Seven

Things I do not like about sleeping in my crate:

  1. I’m alone.
  2. I’m not with Miss Josie.
  3. I’m alone.

I didn’t suspect a thing when Miss Josie put together a giant cage on Monday evening. In all honesty, I had no idea she intended it for me. I even helped her assemble the metal monstrosity, mostly by standing on it and wagging my tail. I’m such a good assistant.

“Okay, Capone,” she said after she finished. “Time to lock you up in Alcatraz.”

Lock me up? I didn’t want to be locked up, but I am so easily fooled. As soon as she tossed a treat into the crate, I hopped right in.

Curse my naiveté.

I couldn’t possibly protect Miss Josie while locked up in a prison. I freaked out when she closed the door, trapping me inside.

“Settle down, Capone. This is for your own good, and I’m right down the hall.”

Her room felt miles away. Did she not realize how dangerous this was? How easy it would be for rogues and cads to take advantage of her if I weren’t able to stop them? Also, I was lonely. I needed her.

Sighing, I pulled Orange Snuggle Bunny close. This was the worst night of my life. To make matters even more unbearable, Rocco tortured me as soon as Miss Josie went to bed.

“Locked up, I see. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.”

I growled at him. He curled up on top of my crate and stared down at me, his green eyes glowing in the darkness, his grey, fluffy fur appearing almost black.

“What are you talking about, Rocco? Spit it out.”

He laughed, stretching and licking one paw. “The blondie called your crate Alcatraz. What a funny little joke.”

I couldn’t stop myself from taking the bait. “What do you mean? What’s Alcatraz?”

Rocco snorted. “I’ll let you figure it out. At least Josie knows you belong in a cage.”

I barked, startling him. He hissed at me, jumping off my crate and moving to the blue couch. Miss Josie shouted from her bedroom for me to be quiet.

“We’re not allowed to sit on the couch,” I said, keeping my voice low.

He smiled at me, an evil, feline sort of smile. “Dogs aren’t allowed on the couch. Cats can do whatever they like.”

“I hate you,” I said as I curled up in a ball and tried to go to sleep.

“Trust me. The feeling is entirely mutual.”

I slept fitfully, cold and alone in my cage. Well, not cold. Miss Josie had provided me with a blankie for warmth. And not precisely alone, either. I had Orange Snuggle Bunny, my old friend, to comfort me, but I hated this crate. It felt like a punishment, and it made me so confused. I knew if I wanted to be a good dog, I should accept it and go to sleep, but to protect Josie, I needed to be free. It created quite a moral dilemma for me.

I woke as the first golden fingers of dawn fell upon my humble jail. I sat up, wondering what decorum demanded I do at this point. At no time, in the entire program about being a gentleman, did it talk about what to do if one found oneself locked up in puppy prison.

As much as I would have liked to let Miss Josie sleep, I had a more pressing issue. My bladder. I whimpered and whined, and a few minutes later, Miss Josie emerged from her room, bleary-eyed. “Good morning, Capone. Do you need to go outside?”

We went out together. Miss Josie had on her robe this time, and her slippers and glasses. Fully prepared, she made sure the door did not shut behind her. She’d also taken the precaution yesterday of hiding the key to the padlocked garden door under a potted plant on the back patio. It seemed like a safe idea. We didn’t want to get trapped in the back garden again.

As I frolicked in the dew-covered grass, Miss Josie grabbed a cup of hot tea and sat on one of the wrought iron chairs next to a café style table in the back. Her garden was small, but pleasant, with beds of flowers against the walls and rose bushes throughout. Vines crept over the brick, covering it and the back side of the shop as well.

“The rose bushes are from Mr. Bartleby,” she told me as she sipped her tea. “After his wife died, he planted one each year in her memory. Sweet, huh?”

I looked around. There were quite a few rose bushes, which meant Mr. Bartleby had spent many years here without his wife. Sad, and yet beautiful. The whole garden was, in fact, lovely.

