“Yippee! It’s Ground Dog Day. Today’s the day my human and I will dig together to find a little fatso named Phil. I’ll bring him home covered in dirt and fix him a dinner of kibble and greens. Phil and I will roam through the house overturning the trash cans, those most interesting areas humans leave out for me to dig in.

Humans are so unreasonable when it comes to digging, ya know? It’s the bestest thing about being a dog. To shove your nose into damp earth and smell until your ears ring is the nature of us dogs.

The human body likes the same feeling. Humans drink and not out of the water dish, smoke anything, eat too much cookies and ice cream or hold that little ringing thing and tap at it while they drive. I’ve seen mine do all these things and no one spanks them or shouts at them. But one little digging session from a dog and you’d think the human had lost treasure buried by Bluebeard.

Today my human and I will dig, together. I’ll be patient. I’ve got sturdy claws to rake back the earth instead of weak little fingers. And, I’ve been practicing all year in the trash cans and the places in the yard where the sprinklers make handy puddles. His nose won’t help him, either. I can whiff once and know if Phil’s house is there. I’ll move on and on again until my nose tells me, and my nose never lies. My human’s nose never tells the truth; he can’t tell with even ten whiffs when the woman human is mad at him.

Digging makes me hold my breath. I take in a big cloud of air and then hold it inside my nose. All those smells stay in my nose swirling around until I am so dizzy with joy I blow the smells out and take in another breath. Especially good smells make my nose run. All my human does with his wet nose is make it bark. You’d think with a brain that size, or so he says it is, he’d figure out a dripping nose is a good nose.

I go back to my smelly holes and turn the earth every so often. Humans do the same thing but they call it online banking. They check stuff that means a lot to them and I don’t see anyone tieing them up for it. My human ties my up when I check my backyard accounts but he’s all proud of himself when he does the same thing, himself. Doesn’t seem fair.

If my human had half the brain he says he does, he’d bury chewies like pig and cow ears, bully sticks, knuckle bones and cookies for me in the yard. Then I would have all my accounts in one place and not have to check a lot of them. He could dig the hole himself and put the knuckle bone at the way bottom, cover it up with dirt, drop some bully sticks in, cover them with dirt, scatter some ears and cover them and put a nice dusting of cookies on the very tip top so I would know to dig there. If he made deposits to my account at the same place I’d know to only check there.

Today I just know he’ll come out in the morning and we’ll dig for Phil. Maybe he’ll even stretch and groan so he can get in the preferred digging position with his hinders way up in the air and his nose buried. We’ll sniff together and take in those big clouds of breath and he’ll understand and smell how the world is so different to us dogs.

I’ll let Phil sleep in my basket. Do you think he’ll chew it?”

“That dog shouldn’t be here.”

“Which?” I asked. I glanced around my class and didn’t see any aggressive or badly out of control dogs and not one was wearing white after Labor Day. A Springer Spaniel whirled at the end of its leash and barked at a classmate wearing a collar that sparkled with glitter. No other social faux paws were in evidence.

“It’s the wrong color. There are no Labs that color.” She glanced down at her own dog. “Labs are yellow, black or chocolate.”

“Oh, that is such a nice brown color, isn’t it?”

“In the Lab breed it is never referred to a brown but chocolate. And this business of a Silver Lab is nothing but purebreds being ruined.”

I shifted to see the dog that aroused such ire. There was Smoke, indeed a different colored Lab, sprawled on her fleece bed. Her silvery gray coat glistened. A stuffed hedgehog and a porcupine lay next to her, two small traveling companions brought from home.

Smoke’s tail wagged as her owner bent over her to stroke her back. The dog dropped her ears back and grinned at her owner. The hedgehog may have grinned, too.

“So what?”

The woman curled her leather leash into her hand. Her black Lab plopped down into a sit, his blubbery hind end spilling over his back legs.

“There are only three proper colors and these silly people who get these so called Silver Labs are just buying mixed breeds. They aren’t AKC registered, you know.”

I did know and I didn’t care. Labs could be yellow, silver, brindle or burgundy in my world. I don’t need Labs to be the proper color I need them to be loved.

“Maybe she did buy the Smoke from a non AKC source but the dog has a home now.” I backed up slightly, hoping my social cue of departure as well as my placating statement might save me.

The rigorous defense of Labrador Retriever purity rumbled on.

