The Dead Season (2 page)

I said, “When can I see my dog?”

He glanced at Mr. Willis. “Soon,” he said. “Real soon. Now, why don’t you start at the beginning?”

I felt every muscle in my body tense up. I looked at Mr. Willis. He nodded encouragingly. I took a breath and released it as evenly as possible. “Right,” I said. The sooner I got started, the sooner I could go home. The sooner I could get Cisco and just… go home. “From the beginning.”

CHAPTER TWO

T
he first time I ever heard of the New Day Wilderness
Program
was when that kid, Brian Maddox, called me last October, wanting to know if I could give his dog what he called a “Good Canine Dog Test.” Apparently, he had found my number in the yellow pages under “Dog Trainers.” Since mine is the only dog training listing in the Hanover County and Surrounding Areas Telephone Directory–Raine Stockton, Dog Daze Boarding and Training, member APDT, certified CGC evaluator—the choice was a fairly easy one. Clearly, he had not gone to my website, or he would have known there is no such thing as a “Good Canine Dog Test.”

I’m very proud of the website for Dog Daze, mostly because it took me almost a year to learn how to build it. There are all kinds of good things on the site, including a schedule of classes, photos of our graduates and all of their ribbons, my own gorgeous dogs, of course, with a complete list of all their accomplishments—and a full description of the Canine Good Citizen test.

It took me awhile to figure out that, that was, in fact, what Brian was referring to: the AKC’s Canine Good Citizen test, which is a fairly simple ten-point examination to determine whether or not your dog has general good manners and whether he can maintain those manners in public under moderately stressful conditions.

According to Brian (who was really a very polite and articulate young man despite the fact he had obviously never heard of the Canine Good Citizen test until someone told him he should call me about it), his employer would let him bring his dog to work with him only if the dog was a certified therapy dog, or a Canine Good Citizen. He went on to explain that he worked for the New Day Wilderness
Program
, and that he was going into the wilderness for two weeks in three days and he didn’t want to leave his dog behind, and asked if I could I do the test that day.

If he had gone to my website, he would’ve seen that I give the test four times a year, and that the last testing date had already passed. He was devastated. Wasn’t there anything I could do for him? Did I know of anyone else in the area who did the test?

So I sent him to my website and told him to follow the link to the AKC’s Canine Good Citizen page, where he could request a list of evaluators.

Five minutes later, he called back, wanting to know if he could pay extra to have me do the test right away. I tried to explain to him that the CGC test is considered something of a public service, and that the AKC frowns upon its evaluators trying to make a profit from it. Furthermore, it really made no sense to give the test for just one dog, since the entire point was to evaluate how the dog behaved around crowds and other canines. However, I told him to keep in touch, and that if I had enough students interested in taking the test I would schedule another one at the end of the month.

As it turned out, I did have three other people who wanted to test their dogs, so I was able to set up a test for two weekends away. I e-mailed Brian, and a couple of days later, he replied enthusiastically that he was leaving his dog with his girlfriend while he went into the wilderness, but he would be returning the day before the test and would definitely be able to make it.

And that was the last I—or anyone else, as it turned out—heard from him.

My life had been pretty full since then, and I completely forgot about the incident until a rainy day in the middle of January, when a girl named Heather McBane called to ask whether I did therapy dog certifications. She was also going into the wilderness in a couple of days and wanted to take her dog with her.

And that’s how I got involved in what would turn out to be the biggest disaster of my life.

CHAPTER T
HREE

I
love winter in the mountains. I
love
the way the soft cool light turns the distant mountains to lavender and reflects off the white-frosted ridge lines. I
love
waking up in the morning to find animal tracks in the snow outside my window, and I
love
the sound of white water tumbling through swollen streams and waterfalls. I
love
hiking with the dogs though miles and miles of silent woodlands, and coming unexpectedly upon sweeping vistas that never would have been visible in the spring or summer. I
love
the smell of wood smoke and curling up in a big chair in the evening with a good book and dogs piled all around me. Sometimes I think if we didn’t have the winter to rest, we probably wouldn’t survive the rest of the year.

Not much happens around here in between January and March. The sun doesn’t clear the mountaintops until around nine a.m. and sets a little after five, so nobody expects to get much done. We drink a lot of coffee, chop a lot of kindling, and watch a lot of reruns of the old
Andy Griffith Show
on television. Andy, being a native, is huge in North Carolina, and at least two of the local stations are running an episode of the show at any given time.

The truth is, our little town of Hansonville, North Carolina, today is not all that different from Mayberry of the 1960s–or at least it seems that way in the winter time. If you go downtown on a January morning, yours is likely to be the only moving vehicle on the street, and you’d be hard-pressed to go into a shop or place of business without seeing someone you know. And if you dash across the street against the light in front of a law enforcement officer, he’s more likely to help you carry your bags than give you a ticket, just like in Mayberry.

Of course, in my own case, that might be because, up until recently, my Uncle Roe had been the sheriff of Hanover County. Upon his retirement last fall, his number one deputy, Buck Lawson, had taken over as interim sheriff. And Buck, until approximately three months ago, had been my husband.

The downside of living in a town as small as Hansonville is that it’s really hard to avoid your ex-husband, and even harder to avoid people who want to
talk
to you about your ex-husband… which wouldn’t be quite so bad if they did not also want to talk about his new girlfriend. Buck and I had parted as amicably as was possible under the circumstances, but that didn’t mean I was as anxious to be on the receiving end of that kind of helpful gossip as certain people were to dish it out. So I was glad that, with the holidays over and the weather turning ugly, most people were as content to stay indoors and mind their own business as I was.