There was something so comforting about ivy on brick, although some of the leaves were turning brown due to the crisp fall weather. And even if most of the flowers in her garden had peaked, I could see it would be delightful in the spring and summer months.

Miss Josie patted my head and smiled at me. “We have Puppy Preschool today at Misty Mountain. Anne arranged it, and Mrs. Steele will be here to mind the shop for us, which is always interesting. She tries her best, but she seems to have the same capacity for organization as Mr. Bartleby.”

Mrs. Steele, a large woman with greying hair and a kind face, arrived at the shop as Miss Josie and I came downstairs after breakfast. When she saw me, she clapped her hands together, a huge smile on her face.

“What a nice puppy,” she said, bending down so she could pet me as I wiggled around her legs. She laughed at my antics, even when I accidentally stuck my nose up her floral dress. “Oops. You are a cheeky one. I brought some treats for you today. Would you like one?”

Mrs. Steele gave me a homemade dog biscuit shaped like a bone. As soon as the delicious, peanut buttery taste hit my tongue, I decided Mrs. Steele was my new best friend.

“Thank you,” said Josie, putting on my leash as I munched on the biscuit. “You’re so thoughtful, Mrs. Steele.”

“You’re welcome. Is there anything in particular you want me to do while you’re gone? I thought I’d get to work on rearranging the historical fiction area for you today.”

I saw a hint of panic in Miss Josie’s eyes. “No,” she said, and then cleared her throat. “I mean, I already took care of it.”

Mrs. Steele frowned. “I see. Should I work on something else? Maybe biographies?”

Miss Josie shook her head. “Just mind the front desk for me. I won’t be gone long. I’m expecting a few deliveries, but not until later.”

“Good luck, Josie,” she said and leaned down to cup my face in her soft hands. “And good luck to you, too, Capone.”

We got into the car, and I hopped around, exploring every fascinating part of the vehicle until Miss Josie locked me in a travel crate. Such a buzzkill. Luckily, I could still stare out the window.

The winding road to the dog center snaked up a mountain and was lined with giant evergreen trees. The Ohio River flowed past far below, covered in a blanket of dense fog. The name Misty Mountain probably came from that fog, and because of its location high on top of a mountain. I’m a genius at putting these things together.

The facility itself looked like a hunting lodge. In this setting, I’d never felt so much like a true gentleman. I imagined the interior of the building would be dimly lit and decorated with lots of plaid. It was the sort of place where men gathered around a fireplace to smoke cigars and drink port wine, with faithful dogs by their side. Most likely those dogs would be Labradors. We’re extremely faithful, and partial to plaid.

Sadly, the interior didn’t live up to my expectations. No plaid, no port, and no men with cigars. Clean, plain, and a little dull, it looked like any other building, except for one factor.

It contained puppies. Lots and lots of puppies.

As soon as I saw them, I let out a bark of pure joy and jumped into the fray. We played and frolicked and sniffed and wiggled as Miss Josie signed me in.

She handed the receptionist my vaccination record and the forms she’d filled out the night before in painstaking detail (three sheets, single-spaced, with over fifty questions). She’d told Ms. Anne it felt vaguely like a psychiatric evaluation from the National Security Agency, and in it, Miss Josie had to explain her goals for me.

I didn’t believe Miss Josie had very lofty aspirations as far as I was concerned. I think she wanted me to stop eating her shoes, destroying her pillows, and pooping out ribbons.

Note to self: I needed new hobbies.

As we stood in line, waiting with all the other happy puppies, the receptionist perused my paperwork with a frown. “Are you here for obedience class?”

“Puppy Preschool. We have our interview and orientation for obedience class tomorrow.”

“Oh. You’re in the wrong place. You’ll be over there,” she said, pointing to a door on the opposite side of the room. “And it looks like the other dog you’ll be with today is also a black lab. Isn’t that nice?”

