“LIGHT SWITCH, Daisy!” Alex squawks at me from across the dark, wide room. “LIGHT SWITCH.” His words are pigeons. Pigeons are fat, nasty creatures whose wings should be stolen. Flying seems too big a gift for crummy pigeons.
We’ve just started our training for the day, and already Alex is unnerving me with his incessant squawking. We are at the end of our third week of training. I know this because of birdie Alex: “Three weeks down! Seven to go! Pick up the pace! BLOCK, Daisy! CHECK, Daisy! WATCH, Daisy! SQUAWK!”
Today, Alex stands next to a silver metal plate on the wall. He points at it. Colonel Victor unhooks my leash and crosses the room, stands next to Alex. I know I have his approval to trot over there.
I do, and I nudge the knob with my nose. It’s not pain-free, but hey! The lights come on! So that’s how that works. Now I can make my own personal sunrise. Colonel Victor claps happy purple flowers, and I smile. Micah, who is here in the corner when he’s not in the building called school, ignores my superpowers, as always.
“GOOD GIRL, DAISY!” Alex gives me a tasty bacon treat, then clicks a tiny piece of plastic that rests in the palm of his hand. Click-CLICK! It’s the sound of bones breaking. It’s the first time he’s made this noise. I cock my head.
It’s loud, this clicker, and it echoes through the space. Giant bones snapping all around us. I know the second I hear it that the Colonel doesn’t like it. I feel his shade deepening.
Alex jogs across the room to the other light switch. The Colonel goes with him. “Again, Daisy. LIGHT SWITCH. Again!”
I look to Colonel Victor, but he seems okay other than his shadows growing slightly gloomier. So I cross the room, too, and nudge the light switch down with my chin. The sun sets. Power!
“Good dog!” I get another bacon treat and another click: Click-CLICK! More broken bones. I flinch because I worry about Colonel Victor. Worry tastes green and sludgy, like algae on a pond.
The Colonel shifts. Even in the dark room I can see his face tinge darker. His heart races slightly.
He doesn’t like the clicker.
Alex sprints back across the room. The Colonel walks behind him. “One more time, girl. LIGHT SWITCH.”
No.
Alex taps the metal plate. “C’mon girl. LIGHT SWITCH.”
Can’t you see the Colonel hates it when you click that thing?
Alex looks at Colonel Victor. “Huh. I don’t understand. She was doing great.”
The Colonel gulps in breath. He’s practically panting, and he’s hot and thirsty and radiating rays of nervousness, like his belly is full of algae. “What’s that you’re using?”
“Treats,” Alex says, jostling the bacon-filled pouch attached to his belt.
Colonel Victor rolls his eyes, and I can smell his impatience from here. “Not that.” He points at Alex’s fist. “The clicker.”
“Oh.” Alex flashes his palm at the Colonel. A small blue piece of plastic is there. “Yeah. I figured it was time to start with it. We use the clicker in conjunction with the treats when the dogs do something good. Eventually, we just have to click to reward them.”
I get rewarded with a stupid click? Thievery!
“She doesn’t like it,” Colonel Victor says. His voice is firm and solid, a brick.
Well, technically, I don’t like it because YOU don’t like it, Colonel. But true. Getting rewarded with a click stinks.
Alex smirks like the curve of an onion. “What? Dogs love these things.” He clicks it again haphazardly—Click-CLICK! It’s a thighbone shattering.
Colonel Victor cringes. I stand and push my ears back, because I will forcibly remove that thing from Alex’s hand if I have to. I feel the hairs down my spine standing on edge. My anger tastes strong like skunk spray. I can have trouble controlling it. I blame the first humans I knew for that.
“Wow, I think you’re right, Victor,” Alex says. He pockets the clicker. I take a deep breath and sit. That was close. I wouldn’t want to show Alex who’s really the boss here, but I will if I have to.
“LIGHT SWITCH, Daisy!”
I cross the room and flip the switch, making the sun rise again. I have almighty powers over day and night. When kids dress up in bright colors and zoom around shouting words like KAPOW! they wear superhero capes. I should be wearing a cape over this vest.
Alex smiles. The Colonel smiles. Micah doesn’t look up from his tiny screen. He is as unimpressed as a cat.
“Good girl, Daisy! Good dog!”
Yes. Well. We didn’t do away with the bacon rewards, too, did we? Cough up the treats, meat man.
“Let’s take Daisy to the park and see how she does,” Alex says after I’ve shown him sixty thousand more times that I understand the command LIGHT SWITCH.
“Outside?” I don’t even have to look at Colonel Victor to know what he thinks of that idea; I can hear the fluttering feathers in his voice. “I don’t like parks.”
Alex cracks his knuckles. He’s trying to think of how to say something, based on the eggshell-thin blue color of this pause. “Victor,” he says. “It’s a low-stress environment. We’ll start with the park and build up from there.”
Colonel Victor isn’t convinced. His face shadows stay stubbornly deep purple, the color of a bruise.
“You and Daisy here are partners,” Alex says. “She’s been working hard for you all morning. You can’t expect a dog to work for you if you’re not willing to do some of the work, too. You’re a team. Fifty–fifty. That’s the workload.” These are the first words of Alex’s that haven’t made me want to upchuck.
“A team.” Colonel Victor lowers his mirrored sunglasses. I prefer when I can see someone’s eyes, because eyes talk louder than anything. He nods once. He understands teams. “Fifty–fifty. Let’s go, Micah.”
Micah huffs porcupine annoyance but joins us. We walk around the block to the park.
There are all sorts of glorious smells out here, and I breathe in deeply. Wet leaves and dandelion and rich soil and about twenty steps away, a chipmunk den. The breeze is swift and cold, and my fur dances in the wind. I feel sorry for humans, that they only have fur on their heads. There is nothing more delightful than tinkling fur.
