Paws before dying (13 page)

As soon as I got off the phone with Lisa, I called Marcia Brawley. I’ll admit that by that time, I was hoping she wouldn’t want to talk about dogs, but she did. She was feeling guilty because a border collie needs to work, and she was afraid that hers, Rascal, was becoming neurotic because he lacked a sense of purpose. What did I think about getting him a pair of sheep so he’d have something to herd? And, of course, she could use the wool, speaking of which, was it a scarf I had in mind? And did I want pure malamute wool or sheep blend?

“Oh, pure,” I said. Just the idea of the blend put me off, mostly, I suppose, because it suggested crossing a malamute and a sheep, in other words, a nightmare: the strongest, stupidest animal on earth, and given the predator-prey conflict inherent in its hybrid genes, one that would probably go for its own throat. “Unless there’s some reason...?”

“Not really. It’s a matter of what you like. You want to look at some samples? I’ve got a nice Akita wall hanging, but they’re picking it up tonight, so if you want to see it, it’d better be today.”

The Brawleys’ big mauve Dutch Colonial was on the street across from the park, and the sun-room that ran along one side of the house was Marcia’s studio. A loom about the size of a baby grand piano sat at one end, and except for the two chairs in which we were sitting and the worktable between us, the remaining contents consisted almost exclusively of natural fibers. Underfoot was a rough-woven woolen rug in the colors of Joseph’s coat. Hand-loomed curtains kept out the sun. Neatly arrayed along all nonglass wall surfaces were spools, bobbins, and rolls of yam and thread, most in natural shades of brown, gray, and off-off-white, but a few in loden, berry, and heather.

I’m so used to Cambridge that I seldom notice the absence of makeup—you’re deported to the suburbs if you’re caught with blue eye shadow—but Marcia Brawley’s invisible lashes were more emphatic than any mascara, and her Scandinavian hair accented her sun-damaged skin.

She’d carefully wrapped the Akita hanging in tissue and was now spreading out a long, wide muffler woven in six or eight different shades of brown. “What about something like this? Only not this color, of course. Unless you want it dyed. You don’t want it dyed, do you? You want it natural.”

“I think he’d like that better,” I said. I pulled a tightly sealed plastic bag from my purse and handed it to her. “This is just what’s coming out now. My dogs both have white undercoats.

Kimi has some tan, but not much. But once they start losing the guard coat, it’ll be gray—some dark, some light—and black, and more white...”

“Of course.” She opened the bag and, like a baby rubbing a blanket ribbon, ran the fur between her fingers.

“Look, I don’t know anything about weaving,” I said. “Is it all right? Can you do something with it?”

“Of course.”

I was happy that my fur—well, Rowdy’s and Kimi’s—had passed inspection. We discussed the dimensions and design of the scarf and settled on a price that seemed reasonable enough, especially if you consider that the raw material was going to arrive really raw, fresh off the dogs.

Finally, since a profile of a weaver who’ll card and spin what your pet sheds is exactly the kind of piece that
Dog’s Life
will always buy, I asked Marcia how she’d feel about an article. She was Battered, even though
Dog’s Life
isn’t exactly
The New Yorker.
The big difference is that
New Yorker
profiles focus on people, whereas the
Dog’s Life
reader wants mainly to read about dogs. As you can imagine, then, I hoped that Rascal, her border collie, was photogenic and personable. I hadn’t even met him. I asked where he was.

“He was with Zeke,” she said, going to the window and pulling open one of the curtains. “My son. Maybe they’re back. Yeah, there’s Rascal.”

“Your yard’s fenced?” Newton has a tough, enforced leash law. I assumed that the dog wasn’t wandering loose. Marcia didn’t say anything, and I went on. “I love Cambridge, but most of the yards are so small. I always feel guilty about my dogs when I see one with lots of room.”

“Yeah. Actually, we used to live in Cambridge. Before.” In Newton, that means B.C.: Before Children. “We moved here for the schools. Just like everyone else.” She looked apologetic. “We’ve been here, um—Zeke was four, so it’s five years. You get used to it.”

