‘Are you going to take him to classes?’ Nina asked. ‘And perhaps I could come with you?’
Denis laughed, throwing his head back and showing all his teeth. ‘I could teach them more in a class than they could teach me. University of life taught me and that’s what I’ll teach him. And he’s too big for you to handle on your own. Once I’ve worked on him, he’ll be a pussycat for you, just wait and see.’
‘Are you sure, Denis... it’s just, I think it’s getting worse between him and Fredo and I don’t know what to do... I thought perhaps an expert might help me.’
‘I’ve told you, you’re too soft. They’re just being dogs, that’s all.’ Denis’ voice had the start of a growl in it and Nina said no more. ‘Come on, boy, time to behave like a grown-up. Lesson one.’
Actually, things had improved dramatically between me and Fredo, ever since the day when he’d given his usual nips at my back ankles and stayed there long enough to find forty-two teeth gnashing in front of his nose. I didn’t do ankles. I followed up the warning with the ear pull, jerk and roll. The little runt had no option but to roll and I waited for the proper submission due me. Older, he might be, but the days were long gone when he was bigger and I had learned from my Master and from Fredo himself everything I needed to know to take over. I held his eyes, blazing my fury at him, so sure he’d admit it was all over that I fell for the quick sideways twist, bark and run, that enabled him to stare back at me from a safe distance, barking defiance. Then Denis arrived on the scene. Both Fredo and I greeted our Master appropriately and this time, I was the one who muscled Fredo aside to let me pay homage first. There was no nipping or yapping but I could feel the resistance in his body as I shoved him out of the way. So, victory not complete but merely deferred, I told myself, glorying in the ripple of power coming to full malehood in my body.
Apparently, small dogs don’t need Education. Although, you could say that Fredo benefited from mine. When I came back from an hour’s Education, Denis thought I should be ignored for a while after having had so much attention. ‘Too much attention isn’t good for a dog.’ So I would seek out Fredo. He had enough sense to hide from me but I still couldn’t get a submission from the furball and until I did, I would increase the pressure. It made me feel good, restored my sense of my own power, to close my teeth on his flesh. No-one forgets their first bite, nor the first time they’re bitten. Was it you, Sirius, who made me stop? Who squealed like a shrew till the wave of rage in my bloodstream was stopped by the infinite, impenetrable wall of brotherhood?’
‘Brother, you bit me, I stopped you,’ I answered, but I could have done without the reference to a shrew and some acknowledgement of my response. Some puppy matters were best left forgotten, or at least kept private.
‘Fredo was not you, brother. I still felt his teeth marks in my legs from my early days in the house. The way he had stolen my bed, prevented me greeting my Master, snapped me into my place as his inferior, even when I showed him nothing but politeness. All this was stored in my memory and allowed my teeth the freedom they had always wanted. I needed to Educate Fredo and he did well to run away, to hide in the small corners that suited such a dog-rat. But he could not hide from my voice and I told him what I would do to him when I found him, when there were no Humans to intervene. And still he defied me, even from his hidey-hole, telling me that he was my boss as long as he lived. ‘You said it first, Fredo,’ I told him.
‘See, Nina,’ Denis said. ‘They’re playing together now.’
‘It doesn’t look like playing to me.’
‘Women!’ Denis laughed and shook his head. ‘Just as well there’s a man around.’ I was glad he approved of my putting Fredo in his place. Denis understood the compliment, that I was his able lieutenant, following his lead. He was so strong. Just how strong, I was learning from my Education.
I didn’t know what to expect but was curious when walk-time changed completely. Denis produced a new collar, metal with spikes inside. ‘That will stop you pulling,’ he told me. ‘Time to be a grown-up.’ And instead of the long lead, there was a short chain with a leather handle. Keen for our walk together, I tried to bound off and received as much pain and jerk in my neck as if I’d actually fallen off the window ledge and been held by the lead. ‘Heel,’ I was told and the pain went if I stayed so close to my Master I could feel the warmth of his leg. Every time I stopped to sniff, or followed a scent so much as a paw’s length away from Denis, pain. If I stayed by his side long enough, no pain and, sometimes, ‘Good dog.’ I had to work so hard to change all my habits and remember how to keep the pain away that I couldn’t manage one aroundera all walk. My tail was as limp as my neck was tense, waiting for the needles to dig in. When I got home the first time, I was exhausted and just went off somewhere quiet to sleep, not even reacting to Fredo’s attempts to reclaim territory with some yaps and nips.