There’s an annoying talky squirrel to my left, about ten steps away, shouting, Bring it, dog. You can’t climb trees and you know it. There are twelve gossiping birds to my right, flapping in a deliciously huge puddle. But I know based on the tension in my leash that Colonel Victor wants me to ignore them.
We do two laps around the small park, and the Colonel’s heart is thumping. But it’s a red-blood healthy thump, not a panicked one. He’s doing very well with his training, and I’m quite proud of him.
“Maybe you should put Daisy on your left, let her lead,” Alex suggests, an arrow pointing the way. “You might feel better putting her between you and anyone walking toward you.”
“That doesn’t help me with attacks from behind,” Colonel Victor says, but he does it and shifts me to his left. Surprisingly, his face shade lightens. I have to acknowledge Alex did that.
We all relax when the Colonel relaxes. Particularly Micah. Micah’s heart is practically singing at the moment, which surprises me because he’s not removed the terrible ear muzzles.
“Let’s see how Daisy does off leash, shall we?” Alex asks.
“Off leash?” The Colonel’s voice darkens like spilled oil.
Alex smiles but doesn’t show us his teeth. He reaches down and removes my vest (and the sudden nakedness makes me more than a little uncomfortable, to be honest). He unhooks my leash. “We need to make certain she’ll return when we call her.”
I’m free! Oh, glory, I’m free. For the first time since I was captured by that horrible Animal Control person, I am FREE. My muscles twitch like crickets. I could run wild. I could chase that horrid squirrel. I could tease the birds, take over that delicious puddle. But I’m unsure what to do, so I sit by the Colonel’s feet and await my orders.
Alex hands Colonel Victor a stick.
Colonel Victor nods ever so slightly. He doesn’t want me to go, but he’s trying. Fifty–fifty. He throws the stick. “Go get it, girl!”
So I run after it. AH, THE GLORY OF RUNNING! Every part of me is alive. My teeth sink into the meat of the stick and my jaws delight in chomping, my mouth in slobbering. Sticks taste like chewy delicious wildness. I bring it back when the Colonel hollers, “Come, Daisy!”
After three more throws, the Colonel is humming inside his skin, he’s so nervous being outside without me on my leash. “Can we, uh, head back in now, Alex?”
“In just a moment,” Alex says. His voice is pushy. “I want to make sure she understands COME.”
Like I don’t understand COME. That’s first-week stuff, Alex. I’m all the way up to BLOCK and CHECK and WATCH now. COME—don’t be ridiculous.
The Colonel sucks in a tight sharp breath and tosses the stick again.
I have to admit, I’m having so much fun being off my leash that I don’t protest. Freedom is a fast waterfall.
“The needs of a dog are the same as the needs of a human,” Alex is saying, but I’m not really listening to his butterfly words. The birds! They’re chirping so beautifully, I could just gobble them up. They taste awful, though. Feathers taste like gloom.
“Safety. Security. Food. Shelter. Exercise,” Alex natters on.
I bring the stick back. The Colonel throws it again. It feels so good to run! My paw pads squish in the mud, and I shiver with delight.
The Colonel’s muscles are tight when I return with the stick the next time. “I think we should go now,” he says.
Uh-oh. I’ve goofed off too long and the Colonel is lost-ball upset.
“If you’re feeling anxious, maybe you should pet Daisy,” Alex says. “Train yourself to pet her whenever you’re feeling . . .” He leaves the sentence hanging there, and the silence is plump with embarrassment that he can’t find the right word.
“Dangerous,” the Colonel completes the thought like a hammer on a nail. Everyone’s face shadows over at that, especially Micah’s.
I need to cheer him up. And the last time I cheered him up was when I disobeyed Alex, dragging that laundry basket of toys. I learned that early. I should do something yellow silly like that again!
“Come, Daisy,” Alex says. He pats his leg. “Come!”
But I have a better plan. I decide to chase the leaves that are skipping around in the wind, chomping each one between my jaws and grinding them to dust.
Ha-HA! Look at me! Ptooo! Ugh. So this is what disobedience tastes like: dry leaves.
“Daisy!” Alex shrieks. “What are you doing? Get back here!”
Not until the Colonel cheers up. Ha-HA! Gotcha, leaf! Ugh. Miserable dust.
Micah hops off a nearby bench. “I’ll catch her!” His face is serious, his words a promise tight as knots.
Aha! Notice my antics have challenged the young one! Chase me, Micah!
“Micah, no! Don’t chase her!” Alex shouts. “She’ll think it’s a game.”
Come and get me, kid. Ha-HA! Close, but NOPE.
Micah leaps and misses me, landing THUD in the dirt. I’ll win, Micah. I will.
“Daisy, COME!”
Not now, Alex. I’ve got leaves to chomp and a child to outrun. Ugh. This is exhausting. And tasteless.
“MISS DAISY. COME.”
The voice booms down on me like a lid clanging on an empty metal garbage can. I tuck my tail and slink back to the person who shouted it: Colonel Victor.
Alex huffs blue disappointment and clips my leash back on. He doesn’t bother with my vest. I notice suddenly how cold I feel without it. “Most inconsistent dog I’ve ever worked with,” he mutters, his words pinpricks.
Inconsistent is a new word for me, but the way Alex says it, it tastes awful close to useless.
Micah frowns rain and dusts off his jeans.
Worst of all, the Colonel scowls, points the tip of his walking stick at me. I cower, because I know sticks. “Daisy. You know better.”
I do. I know better. COME is first-week stuff.
We walk in silence back to our car.
He didn’t call me Miss.
I don’t understand why that didn’t work this time.
This pack is inconsistent.