Chapter 20.

By three forty-five the humid haze over Mattakiset had dissolved, and the sky above the exercise pens was clear and fresh. In the stuffy exercise shed, Josh opened all the windows. Outside would be too distracting for the Beginning Obedience dogs. He arranged folding chairs in a wide circle and wrote the first lesson, WATCH ME, on the whiteboard.

Josh found himself smiling, and he realized how much he was looking forward to standing in front of a class again: that on-stage, show-opening excitement. My god, he missed those kids, in spite of the stress of trying to work with the principal from hell. Fortunately, there’d be no stress in teaching a few elementary training techniques to dogs and their owners. A piece of cake, compared with one of his lesson plans for, say, World Civilizations.

As the human/canine pairs appeared and Josh greeted them, he noted that only half of the owners had their dogs on a six-foot training leash, as requested. The pets strained to sniff and bark at each other and tangled their leashes around the chair legs, while the owners gave useless orders to the dogs and explained or apologized to each other.

The scene reminded Josh of the first day of the school year at Westham Middle School. Kids without pencils. Kids without notebooks. Kids with lots of excuses. Kids nervously checking each other out. Josh knew how to get them to focus, how to transform the chaos into a process of learning.

Promptly at 4:00 p.m., Josh introduced himself and asked each of the owners to introduce themselves and their dogs. There was Carol Harrison with Tucker, a ten-year-old boy and his mother with a Golden retriever, a Captain Ahab-bearded man with a Border Collie, a vague woman with a young chocolate Labrador retriever, two middle-aged sisters with matching Great Danes, and a paunchy man with a fox terrier. Tricia Harrison and Aodh/Murphy were missing.

In the middle of the introductions, a man in a suit and tie entered the shed leading a Chesapeake Bay retriever. He handed Josh his dog’s leash and turned to leave.

Josh couldn’t help laughing. “You thought you’d come back in an hour and pick up your nicely trained pet? No-no-no. I’m not going to train your dog. I’m going to train you to train your dog.”

The man stared at the circle of chairs as if someone were trying to trick him into group therapy. “I don’t have time for this.” He hauled his dog out of the shed.

Seizing the teachable moment, Josh looked around the class. “Did everyone get that? The goal of this class is not to train your dog. It’s for you to learn how to train your dog. Now, the first thing you need to get your dog to do,” he went on, “is pay attention.” He chose the chocolate Lab to demonstrate, counting on her to have the typical Labrador eager-to-please personality. “If your dog isn’t paying attention, she won’t know what you’re asking her to do. So we’re going to teach her the first command, ‘Watch me’.” Josh pointed to the words on the board.

Only one of out the eight human pupils, the boy, seemed to be listening to Josh, but he continued, “This is the process. You’ve got a treat.” He held up a bit of jerky. “You say the dog’s name. Cleo.”

Cleo tried to jump up on him, and Josh turned sideways to deflect her paws. “You command. Watch me.” He held the treat in front of his own nose.

Cleo’s body wiggled, but she obligingly stared at the jerky and past it, into Josh’s eyes. “And you treat.” Josh dropped the jerky, which the dog caught in midair. “Good dog! See, you treat the instant the dog obeys, and you praise her. That connects obeying with the reward (treat and praise) in the dog’s mind.”

Josh had the class practice Watch me with their own dogs as he strolled around the room to give feedback. The boy with the Golden retriever got it right away. Of course, Goldens were notoriously motivated by food—but they also weren’t the brightest mutts on the block. “Nice job!” Josh told the boy.

Carol Harrison was wary of Tucker, offering a bit of dried liver but then pulling it back as he jumped for it. Josh could see the problem here: Carol’s reflexes were slow, but Tucker’s were instant, like the reflexes of a lot of teenagers Josh had known. It could be exhausting, trying to keep up with them. “You can drop the treat,” he suggested. “You don’t have to give it to him from your hand.”

Again, Carol held up a piece of liver. Tucker started to jump, she threw it over his head, and he whirled in the air to grab it. “You’re getting the idea,” said Josh, and he walked on before he added something sarcastic.