“There’s no quality control with these Silver Lab breeders. No standard followed. Dogs with odd head shapes, hound ears and over the standard at the withers. It’s a ruination of the Lab.” Her own dog heaved himself up and stood, his short legs supporting a body shaped like a pickle barrel.

“These Silvers should be banned. They’ll get into the purebred Lab world and then we’ll just have one more problem to deal with. It’s just a disgrace that people buy those dogs.”

A Pomeranian minced over to Smoke’s bed. Growling at Smoke, this mite of German rectitude snatched a cow ear from Smoke’s bed and scuttled away. Smoke wagged and grinned.

I extricated myself from the impromptu lecture of doggy color purity and started teaching class. The disgruntled owner of the black Lab commanded him to lie down. The dog slowly lay down, his elbow joints working as though they were rusted half closed.

Class picked up speed, energy and pace. The Pomeranian sat on his tiny bed plotting the next assault on the belongings of other dogs. His round head swiveled as though on a turret gun as he surveyed his future booty.

As the hour passed the humans learned to understand and communicate with their dogs, and the dogs learned the humans were dispensers of food and praise. The black Lab was the star of the stays. His manatee shaped body was not required to move on this exercise and he did indeed look as though he was the field master of something.

As dusk came over the class so too did a flight of ducks. Their wing beats rustled through the air. Sleek shapes flying above us earthbound creatures caught the attention of most of the dogs and a few of the owners.

The black Lab ignored the ducks. He chewed at and slurped his front paws, making wet sounds that his owner ignored. As the ducks winged overhead he was oblivious to all except his skin allergies.

“No Smoke! Smoke come back!”

I turned to see Smoke, trailing her ten foot leash, bound away from her scene of domestic bliss on a blanket. She raced under the ducks and followed their flight path, circling when they wheeled and banked in the sky, charging ahead when they flew straight into the wind.

Smoke was in no danger. She mirrored the ducks as they did formations in the sky. She flexed her neck upward to watch them as she moved in smooth, easy strides below. In her brain was an ancestor’s voice urging her in ways she had not been taught, but understood.

The class watched Smoke’s dance with the ducks. As the flock sailed over the top of the building and out of sight, Smoke dropped her head and trotted back to her blanket and her life of a domestic pet unfamiliar with briar, brake and brambles.

“Oh Smoke, you were wonderful,” said her owner. The Pomeranian stood up on his hind legs and waved both front paws together in doggy applause. The Springer looked astonished at this display of wildness in a classmate.

I heard the slurping from the black Lab.

We ended class on Smoke’s magnificent duck run. Many of the humans stopped at Smoke’s blanket to congratulate her owner.

“We’ve never seen a dog do that.”

“That was fabulous. She really knew what to do with those ducks, didn’t she?”

Smoke’s owner smiled.

“Well, she’s a Lab you know.”

Happy Birthday Jackie Robinson  Jan. 31st 1919

The Border Collie, resplendent and outlandish with a wide shawl collar perfectly fitting his front legs wearing perfectly fitting white stockings, blending into a perfectly groomed coat,  sloping down to a perfectly groomed tail with the perfectly white tip, moves through the sound of cheers and applause. His perfectly tulip ears are the crest from which his perfectly even white blaze perfectly bisects his face.

Jerk. Shift. Jerk. Shift.

The Border Collie trots at an inwardly frantic and outwardly contained pace perfectly aligned with his handler, the human who runs alongside this mirage of a dog. The handler grasps the lead as though it were a teacup from a perfectly appointed English parlor. The handlers coat is perfectly turned out in a soft blur that mutes itself against the perfect black coat set against perfect white.

Jerk. Shift. Jerk. Shift.

The Border Collie, wearing his silver and thin choke chain, no really it’s a show lead, moves around the tiny ring that smells of strangers and desperation. He trots the same direction he did at the last show, and at the thousands of shows before that, the same direction he’ll trot in the thousands to come. The stink of the crowd assaults his nostrils.

Jerk. Shift. Jerk. Shift.

The Border Collie shifts his eyes at each jerk of the choke chain, no its really a show lead. Just a shift. Just the eyes. He does not break his stride, the unchanging, mind dulling stride. The choke chain’s jerk is to remind this dog, this dog of ancestors filled with blazing intelligence that he is to look straight ahead, only. The white stockings are like pistons as he trots around this ring. His eyes shift again at the jerk of the choke chain, no it’s really a show lead. Look straight ahead, only.

