I looked around anxiously, frantically trying to find a human to come help us, but no one was stepping forward. Please! All these people, but none of them cared about the most important person in the building! They were having their own conversations. Many of them were eating things that normally I would find interesting, but not at that moment.
“I’m safe. I’m safe here. These thoughts don’t matter. They’re separate from me. I’m safe,” Samantha muttered to me.
I did not know that word, safe. And there was no click and there was no treat. Humans have so many words and so many of them seem to mean nothing!
I saw and smelled her tears flowing down her cheeks. She put her face in her hands. She was rocking more quickly now.
A man approached. I could smell that he’d been eating something salty earlier, and an oily odor came from his clothing. He halted right by our side.
I wagged at him uncertainly. In an odd way, he reminded me of Ben, because he was dressed in the same sort of bland clothing Ben often wore, though he was bigger and more sweaty and older. “Miss, are you okay? What’s happening?” he asked.
Samantha didn’t look at him. She just continued to rock, continued to breathe shallowly, and continued to cry. The man spoke to his shoulder, which I felt was odd and unhelpful. Then he stooped down next to me and regarded my girl. Samantha finally glanced up at him.
“What’s happening here?” the man repeated.
Samantha wasn’t saying anything and a solemn group of people had gathered to watch and they weren’t saying anything either. I decided they weren’t here to help and jumped up on the bench beside Samantha, leaning my weight into her, keeping my full attention on my girl. That had helped her before. It would help her now.
The man with the salty fingers and bland clothes noticed the crowd, though, and held up his hands. “Okay, folks, I’d like y’all to stand back, please,” he announced loudly, rising to his full height. People retreated, but they kept gazing.
Samantha reached out, and I snuggled into her grasp on the bench next to her. I was here. I was her dog.
I was not at all surprised when, after a long, tense wait, I smelled two very familiar people coming to us across the floor.
Ben and Roxie.
Ben reached a hand to touch me, but he was focused on Samantha. “Sammie, it’s okay. It’s all right.” Roxie held Samantha’s wrist and then tapped a pad in her hand. She extended an odd-looking sleeve and wrapped it around Samantha’s arm. I heard a faint, high-pitched whistling sound.
“Are you in pain, Samantha?”
Samantha shook her head.
“Blood pressure elevated, one eighty over ninety, pulse one sixty,” Roxie murmured. She turned to the nice man with the salty fingers. “It’s a panic attack,” she explained in a steady, quiet voice. “That’s all. Everything will be fine. We’ll take her with us now.”
The man nodded, then looked to the people who were still clustered close by. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. Didn’t y’all come here for some shopping or something?” he demanded.
With guilty glances at one another, the crowd began to break up. I was still on a leash, which was handed to Roxie, and Ben put his arm around Samantha, and we all walked together out the doors.
I was unsurprised to see Roxie’s big car. We climbed into the back, but nobody drove it. We just sat. Samantha’s breathing slowed, and I could feel her relaxing. I was still alert, though, in case whatever had frightened her came back.
Ben was watching Samantha with concern. “Okay, Sammie, what do you want to do now? Do you want to go home? Do you want to go to the hospital?”
At this, Samantha violently shook her head. “Home, please.”
Roxie raised her eyebrows. “Protocol says we need to take her to the ER.”
“For sure. And that’s all you care about, is protocol,” Ben observed blandly.
Roxie laughed.
“All right, then,” Ben decided. “I’ll sit back here with Samantha.”
Roxie nodded. “I know where to go.” She climbed out the back doors.
A few moments after that, a familiar sensation told me the big car was moving. Ben murmured to Samantha, “You know, you’re our number one customer. Two more rides and you win a free sandwich.”
Samantha gave a rueful laugh.
I lifted my nose: home!
I jumped out of the big vehicle, wagging, and noticed immediately there were two birds hopping in the front yard. They were doing what birds always do, which is to pretend like dogs don’t matter. But if I rushed up to them, I knew that would all change. They would flutter their wings and leap into the air, so frightened that when they landed, they would be high at the top of the trees, very embarrassed to be up there.
I wasn’t able to challenge the birds right now, because I was still focused on Samantha. Though her breathing had returned to normal, a trembling still moved its way up and down her body.
Ben slid out, called to Roxie, “I’ll be just a minute,” and walked Samantha to the door.
Mom opened it. “Hey,” she greeted softly. “Are you okay?”
Samantha shook her head. She gave Mom a hug. “I kind of lost it,” she confessed, her voice muffled from the way her face was pressed into Mom’s side. “I should have focused on Ripley. Instead, there were so many people moving around, and the space was so big, and all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe.”
Mom regarded Samantha shrewdly. “You walked all the way to the mall and went inside?”
Samantha bit her lip and nodded.
“Honey, do you not see how big that is? It wasn’t very long ago that you couldn’t even go down these front steps.” Mom looked up at Ben. “Ripley has changed everything for us,” she told him gratefully. “Can you come in a minute?”
Ben glanced over his shoulder at Roxie, nodded, and followed us into the house.
“I need to talk to Mrs. Middleton,” Samantha announced, once we were inside.
Mom smiled. “Sure. Why don’t you go call?” Samantha left the room. I made to follow, but Ben hooked a finger under my collar.
“It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds, at least from my perspective,” Ben offered. “She was upset, for sure, but it was far from a complete breakdown. I think the security guard exaggerated a little when he called it in, don’tcha know. You’re right; Ripley makes a huge difference.”
Mom cocked her head.