The owner of the fox terrier was offering the dog a biscuit with no success, repeating “Watch me” and waving the treat under the dog’s nose. The terrier turned his head away in a “Not interested” gesture, and the paunchy man looked at Josh and shrugged.

“Try this,” suggested Josh, giving the other man a bit of jerky. “Just a little bit of something delicious can work better than a whole biscuit.” The terrier sniffed the jerky, sniffed Josh’s shoes, and tried to squeeze under the folding chair.

“Hm. Did he eat recently?” asked Josh. “Did you read the instructions? Bring your dog to class hungry.”

The terrier’s owner hitched up his pants defiantly. “Yeah, I did, but Calvin’s hyper. I knew he’d be calmer on a full stomach.”

Josh managed to nod and walk away before he muttered, “If you know so much, maybe you should teach the class.”

As Josh continued around the room, an Irish setter thrust his glossy auburn head through the doorway. “Welcome to the second half of Beginning Obedience,” said Josh. Tricia Harrison had Murphy on that damn retractable leash, in spite of the pre-class directions.

“I thought the class started at four-thirty,” said Tricia, in a tone implying that someone—possibly Josh—had misinformed her.

“No, it started at four. As per Erica’s message,” said Josh. But he tried to bring her and the setter up to speed. It was pretty much hopeless, with the dog in constant motion from side to side, dragging Tricia with him. The high heels of her sandals clicking, she kept up a stream of orders: “Aodh, no! Don’t do that. Aodh! Bad dog. Settle down. Aodh, I’m warning you . . .”

Deliberately Josh stepped away from Tricia and Aodh/Murphy. To the people nearby, who had stopped working with their dogs to watch, he remarked, “Fascinating, isn’t it, how an owner and her dog can reinforce each other’s attention deficit disorder?” The watchers seemed taken aback.

Josh moved on to the sisters with the Great Danes. One of them actually had her dog sitting for the treat. “That’s the next step!” Josh praised her. “You’re way ahead of us.”

But the other woman exclaimed helplessly, “Oh shit!” as her dog suited action to words. “I’m sorry.”

“Not to worry,” said Josh drily. He grabbed a poop scoop. “I’m only sorry you have a Great Dane instead of a Shih Tzu. In spite of the name.” He would have liked to hand the poop scoop to the dog’s owner, but Erica had advised him not to ask the owners to clean up after their dogs until the class was a couple of lessons along, to keep their minds on the training. He supposed that was logical. Anyway, poop dropped in the exercise hall had to be more carefully cleaned up than poop deposited on the wood chips outside.

Still, Josh reflected, as he sprayed disinfectant and then swabbed paper towels with his foot, in all his years of teaching middle-school kids, he’d never once had to clean up their excrement. They’d given him plenty of shit, but only the figurative kind.

Had the obedience class as a whole, never mind Tricia, gotten the idea of Watch me? If they hadn’t, it was their own fault. Josh went on to the next lesson, Sit, demonstrating again with the chocolate Labrador retriever.

As he worked with the other owners, Josh kept one eye on Tricia Harrison across the room. He wanted so much to medicate her. To pry her jaws open and drop a sedative pill into the back of her mouth, then stroke her throat to make her swallow, just the way he’d pill a dog.

“Aodh, no! Listen, I’m talking to you!” Her heels struck the wooden floor in syncopation with the Irish setter’s claws.

Panting, the dog threw Josh a look that seemed like a plea for help. Against his better judgment, Josh strode across the room to Tricia. “Look, when your dog does something wrong, it works better to ignore the misbehavior.”

Tricia only made a scoffing noise, but Josh went on. “What works even better is to replace the unwanted behavior with desirable behavior, something you do want the dog to do. Look.” He took the leash handle from Tricia and faced the setter. “Murphy. Watch me. Murphy, sit.” The dog’s feathered butt touched the floor, and Josh slipped him a bit of jerky.

Tricia tossed back her glossy curtain of auburn hair. “Well, I learned something today, anyway. It’s no wonder I can’t get Aodh to do anything. You’ve trained him to be called ‘Murphy’! I thought it was just the old wise guy at the desk.”