************************************************************************************

Somewhere from a byre in the Highlands of Scotland burst the ancestors of this perfectly miserable dog. They scramble up a Hill a thousand feet above sea level to find their sheep. A mile away from the shepherd they see their flock and without a command, whistle or collar, gather and fetch the three hundred ewes. The herd of woolen traipses down the hill where the shepherd stands, ready to shear and dip the herd. The dogs, with prick or tulip or hound or hanging ears, are visions of stealth.  Their black and white coats are marked without regard to symmetry, except the symmetry of a dog when he balances his sheep.

It’s a long, hot day for shepherd and dogs. While the shepherd skims wool from the ewes the dogs, without his urging or commands, single out a ewe at a time and coerce, threaten or cajole her into the shearing shed. Balky ewes are convinced with a slight forward motion of one lifted paw after the other, the dog stalking her in ways the ancient sheep brain remembers. Skittish ewes are moved with only a shift of the eye, just a shift. The dogs, with tails high, low, curled or straight, black, black and white, black with a white tail tip or a stump tail, move in arcs of intuition, intelligence and years of connection from men who own not a choke chain, no its really a show lead, but a shepherd’s crook and whistle.

Tomorrow, the working dogs, after a night not in a motor home stuffed in a crate stacked in a tower of crates but in a bed of straw in a byre, will move the lambs, the silly lambs, from the pasture to the Hill. They’ll be different dogs tomorrow, as they move their young, unpredictable charges along the road. The black and white mind readers will nurse their lambs along so slowly the little ones will not panic into the road. The shepherd, with a crook and whistle, connects and communicates.

*************************************************************************************

The Border Collie with the perfectly coiffed hair stands on a grooming table. His eyes are large as his handler sprays more hair product into his mane and brushes out the grooming chalk. His perfect tail with the perfect white tail tip hangs without life. His perfect tulip ears quiver and perhaps, in his mind, he hears the liquid silver of a Scottish shepherd’s whistle calling “Come by! Come by!” He might see a lamb, lost and bleating in the heather and he searches for it, in his mind. He looks under the gorse and out onto the heather but cannot find his lamb.

 The stench of a black Magic Marker applied to his nose drags him back to the scent of trash containers lining the Long Beach arena.

On this day in 2001 the Border Collie was’ recognized’ by the juggernaut known as the American Kennel Club. Thousands of devoted Border Collie admirers strove to prevent this takeover but eventually succumbed to the overpowering forces of the AKC. Now, the Border Collie, generation by generation, is slowly eroded from the incandescent artist of the dog world and becomes just another herding breed with a pretty face.

 The President of the AKC is said to have been especially proud of winning the battle to annex this breed.

 Jerk.

Glendora, CA    1959

Gerald shrugged into his red sweater, the one from three Christmas times ago. The knitted reindeer and snow scene that stretched across his skinny chest warmed the heart of a reader.

The sweater had provoked his older brothers into merciless teasing, but Gerald had worn Grandma’s gift that day with solemnity. He viewed the reindeer as something far more than mere silly characters rollicking around in snow.

Adjusting his Davy Crockett coonskin cap on his head he grabbed the ruler from his desk in the corner of his room. On the bookshelf above lay face to back his collection of favorites. Silver Chief, Big Red, Desert Dog, The Black Stallion  were dog eared, stained and underlined in the best places. His most cherished book Lad: A Dog held a place of honor at the end of the shelf next to his picture of Rin Tin Tin.

Gerald slid The Call of the Wild from the shelf and turned it over and over. The words seemed to slide from between the covers and into his hands, marking his palms with the invisible power  borrowed from the writer.

Holding his ruler like a weapon, Gerald left his hideaway and went into the back yard and whistled, whistled as a man of authority would command his pack of dogs. Around the corner came Gerald’s mutt, Queenie. Gerald straightened to his full and imperious fourth grade height and looked down at the canine who would haul him from Glendora to Skagway.

Gerald propped The Call of the Wild in the fork of the tree where he escaped and read on days when the house was filled with shouting.

“Queenie, come!” he commanded.

Queenie obliged. She’d graciously participated as the Statue of Liberty at the last family Fourth of July celebration and had worn a home made gown and crown. Gerald dressed in a red sweater in April only signaled to her that new games, featuring her, were to be played.

“I am Francois!” He waved his ruler-weapon in a menacing arc and glowered at Queenie. She wagged her tail. “I am Perrault!”