As I grew better at remembering how to avoid pain, how to please my Master on the walk, I kept more of my energy stored inside, had to concentrate less on staying within the tight circle of pain. Denis added new command words, made me sit, stay, lie down. He put me into position with his hands and gave me the command word that went with it. Then he held me there until he gave a release word. Then he told me to do it without him touching me and if I didn’t, he hit me. If I got up before he said, he hit me. So I did what I was told and I was so full of energy that I wanted to explode. I needed to be a leader the way Denis was, and I wasn’t strong enough to challenge him yet, so I taught Fredo a lesson when we got back home.
Denis added more and more to what I had to do for him. He took off the lead for short spells and made me walk beside him and behave as if the pain was still in place. I strayed a little once and he hit me. He taught me to give a paw and when Nina used the command and I gave her a paw, she was so happy, she kissed both me and Denis. It was a small thing to allow her and I liked being kissed. I was preparing mentally and physically for the two great challenges in my life. Unbelievably, Fredo had still not given me a formal submission and I was becoming obsessed by his defiant little bark. He now had teeth marks under his eye, on his flank and in his skinny tail, but he still shouted his delusions of leadership at me, even while he was running away.
And my Master deserved the full power of my testing. I would know when it was the moment. I was sure he was strong enough to prove his worth to me and to win but I had to show my own quality in the challenge, for us both to feel self-respect and respect for each other. He had to show me he was someone to look up to.
One ordinary day we were on our walk. I was hot, I was irritable. I could feel the inner wolf fretting at the ‘do this, do that’ nagging at my actions all the time, longing for freedom, or better still, the chance to tell someone else to ‘do this, do that.’ We’d gone to the park, where Denis commanded me to lie down. I ignored the spot he’d chosen, because it was in full sunshine and I was already panting like a high speed train. Instead, I chose a comfortable shady position, lush grass under a spreading chestnut tree. Denis’ eyes narrowed but relaxed as I held my downstay as ordered. I was comfortable, I relaxed as the breeze tickled my nose with jasmine and broom, my ears with children playing in the distance. I shifted onto my side, a more comfortable position than the alert one Denis liked me to stay in. I could feel his irritation mounting but I could also feel the summer’s day lulling me with perfumes and sleepy pleasure. ‘Stratos, come!’ broke into my daydream. I opened one eye and shut it again. ‘Oh stuff it.’ I thought. ‘I’m staying here. Let him prove himself now. I can’t lose either way. If he wins, I have a Master worth my respect and if he doesn’t, I get to lie here, drifting asleep in the shadows.’
I’d hardly had the thought when my Master was towering above me. I opened both eyes and glared at him as if he were Fredo. ‘No,’ I barked at him. And then his huge hand descended hard on my rump. I laughed at him. ‘Didn’t feel a thing,’ I told him, ‘too used to it and too big now.’ Then he welted my face with a sideways swipe of his hand and I automatically snapped in the air. ‘That does it,’ he shouted . ‘We start here and we’ll finish this at home.’ The spiked collar was back on my neck and even though I didn’t move, Denis deliberately jerked it so the points dug into my neck. I’d forgotten the pain, having avoided it for so long and by the third jerk I was on my feet, desperately trying to keep to Denis’s angry pace so as to avoid any more torture.
He hauled me into the house and turned on me as soon as we were inside in the basement. He took off my collar and lead. Thank Dog, I thought. He told me to lie down. I obeyed but I kept my eyes fixed on his, defying him. Then he kicked me, a sharp pain in the ribs. I snapped in the air at his boot. ‘You asked for it,’ he shouted and he hit me with the lead and the chain, on and on, till I screamed and rolled on my back. He had won! I was scared of him. I worshipped him. I wanted to be like him.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Nina, standing white-faced in the doorway with little Boris, held close to her.
‘He needed a lesson and I’ve given him one. You’ll find he won’t give us any trouble from now on. Look at him.’ I lay on my back, wagging my tail, trying not to put pressure on the parts that had been whipped.
