols, that she said she knew how to play. Never mind it was only the middle of August.

Although she would never have cut a hole in the wall of a house herself, Ivy was not sure Mrs. Blanc’s husband was completely in the wrong, back there in Pittsburgh.

Next to the training, the best thing about Inca was nights. Inca’s crate was set up right next to Ivy’s bed. Ivy stretched out an arm and went to sleep each night with one or the other of Inca’s ears in her fingers. She talked the puppy down from the day’s excitement, always ending with, “Oh, Inca, I wish you were mine.” Ivy would never have a dog of her own. Her mother could tell her to the nickel just how much a dog would cost the family per year and would conclude by saying that they could not afford a dog like Inca in this lifetime.

Billy Joe Butterworth was a can’t-sit-still boy if ever there was one, so he was not much for the repetitive work of dog training. Ivy recalled that he’d been the same way in third grade about his times tables. He couldn’t and wouldn’t and didn’t remember them, until his dad made him recite them in the kitchen for one hour every night by the clock, so that he mightn’t wind up as the village idiot. Somehow, those multiplication tables got etched into Billy Joe’s brain like the Pepsi-Cola song on the radio, but it wasn’t easy.

But Billy Joe faithfully helped every evening after chores with the big Inca run. Probably, Ivy figured, Billy Joe was afraid if he didn’t work hard, she’d make him give Mr. Burgess’s five-dollar bill to her, and he’d probably already lost that five-dollar bill. It was probably laundry-clean from being in Billy’s Joe’s dirty jeans pocket and was probably at that very minute in the church collection plate.