‘This is the law of club and fang,” he thundered as he waved his ruler-club closer to her. “I’m your master.” Queenie rolled on her back, tipped her head to the side and smiled up at Gerald. Her tongue spilled out onto the grass.  The neighbor snapped out sheets as she pinned them to her clothesline.

Gerald trotted to the tree and consulted his book. His brow furrowed as he read the words that had transported him to a land of savage, brave and cruel men in a world that returned cruelty tenfold. Dropping the book back into his hiding spot he returned to his faithful companion. 

“Sptiz! Where is Spitz?” He stood so tall he could almost see over the fence where Mrs. Miller placed the clothespins in her famous six to a sheet pattern. Mrs. Miller was known for her insistence that everything in her world be straight and ordered.

Gerald bent low over Queenie. “Spitz will come and he’ll thrash you.” Gerald’s voice rose as he described the cruelties about to be inflicted on Queenie by the pitiless lead dog, Spitz. The sound of Mrs. Miller’s six to a sheet rhythm slowed.

Queenie lazed, scratching her back on the stiff St. Augustine grass.

Gerald paused in his rant. Again, he ran to his book and flipped toward the end. He had marked this page with a paper clip stolen from his father’s upper dresser drawer. He drew his finger under the lines and whispered them.

Running back to Queenie, he knelt in front of her. He took her muzzle into both hands, gazed into her eyes and said in his biggest man voice,

“For the love of me, Queenie. “

Queenie looked into Gerald’s pinched face taut with worry. His red sweater filled the space before her and as though she too had read the magic, she gathered her feet under her and heaved herself up.

Gerald watched his dog rise at his command and stand, ready to pull him away to Alaska and draw his sled across ice, abandonment and fear.  He whispered again as he held her face in his hands,

For Jack London born today 1876

“No, it’s a right turn, here….here…here!” I pointed.

“It’s past the next hole.”

“Here! Just past that sand bog thing.”

“Trap,” my husband corrected me. “Golf courses in Newport Beach don’t have bogs. They have warm clubhouses.”

The cold wrapped around me more than my jacket. I glanced at my husband, piloting our borrowed golf cart through the 4 am fog at the Big Canyon Country Club, his knit cap tight on his head. I twisted around to check on my Border Collie, Bobby, in the back of our small chariot.

Bobby’s black and white body was curled into the tartan plaid blanket I’d bought especially for his new job chasing ducks. A recent hire, Bobby was charged with keeping the coots from landing on the swards of perfect green that stretched and rolled across prime acres of Newport Beach. He lifted his head, the wide blaze perfectly bisecting his muzzle, and yawned.

I tossed the end of the blanket over his back as we trolled up the incline and dropped into the Valley of the Coots.

Little black ducks rested on the cut- by -scissors perfect green. A few floated in the lake, buoyed by tranquility and silence. The coots, unaware that a new employee more fleet of feet than they of wing was about to charge into their lives, gabbled sotto voce.

My husband stopped the cart and said,

“What does he do now?”

Neither Bobby nor I knew. I had, as the adult guardian of a minor, taken the job on his behalf. Lacking a formal coot away training program offered by the golf course, it was up to Bob and I to figure out how the game was played, and to emerge the victors in this titanic battle with miniscule ducks.

I stepped from the cart, drew the plaid from his back and told him,

“Bob, watch ‘em,” His classically shaped head swiveled until he saw the movements of the coots. His body tightened and he lowered his head. His gaze followed the duck shaped dots in the distance as his tail, long enough to touch the ground and sweep behind, dropped to his hindquarters. A sliver of adrenaline trembled through his legs.

“Lie down,” I whispered. He dropped, staring.

“Fetch ‘em.”

His body rose as though on wires pulled from above. The explosion of his first six strides brought him down the slope. The coots, still unaware of the intruder soon to burst into their lives, continued to float, paddle and gossip.One old coot turned lifted its wing and examined himself for cooties.

Bob gained speed and focus as he skimmed over the grass, gathering himself into a dog shaped bullet.

“Lie down,” I called out. Bob melted into the dew as though the air had been drawn from him. The coots ruffled their wings and raised their heads. “Go bye, go bye,” was my next command. Bob raised himself and angled to the right, slinking now as he closed in on the tiny black sheep that float.  His steps came fast and close, interspersed with short rushes toward the coots.