‘Did you hit him, Daddy?’ Boris asked, tearful and huddling close to his mother.
‘Yes, son. You have to be cruel to be kind, with a dog, especially with a big dog like this. When you’re a man, you’ll understand.’
‘I don’t want to be a man,’ Boris whispered. His father didn’t hear him but I did. Nina said nothing, just held her son closer, as she turned him to walk away, leaving us in the basement.
From that day on, I obeyed my master’s every word, quickly. I gave Nina my paw whenever she asked but there was a lack of warmth in her voice when she said, ‘Good dog’ so the action seemed mechanical now. Denis told Nina to put me through my paces so he would be happy to go away on business and leave me with her. ‘He’s a good guard dog so there’s no chance of a burglar getting past this one. I don’t think a fly with evil intentions would get past him.’ Nina smiled weakly. ‘But I want you to feel confident that you can control him so these are the commands...’ And with Denis giving orders to both of us, Nina and I carried out a very efficient Sit, Stay, Come and of course, Give Me a Paw. I thought about Fredo. I could feel the day of reckoning coming nearer.
‘I’ll phone when I get there. Take care,’ Denis told Nina and kissed her goodbye. He had a big bag with him and he smelled different from when he usually went to work, cleaner, more excited.
Nina took me for a walk, a short one because we had Boris and Cath with us and they grew tired quickly. Nina didn’t let me off the lead but she didn’t pull on me and I didn’t call up the pain in the points. She didn’t talk to me and I felt lonely for my Master. He didn’t come back at the usual time and eventually I gave up waiting at the window for him. I lay down where I could watch Nina and wait for my Master. I couldn’t see Fredo so I didn’t think about him. Bedtime was such a fixed routine now that I wasn’t even aware of Fredo’s existence unless he chose to point it out to me, which he wasn’t stupid enough to do. Morning came, no Master. Walk with Nina and the children as far as the school, which was stimulating for my ears, but I was too well-Educated to move one white hair away from my Nina’s side. She wasn’t my Master but she held my lead and my Master had put her in charge.
I was left in the garden to amuse myself. I chased some noises outside on the street and barked them away. Through the gate, I attacked the woman in the yellow van, who drove up every day, invading my territory with her hand in a box too high for me to reach – more’s the pity. I always won and she drove off as fast as if a giant patou were still at her heels. Then I saw Fredo, lying openly in the garden – MY garden – chewing a root. I sniffed; manure, beetle, celery... it was an interesting root and I was having it. I raced up to Fredo, who was so absorbed in chewing his root that he didn’t notice me coming and I barked, ‘Give it to me.’ He had nowhere to hide and he stood to his full height, about my knee, looked me right in the eye and barked, ‘NO!’
It was exactly as it had been with me and Denis, so I followed his example. I leaped into action with some well-judged bites and then demanded submission from the pint-sized irritation. Nina had run into the garden shouting and flicking a teatowel that marginally distracted us, enough that I snapped at the teatowel and unfortunately pierced not only the household linen but Nina’s hand holding it. She screamed and held her hand up to suck the blood already flowing, and she backed away from us, which helped me a lot. I really didn’t want to confuse Denis by getting Nina involved in male combat. This was purely between me and him. Fredo’s eyes showed fear and pain but were still trying to focus on mine as he barked ‘In your dreams, cuddly toy!’ So I ripped his throat out.
I walked over to Nina and explained to her that there was no other option but she was shaking and beyond reason. She ran into the house and I could see her using the telephone, so I settled down to rest, at the other end of the garden from Fredo’s body. I don’t like the smell of death. Fighting tires me and I felt like a sleep but I’d hardly closed my eyes when a van arrived. Of course I barked at all the strangers but I wasn’t really in the mood for serious guard duty so, because Nina told me to go, and used the command words, I let them put me in the van and bring me here. I won’t be here for long. When Denis gets back home, he’ll explain everything to Nina and come and get me.’
Stratos hurled his belief to the stars, ‘My Master will come!’
‘His master will come!’ we howled.
‘Denis will come,’ Stratos bayed.
‘Oh my brother,’ I whimpered, ‘What have you done?’