“I’ll bet,” I said as Marcia walked me to the door. “And a big fenced yard for your dog. That must be more than a little compensation. I mean, if you’ve got enough room so you can even think about having sheep, too. Nice.”

Just as Marcia opened the front door, her telephone rang. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve got to get that.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll call you about the article.”

The first thing I did when I stepped outside was to look around for the fence so I could peer over it or open the gate to see what the dog looked like and say hello to him. As I was crossing the lawn, though, a rather small, mostly black male border collie with a lowered head dashed around a corner of the house, stopped abruptly, and stared at me. Maybe you’ve never been held in the gaze of a border collie. Have you ever been hypnotized, entranced, overtaken, and fixed in place? Same thing. I wasn’t sure how to read this guy. He wasn’t barking at me, but I was pretty sure he didn’t want me to approach him, either. Well, I guess that says it: The effect of a border collie is to make you ask yourself what he wants you to do. They’re small dogs, at least in the eyes of someone with malamutes, and they’re fine-boned and fantastically agile, not burly or tough-looking, but they have an air of intense, authoritative intelligence. Goldens are the top obedience dogs in terms of raw numbers of titles, but there are lots of goldens and few border collies. If you take the numbers of dogs into account, the border collie is the unequaled, unbeatable great obedience breed.

I wondered whether I was supposed to say something, but this border collie, unlike the others I’d known, didn’t issue the usual clear directions. Did he want me out of his yard? And what was he doing loose? Well, damn it, I thought. I should’ve known. He’s so perfectly trained that they don’t keep him tied up or fenced in. On the other hand, hadn’t she said that he was neurotic? Or getting neurotic? I didn’t return the stare, but I watched him out of the comer of my eye and began to edge my way toward the street. He maintained a steady three-yard distance from me until I reached the sidewalk, where he came to a peculiar, rapid halt, backed up, and barked.

A boy with Marcia’s fair coloring came running around the side of the house and told him to quit it. He did. “He doesn’t bite,” the kid assured me. “And he doesn’t go out of the yard.”

“Ever?” I asked. “That’s amazing. Border collies are such smart dogs. Did you train him?”

The kid shook his head no.

“But he’s your dog? You’re Zeke?”

He nodded.

“My name is Holly Winter. I’ve just been visiting your mother. She’s going to make a scarf for me. A present for my

father. Are you ever lucky to have a border collie! They’re great dogs.”

He smiled and patted Rascal’s head.

“You go to school here, right? I forget the name of it. The one around the corner.”

“Case,” he said.

“Case. Did you have Mrs. Engleman?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She died.”

“I know,” I said. “She was a friend of mine.”

“She was a friend of mine, too.”

It seemed like a strange thing for a boy of nine or ten to say about his kindergarten teacher. He reminded me of Rascal. They were both hard to read.

“I miss her,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, taking the dog by the collar. “I gotta go.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Bye.”

I didn’t notice the collar until Zeke wrapped his hand around it. I still didn’t understand Zeke, but I knew why Rascal didn’t move beyond the lawn, why no ugly chain link marred the pretty landscape. Here’s how it works. Around the perimeter of the yard, you bury a wire that transmits a radio signal that’s picked up by a receiver on the dog’s collar. Whenever the dog crosses the boundary, he hears a warning beep. Warning? Oh, yeah. If he doesn’t back up instantly, the collar gives him an electric shock. A system like that isn’t cheap, but, as I’ve said, it doesn’t mar the pretty landscape.

Chapter 14

AS soon as I got home, I kicked Leah, Jeff, and some of the Seths and Emmas out of the kitchen, sat down at the table, buried my toes under Rowdy’s nonelectrified chin, and did a column about electronic training. My editor, Bonnie, had rejected my previous columns and articles on the topic because the subject “is not of interest to the readers of
Dog’s Life.
” The readers she had in mind were mostly advertisers, not subscribers, but she’s right that some of our readers do use electronic trainers and might not be happy to read that they ought to quit. As I told Bonnie after the last rejection, St. Paul’s editor probably told him that the Epistles were not of interest to the Corinthians, either. Bonnie replied rather sharply that Pm hired to write about dogs, not to spread the gospel. Then she hung up. I felt angry and perplexed. I mean, I wasn’t trying to suggest anything weird or radical.