“Tyke tyme!” I commanded outward.

“What?” asked my husband from the cart.

“It means slow down.”

“Why not just say slow down?” he asked.

I watched my Virginia bred dog, who had never heard a Scottish word or phrase, stalk the coots. The low lying fog surrounded him and as though a ghost, he disappeared from sight.

I turned toward my husband.

“I heard it on the Scottish sheepdog trial television show.”  The fog lifted. Bob continued, a forward step followed by a paw raised in mid air.  Step, raise. Step, raise.

“Wow,” said my husband. “He’s really smart.”

The sound of wings rising toward the sunrise shot the dog forward. He hurtled straight into the pack of coots clustered at the lake side and sent them skyward. The coots floating in the lake joined their protesting friends, beating their wings to escape this beast that crept like a wolf with a collar into their sylvan world.

“Ah, he split his sheep,” I said. The coots passed over our cart and flew through the lightening sky to land, most likely, in the other lake by the eighteenth hole. Bob flexed his neck and watched his flying sheep.

“Bob, that’ll do.”

“Isn’t that what Farmer Hogget said to Babe?” my husband asked. He adjusted his cap and blew on his hands.

 “Here to me, Bob. Here to me.”

In black and white my dog, my dog, traveled up the green, his white paws flicking against the landscape of open acres, lakes and fog. For the moment I glimpsed him on the Highlands, trotting back from a long day of scaling sheer rock faces, pushing stroppy rams up against fences and cajoling lambs on their first drive across the pasture.

Bobby arrived at my feet and stood, the waves of his tail swirring the fog. His eyes, luminous, glinted with warmth.

“Aren’t you going to pet him,” asked my husband. “He was so good….pet him, honey.”

Bob and I stood together in the quiet, the fog, and the sun that braved the day. His gaze, well deep in connection, roved over me as I stood with my hands in my pockets. I made no motion as we stood, together, for just a moment more.

“That’ll do Bob, that’ll do.”

“Beagles? Sure, I’ve trained a lot of Beagles.”

“No, not a Beagle a Peagle.”

“A Peagle?

The owner’s voice shimmered with anticipation. “Yes, a purebred Peagle.”

I pulled the conversational ripcord. “What’s a Peagle?”

“It’s when they take the best of a Beagle and the best of a Pekingese and you get a Peagle. It’s a new breed now.” She was breathless in the free fall awaiting my eagerness to hear more about her marvelous discovery. “They come from Missouri and were invented by a geneticist. That’s how you know it’s a pure breeded dog.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, and we named him Peanut. Peanut the Peagle.”

“Oh.”

“Sometimes, when he does his bad little boy thing we call him PP the Peagle.” She spelled out her marvelous dog’s elastic name. Perhaps she thought I was not a mix of the best of two humans but instead descended from the dunderhead line.

“Ah.”

“And when we see him do the bad little boy thing we say “Bad PP Peagle! Then we put him in time out.”

“Oh.”

“But the baby’s on the way and we don’t want the baby around his bad little boy thing, anymore. It’s not sanitary.”

She was reproducing. The terror of such a thing brought me to attention.

“Can you tell me what his bad little boy thing is? And how often does he do it and where?” I steadied my wits.

“It’s when he puts his lipstick out. You know what I mean?” Her voice dissipated in a vapor of embarrassment and confusion. “What boy dogs do? That’s when we call him PP Peagle.” She reverted back to the name refrain to cover her agony of discussing such a topic.

I stared at my cat. Now what? I asked him silently. He blinked and gave no reply.

I was on my own.

I asked several more questions about the marvelous Peagle. His only sin was ‘his lipsitck’ emerging at times of great excitement. When his dinner was presented so did he. It was a short lived display of great Peagleness of which any owner should be proud; an accompaniment to fine cuisine much like a table side serenade at a five star restaurant.

I explained that ‘the lipstick’ was not indicative of any fundamental flaw in Peanut’s character. He should be allowed his twice daily expression of joy. No harm would be done to any human viewing this natural wonder. Perhaps Peanut should be admired for his deep appreciation of his dining experience, I suggested.

Silence greeted my exploration into deep behavioral space.

I waited and watched my cat’s ribs rise and fall under the warmth of the desk lamp. His orange and white coat of just an ordinary stray cat, a stray no more, looked uncomplicated in the face of the bewildering complexity of this case.