I sat at Ben’s feet and looked up at him. I loved Ben, and I was glad he’d come to help us when Samantha was frightened. But he should realize that sitting at his feet wasn’t the right thing for me right now. I should still be with my girl.
Ben looked down at me, then back up at Mom. “I may know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. For Ripley to be a fire station dog, I’m going to have to start taking him with me to Station Five.” They gazed at each other. “Or … Lizzy, do you think that would be a mistake? I want to do what’s best for Sammie.”
“I just don’t know,” Mom replied honestly.
A sudden loud noise from the front yard startled me. Ben whirled and moved swiftly to the front door.
“That’s the siren. She’s booping me,” Ben explained.
As he opened the door, Roxie had the window down and leaned out it. “We got a call. Time to roll!”
“I’ll be back.” Ben tossed the comment over his shoulder as he ran to join Roxie in the vehicle. I hurried to Samantha’s room, where she was talking on her phone. It wasn’t that long before she seemed like her usual self again.
Over the course of many days, Samantha and I practiced some of the things I had learned to do. I now understood that Stay, though an aggravating concept, was really important to Samantha.
She would say, “Stay” and hold up her hand, and it meant “Don’t move until either Samantha has changed her mind and said ‘Okay’ and given you a treat, or you see a squirrel.” I could tell it bothered Samantha when I didn’t simply just wait in place, but I felt that no reasonable person would ever want me to just sit there if there was a squirrel digging around in our own yard.
For me, the joy of putting my paws on the cement sidewalk meant I should run and run. For Samantha, it meant we should walk slowly, with her saying the word heel, whatever that meant. When I matched her pace and stuck to her side, she would say, “Heel,” and give me a click and a treat.
There was just no comprehending what her thinking process was.
One time I spotted a cat. A cat! I forgot all about the leash until it snapped me back, and then I tugged at the very end of my restraint, my nails scrabbling on the sidewalk, while the cat gave me a lofty look and strolled away. “Heel!” Samantha insisted. “Heel, Ripley!”
Did heel really mean “Don’t chase cats”? Why would people come up with such a word? Eventually I stopped pulling and returned to slow-walking with Samantha, because the cat was gone. She rewarded me with a click and a treat.
Samantha sometimes endured spikes of nervous fear inside her, and when that happened, I would press up against her and let her hold me and I could feel that fear unclenching her muscles the way a hand can unclench a ball.
I still went home with Ben now and then, but he occasionally ate dinner at our table. I liked that. It made for one more person who might hand down a treat. One such evening, Ben remarked, “Why don’t we try the mall again tomorrow? I’ll come by before I go to the car dealership and we’ll make a morning trip of it. What do you say, Sammie?”
“That’s a great idea. I’ll go too,” Mom added enthusiastically.
There was something odd about the way they were speaking, and Samantha seemed to pick it up, too. She smirked at Mom. “Am I supposed to believe this is some sort of spontaneous thing that you and Ben didn’t talk about before?”
Ben laughed. “Yah,” he admitted. “It may have come up.”
I was overjoyed when all three of my people took me for a walk the next morning. It was hot and bugs were singing in the trees. I was proud to show Ben and Mom how well I had learned Forward and that I had almost mastered Halt and that Stay was something we probably could all agree I could ignore.
Mom had recently decided she didn’t like her tall, white boot and was wearing a shorter, stiff black shoe. She limped, but no longer carried her sticks under her arms.
“What an amazing job you’ve done,” Ben praised. “I’m so impressed, Sammie.”
Samantha was growing quieter and quieter as we strolled. I glanced up at her in concern and stopped sniffing mushrooms in the grass and spots where other dogs had peed and even a track where a squirrel had run not long ago. Instead, I paid attention only to my girl.
Eventually, I recognized where we were: back to the huge building with all the cars and the big doors. It was this place, I realized—this place made Samantha nervous.
We should leave.
I was on high alert as we entered. Whatever threat lay in here, I was certain I would smell it first, and I was ready to defend my girl.
“How’re we doing, Samantha?” Ben asked cheerfully.
“Okay,” she muttered. She stopped and looked around. Then she nodded. “Okay.” She put her hand out and stroked me. I could feel a slight tremor in her fingers, but this wasn’t like the last time. She wasn’t panting and crying and squeezing her arms around her chest. She was walking tentatively, but slowly and not haltingly.
I smelled food. I saw people. I heard talking and all sorts of noises, but I kept my eyes on Samantha.
“Look at Ripley,” Ben marveled. “He’s being such a good dog. How did you teach him how to heel so well?”
“I don’t know,” Samantha replied honestly. “We’ve been working on it, but this is the first time he’s actually done it for so long without forgetting.”
We spent a little time in that big building. I noticed, as we walked, that Samantha’s breathing slowed, and I could feel some of the tension leaving her limbs. It seemed to me that whatever had frightened her so badly before wasn’t here any longer. That didn’t mean I was about to relax or take my eyes off her, but it did mean that I could let myself enjoy this walk a bit more.
“Good work, Samantha,” Mom told her.
Samantha nodded. “I took all the horrible thoughts and put them in a bag and took them to the lake. I tied them up and threw the bag in the water and it sank.”
Ben considered this. “Do you think that would work with my credit card bills?”
I could feel Samantha’s spirits lifting higher than I had ever felt them before, which was why what happened next was so startling.
“Ripley’s doing so well!” Ben said. I wagged to hear my name. “Sammie, you’ve done an amazing job with him. It’s getting to be time for him to come down to the fire department. He needs to get used to the squad before I start leading him into house fires.”
“What?” Samantha gasped.