As the herd of puppies pranced down the hall to obedience class, we waited inside the Puppy Preschool room. It was dark and quiet and kind of dingy. Moments later, an older couple with a tiny black lab joined us.

The man smiled and fussed over me, but his wife didn’t seem as entranced. Her thin, penciled-in eyebrows rose to her hairline as soon as she saw me. “He’s huge. What’s his name?”

“Capone.”

The nearly non-existent eyebrows rose even higher. “What an odd name. Our puppy is called Luke. After the apostle. We named all our dogs after apostles. Matthew, Mark, John, and now Luke. It’s from the Bible.”

“How nice,” said Miss Josie.

Even though the woman’s eyebrows made her look perpetually surprised, her expression changed when her husband put Luke down on the floor next me. She turned serious very quickly.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Daddy,” she said.

“Let ’em play,” he responded. He had an impressively big and bushy mustache. Maybe he overcompensated for his wife’s lack of eyebrows by producing excessive facial hair. I had no idea, but he liked me, which meant I also liked him. I couldn’t say the same about No Brows. She emitted a sort of anti-Capone vibe.

At first, Luke and I got on rather well. We approached each other tentatively and sniffed with wagging tails. He smelled so good a dam burst somewhere inside me and I had a sudden love eruption. I sniffed Luke so aggressively I knocked him over. Total accident.

Note to self: Watch out for love eruptions.

“Oh, my,” said No Brows to her husband. “Daddy. Pick Luke back up.”

Her husband guffawed. “They’re playing—”

No Brows refused to listen. “Pick him up. Now. Get him away from that mean dog.”

Mean dog? Me?

“Sorry, Luke,” I said. “I didn’t mean to knock you over. My bad.”

“No problem,” he said. “You outweigh me by like twenty pounds. It’s not your fault. Ignore Mumsy. She’s annoying. Daddy is cool, though, and he likes you. I like you, too. Maybe we can hang later.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The whole time we chatted, which I guess sounded like barking aggressively at each other; No Brows and Miss Josie grew increasingly nervous. By the time the instructor arrived, poor Miss Josie had started to sweat.

Unfortunately, we did not get Sexy Trainer Dude, the one Ms. Anne had mentioned. He was teaching the puppy obedience class today. I know this because all the ladies, including the canine ones, sighed when he walked by. Instead, we got Mr. Grumpy Trainer, the one no one wanted. He arrived late and made it clear he didn’t want to be there. He mumbled a greeting and asked if we had any initial questions. No Brows placed a dainty finger on her chin.

“Luke likes to bite my calves. I tell him no. Is that okay?”

Miss Josie looked down at me. We hadn’t done an official count, but I believe she’d told me no about ten million times already today.

Even the instructor seemed perplexed. “That’s fine, but you don’t want the dog to think you’re playing. You have to be firm.”

Miss Josie nodded. At least she’d been doing something right. She sounded firm when she disciplined me. And loud. And scary.

She raised her hand to ask a question. “How do I know what’s appropriate when he’s playing with other dogs?”

The instructor ran a hand over his head. “Think back to when you were growing up. If you and your siblings got into a fight, you’d stop before anyone got a bloody nose, right?”

Miss Josie’s jaw dropped. What kind of family did this man have?

“I was an only child…” she said.

He let out a sigh. “Let both of them go, and we’ll see how they interact.”

She had my leash wrapped around her hands and leaned back as far as she could to keep me from climbing all over Luke and squashing him like a bug. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Let go of the leash, both of you.”

No Brows didn’t look convinced either, but she let go at the same time as Miss Josie, and, let me just say, it did not end well. Mr. Grumpy Trainer should have known better. Within seconds, I hopped on top of Luke, and he yelped and curled into a submissive ball of black fur.

“Capone. No,” said Miss Josie, mortified.

She definitely meant it. She spoke so firmly she frightened me. I took one look at her angry face and darted out to the reception area, nearly knocking over a cute little girl in a sequined skirt.