Josh sighed. “See, that’s another problem you have, the name. ‘Murphy’ is an easier name for a dog to recognize. Because it has some consonants, whereas ‘Aodh’ is all vowels. To a dog, it sounds like too many other words.”

“Are you actually telling me how to name my own dog? I can’t believe this.” Tricia turned her head away in a gesture as clear as the paunchy man’s terrier’s: I’m not having any of that.

“Believe it,” said Josh with a false smile. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he realized it was time to wrap up, anyway.

After encouraging the class to practice Watch Me and Sit at home, Josh ushered the people and dogs out of the hall. “You don’t have to go through the kennel; take the short cut through this side gate. See you all next week.”

Ignoring the short cut, Tricia pulled Aodh/Murphy toward the back of the kennel. “Excuse me!” called Josh, loping after her. “You don’t have to go out through the—”

Tricia turned on him. “Oh, I’m going to the office, all right, and I’m going to get my money back. I don’t appreciate you and apparently everyone else at the kennel undermining my relationship with my dog—and charging me top dollar for it!”

“What the ph,” muttered Josh. Now he was going to have to explain himself to Erica. As he followed Tricia and the Irish setter into the kennel, the dog kept glancing back at Josh as if for guidance. Josh reached out a reassuring hand, and the dog hung back, unspooling the leash from Tricia’s hand.

“Aodh!” She gave Josh a poisonous glare.

Josh started to explain that she was upsetting her dog, but then he felt a poke on the back of his thigh, and he turned to see Tucker. Behind her dog, Carol Harrison smiled apologetically. “I heard you say to go out the side gate, but Gardner’s meeting me in the office.”

Tricia had reached the back door of the office, and the Irish setter paused abruptly. With one forepaw raised, he sniffed the air ahead. Josh instinctively reached for the dog’s collar, but Tricia jerked open the door.

At the same moment, Erica entered the front door of the office. She saw Tricia’s face and had just time to ask, “Is there something wrong?”

Growling, Aodh/Murphy launched himself at the black and white cat.

“Tricia!” shouted Josh. “Hold your dog!”

The cat leaped up to the counter. Erica exclaimed, “How did that cat get in here?” The setter lunged toward the counter, and Tricia screamed and dropped the leash.

The cat soared over the computer and onto the safety of a higher shelf, jostling a silver trophy, which bounced off the counter and fell on the floor.

Murphy’s front paws scrabbled on the counter, gouging the wood. Tucker, barking with sympathetic excitement, dragged Carol through the back doorway.

Edging past Carol, Josh grabbed for the Irish setter. “Murphy! No. No. Leave it.” The dog twisted and snapped, but Josh held onto the collar at the back of his neck.

As Josh pulled Murphy down from the counter, Tucker bounded forward. Carol gasped, “Tucker, wait!” Out of the corner of his eye Josh saw her stumble over the fallen trophy, stagger, and crash to the floor, still clutching Tucker’s leash.

“Erica, are you out of your mind? Letting a cat in here?” Tricia put a hand on her chest. “I thought I—I know I specifically mentioned that Aodh had cat issues.” Her thin eyebrows drew together. “And did you hear him call Aodh ‘Murphy’?”

Erica was on her knees beside Carol, but she looked up long enough to give Josh a laser stare and point to the front door. Josh hustled Murphy out, the handle of the retractable leash clunking behind them. As he stowed the Irish setter in the Lexus, Gardner Harrison stepped out of his car. “What’s going on?”

Without answering, Josh hurried back inside, and Gardner followed. Carol was still on the floor, with Tucker sniffing her as if he’d no idea why she was lying there.

“Carol!” exclaimed Gardner. “What the hell?”

Erica bent over the older woman, touching her hair. “Carol, Carol, are you all right?”

“I think . . .” Propping herself on one elbow, Carol started to move her legs, but her face crumpled, and she sank back with a groan. “I can’t get up.”

Erica pointed at Gardner. “Call 911.” She pointed at Josh. “Put Tucker in his car. And then get your damn cat out of here.”

 

 

 

 

Cats virtually always underestimate human intelligence, just as we, perhaps, underestimate theirs.

Roger A. Caras, A Cat Is Watching