Anyway, the column wrote itself, and when it was done, I outlined another on tips for removing dog hair from carpeting and upholstery.

“So probably I won’t even bother mailing it,” I told Rita, who stopped in when she got home from work. “And Bonnie’ll love Holly’s Household Hints, and she won’t be mad at me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life telling people how to get woven-in dog hairs out of the furniture. Christ! Here I am feeling like St. Paul, and I end up Heloise. Honest to God, I feel ashamed of myself. Just what you want to hear now, right? It’s probably the first time today that anyone said that to you. I’m sorry. Scotch or gin?”

“Gin,” she said, “if you have limes.”

Because Groucho has never won anything at a fun match or an obedience trial—he’s never so much as been to one pre-Novice class—Rita has to buy serving trays, pottery sets, goblets, mugs, mint dishes, fruit bowls, candle holders, and compotes. Her tumblers and shot glasses are not engraved with pictures of hurdles and names of kennel clubs. Even so, she manages to contain her envy if I pour generously and refrain from reminding her that I could set a banquet table with the booty my dogs and my mother’s have brought home over the years. When I’d dropped in ice cubes and lime, I added enough gin to clear the high jump.

“So how many patients did you see today?” I handed her the glass.

“Clients,” she corrected me. “Eight.”

“So what’s one more? Because I have this feeling sometimes that I’m being driven crazy.”

“So does everyone else,” she said, “except the people who are.”

“Would you mind listening?”

“I can’t. I cannot listen. I am listened out. So talk, anyway. Just don’t expect a response.”

“Just one thing,” I said. “When I feel like this? You know what I feel like? I’m in ancient Rome. Okay? And everybody says, ‘Hey, it’s been a stressful week, so let’s go down to the Coliseum and have a few beers and watch the lions maul a few Christians.’ Right? Well, there must’ve been a few people—there must’ve been a
few,
at least, mostly women, I bet—who said, ‘But I don’t
want
to. I think it’s cruel.’ So people said, ‘What’s wrong, with you?’ Here is this thing that is obviously cruel, and sometimes I feel like the only person who wants to yell, ‘This is barbaric!’ ”

“You’re yelling it right now,” Rita said.

“Yeah, and at you. You see? It’s pointless. You don’t need to hear it. And what else do I do? I sit down and write a column that says that shock collars are great, and here’s a whole new way to use them. You take the collar and put it around your own neck. Every time the dog does something you don’t like, you push the button. Okay? Fair is fair. Who taught him to do whatever he did? Obviously, you did, so you’re the one who gets jolted. I could probably think up a vicious name for my remote training method and market it. Maybe Marcia Brawley would buy that. I could make it really expensive. Marcia Brawley is this woman... She’s a perfectly nice woman except that she gives electric shocks to her dog. Otherwise, she’s a nice, civilized person. When in Rome. It makes me feel crazy.”

Rita looked sad and shook her head. Then she drank some gin and licked her lips. “None of this is new to you,” she said. “That there’s a lot of cruelty? This is not new. And most of the time, you can step back and say, ‘Well, why would someone do this? And how can I help her find a better way to get what she wants?’ But today you write this adolescent essay about people putting shock collars on themselves. And you regress into this semi-grandiose vision, where the rest of us are sort of casual, decadent sadists and you’re the only sensitive person on the planet.”

“Grandiose,” I said. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned St. Paul. Rita is really amazing. She can spend all day with her patients or clients or whatever she’s calling them at the moment and then still find the right words and, not only that, say them so you can hear them. “Yeah.”

“You ever use a choke collar?”

“Yes. Everyone does, practically.”