“Puppy!” the little girl squealed.

“I’m so sorry,” Miss Josie said to the girl’s dad as she rushed past him, in hot pursuit. She had seconds to grab me before I caused a fiasco in the reception area. It would not be good if we got kicked out of Misty Mountain on our first day.

The little girl’s father laughed. “We have a big dog, too. It’s okay.”

Miss Josie managed to wrangle me into submission by the front desk and brought me back to the Puppy Preschool area. Luke and Daddy seemed sympathetic to our plight, but No Brows and Mr. Grumpy Trainer met us with accusing glares. It got worse from there. I’d reached a frenzied state of puppy overload. I hovered low to the ground, mad with excitement, sniffing and pulling Miss Josie back and forth as she struggled to control me.

“Look at him,” said No Brows. “He’s crazy. And Luke is so good. We named him after one of the apostles.” She nodded at the instructor, and he nodded back at her.

“Dogs eventually live up to their names,” said Mr. Grumpy Trainer sagely.

Oh, calamity.

“I didn’t choose his name,” said Miss Josie. “And I’m going to change it.”

Mr. Grumpy Trainer shrugged. “Do what you want, but once the name sticks, it’ll be his for good. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to go through life with a name like Capone. It’s dog abuse.”

Miss Josie made a strangled squeaky noise, something I noticed she did when she got unusually upset. Her sounds were a clear indicator of her current emotional state.

Mr. Grumpy Trainer asked Miss Josie to lift me onto the shiny silver table. I heard Miss Josie sniff and looked up at her in surprise. Was she about to cry?

Mr. Grumpy Trainer, not realizing her fragile emotional state, kept talking. “Your dog is, what we like to call here, a dog bully. He belongs out there. In doggie daycare. They’ll whip him into shape,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the large, glass window which served as a viewing area for the doggie daycare room. Inside, a crazy-eyed spaniel jumped on a poodle and proceeded to bounce up and down on it. Aggressively. We all watched in stunned fascination. This must be the humping thing Jackson had mentioned. Not at all what I’d pictured.

To my horror, Miss Josie’s lip wobbled. “You’re wrong about him. He’s not a dog bully, and he’s not a bad dog,” Miss Josie said, her voice shaking.

Mr. Grumpy Trainer stuttered in shock. “I didn’t mean to infer he was bad. He needs to spend more time with dogs his age. He needs to be corrected so he can learn the right way to behave.”

He did have a point. I’d never spent much time around my fellow canines.

Mr. Grumpy Trainer lifted me off the table, perhaps as a sort of apology for upsetting poor Miss Josie. He led us over to the scale, and it took Luke several tries to understand he had to sit on it. Even then he didn’t fully cooperate. It took three people feeding him treats for him to stay on.

I hopped up and sat down right away, no treats required. I wanted to make up for my previous bad behavior and attempt to be good for once. My efforts impressed all the humans in the room—even No Brows.

“If he weren’t so crazy all the time, he’d probably be easy to train,” she said.

I mentally stuck my tongue out at her. I couldn’t help it. I think Miss Josie mentally stuck her tongue out at No Brows, too.

At agility training, I kicked Luke’s hairy little butt again. I walked up and down ramps and steps and different surfaces with ease. I had the makings of an agility rock star.

I couldn’t resist smirking at No Brows. Luke kept forgetting what to do. He didn’t make it through a single obstacle. Daddy cheered him on, but No Brows turned livid.

“The breeder stuck me with the runt of the litter. She gave me the wrong puppy.”

I felt bad for poor Luke, but he shrugged it off. “And my owner has no eyebrows. You win some; you lose some, I guess.”

Miss Josie pulled me close and gave me an extra treat. “Well, I got the right puppy,” she said softly. “The best puppy.” She winked at me, and I just about burst with happiness. Miss Josie was mine now, whether she knew it or not.