The other downside of living here, especially in the winter, is that shortly after Christmas every year, without fail, the economy takes a nose dive. We call it the dead season. Retailers shorten their hours and restaurants are only open on weekends. Municipal employees take long lunches and get caught up on paperwork. Even the construction business, which had been booming all autumn due to the resort community that was being built practically in my backyard, had slowed to a crawl. About the only people who were working full time in this county were school teachers and librarians.

At Dog Daze, we are barely open at all in the winter, and this year was worse than most since we had been closed for remodeling since October. We were finally open again, but word had been a little slow to get out. So far the only dogs to enjoy the newly expanded, refurbished and freshly painted facility had been my own. Nonetheless, I opened the office every day and pretended to go to work—partly because, with its new under-floor radiant heating system, the kennel facility was actually warmer than my house, partly because I loved the smell of new paint in my brightly lit blue and yellow office, but mostly because, after being out of work for almost three months, I was
bored
.

So every morning I spent an hour or so in the indoor agility ring with my golden retriever, Cisco, working on the skills we would need when the competitive agility season began in the spring, and another half hour working with Mischief and Magic, the Aussies, in obedience. Then, because there is such a thing as over-training, I would go to my bright, clean, fresh-paint-smelling office and make busy work for myself—cutting out paper mortarboard hats for the puppy kindergarten graduates, pasting stick-on gold emblems on graduation certificates, printing out extra copies of obedience homework—while the dogs snoozed on the snuggly warm floor. Today, I had decided to update the website with photos of our brand new facility, including a happy golden retriever scrambling over the A-Frame (and totally missing his contact point, which I hoped no one would notice from the photograph) and excited Australian shepherds bounding over the broad jump with dumb bells in their mouths. I had taken the photos only that morning on the smartphone I had gotten for Christmas, which was one reason the dogs were practically comatose on the floor now. I was determined to prove that the phone was
not
smarter than I was, and it had taken quite a few tries before I had gotten a photograph that in any way resembled a dog doing anything at all. Now all I had to do was figure out how to upload those photographs to my website.

That task was proving easier said than done, which was why I was still in the office when the business line rang. The sound jarred me out of my internet-induced stupor and I jumped, banging my knee on the underside of the desk, knocking over an empty coffee cup. My dedicated canines, who had been passing the gray, dripping day as all God’s creatures should—sleeping soundly in a warm, dry place—immediately sprang into action. Mischief, the Australian shepherd, ran to the window, placed her front paws on the sill, and peered out excitedly. Her sister Magic jumped up on the front door and pawed the handle, signaling that she wanted to go out. And Cisco, intrepid retriever that he was, immediately began circling the room looking for something to retrieve. He finally found one of the galoshes I had left at the door and brought it to me happily, his big plumy tail fanning an enthusiastic breeze while I pried the rubber boot from his mouth with one hand and balanced the phone against my ear with the other.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have been glad to be distracted from my frustration by the ringing of the telephone, but I knew from experience what kind of calls I got on the office line this time of year. The Christmas puppy was relieving himself all over the house; could I tell them how to make him stop (for free)? The new dog just wasn’t working out, did I know anybody who wanted him? And if not, could I keep him (for free)? Their Rottweiler/ pit bull mix, which they had never bothered to take to obedience school, had attacked the meter reader; could I help them avoid a law suit (for free?).

Consequently, my voice was a little less than chirpy as I answered the phone. “Dog Daze, this is Raine speaking.”

In all the confusion of my own dogs’ antics, I missed the first few words from the speaker on the other end, but perked up when I caught the last part of her inquiry. “–wondering whether you do therapy dog certification.”

This sounded like someone who might actually be a paying client, so I snapped my fingers at Cisco and signaled him to sit down, then tossed the boot in the middle of the floor to get the attention of the Aussies, who took one look at my stern expression and sank guiltily to the floor. In my most professional voice I replied, “We do offer a therapy dog class here, or I’ll be glad to arrange for private lessons. Has your dog had any previous obedience training?”

“Well, he’s never been to a formal school,” she replied cheerfully, “but he knows how to sit and come and all that. He’s a very good dog.”

Because I was, after all, actively soliciting new clients, I refrained from launching into a lecture about what would happen if you tried to get a child into college by claiming, “Well, he’s really never been to school, but he knows how to read and write and all that.” Instead, I said, “That’s great, then. He shouldn’t have any trouble at all finishing our basic obedience course, and then we can move him up into therapy dog training.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “How long will that take?”

“The basic course is eight weeks long, and the therapy dog course is six weeks.”

Even before she spoke, I was waving good-bye to the cash. “Oh dear,” she said. “Can’t you just certify him without making him take the class?”

“I’m not actually a therapy dog evaluator,” I explained to her. “I’m a trainer. I prepare you and your dog to take the certification test. The test itself is offered in Asheville several times a year.”

“Asheville?” She was sounding more and more unhappy. “That’s pretty far away, isn’t it?”

And that was my first clue, as if I needed one, that she wasn’t from around here. Asheville, which is not quite two hour’s drive, is practically next door to the residents of Hanover County, who are accustomed to driving half a day to pick up a tractor part.