“But I don’t like it,” she said. “I think it’s unsanitary.”

“It probably is. It does, after all, belong to a dog. “

“Can’t you do anything? Is it because he’s dominant? Maybe he thinks he’s alpha?”

The cat raised his head. The limit of his tolerance for humans dimwitted about the natural behavior of all things animal had been reached. He silently encouraged me to conclude this fascinating call.

“If it bothers you that much and it happens at specific times, only twice a day, why don’t you just put a belly band around him?” The cat yawned and showed me his mouse killing canine teeth. “You can get them on the Internet and they come in lots of colors and patterns.”

“Oh, that’s awesome! That’s a lot easier than getting rid of him. None of the rescues have heard of Peagles so we couldn’t get him into a rescue group.  You’re awesome just like the vet said you were. This is much easier than getting rid of him. Awesome!”

I petted the cat and felt his coat slide beneath my fingers. He gazed at me with the expression of one who has been betrayed.

“Thanks for calling. Good luck.”

The click at the end of the call was merciful relief.

“Awesome,” I told the cat.

“You mean the one who looks like an ironing board wearing a blazer?”

“Yep, “said my dog trainer friend from Ohio. “The veterinary Ph.D herself. Including her Power Point presentations at every session….all of which are in her office never the owner’s home.  She’s coming out to California and starting a practice there.”

“The one who prescribed three drugs for that twelve week old pup who barked in the crate?” I asked.

“The one and only. Vets love to refer one of their own. Lotsa luck,” he said.

“What’s her Ph.D in?”

My friend’s laugh came through the line. “Penile hair rings in cats.”

I watched my cat, resting on my desk, raise his hind leg and demonstrate the geography of my soon to be colleague’s area of study.

“Wait ‘till you get a load of her computer generated treatment recommendations. All she does is click the boxes, hit print and presto she charges five hundred dollars. And owners pay it…then they pay me to fix it. Lemme know when she hits town.”

I hung up on my chortling friend, petted my absorbed-in–his-nether-regions cat and put on my shoes. The sparkly laces I’d worn at classes yesterday now seemed childish. I exchanged them for standard white, grabbed my appointment book and went out the door.

As I drove down to Laguna Niguel I envisioned how I would become more professional in the face of this arriving termagant with a Ph.D. I’d become much more distant with people, thus inspiring confidence and awe. Instead of simply listening to the owner’s story to understand the problem and then devise friendly solutions I would insist all clients fill out a lengthy intake form to be scoured. Thoughts of how to combat a new opponent in the world of dogs shot me past the La Paz exit and almost into San Diego.

When I arrived at the home and was ushered inside, both husband and wife began to spill out the dog’s problem in bursts of information, confusion and frustration. As they added to one another’s story and interrupted and corrected one another, their toy poodle Bebe sat on the wife’s lap, grinning.

As the wife talked she stroked the little dog’s curly head.

“We’ve tried everything we read on the Internet and what the groomer said to do. We were thinking we would have to hire a behaviorist but we decided to try you, instead.” The dog licked the owner’s fingers and peered at me happily.

I stifled the reply that yelled back at her from inside my head. There is no such thing! Anyone including a house painter can make up a card with that title. It’s a meaningless word! People who use choke chains on dogs call themselves a behaviorist.

I shifted into my new mode sure to dazzle these confused and behaviorist seeking owners. If they wanted a behaviorist then a behaviorist they would get.

“Well,” I intoned. “We have to do a complete differential diagnosis, first.” Their faces creased at my behaviorist inspired opening statement. “The presenting problem is fearfulness at the sound of the toaster popping up toast, however, I would be remiss if I did not do a thorough evaluation of other co morbid factors.”

My inner behaviorist was waking up and with a migraine.

“But she’s fine except when she hears the toast pop up. Or a Pop Tart.”

“That is indeed the initial complaint but I have to be sure that this is not tied into a sound phobia.” The little poodle farted.

No longer held in check my inner behaviorist roared. I lectured on the merits of exposure therapy, systematic desensitization, the subjective units of distress scale, the role of Bebe’s amygdala and even Occam’s razor made an appearance in my one woman show of strength. I diagrammed a hierarchy of stimuli and drew a flow chart. I compared the merits of operant and classical conditioning. I taught the difference and sameness of positive and negative reinforcers. I pointed, powerfully, at the diagrams and grilled the owners on their understanding of my brilliant insight.

“We’d never give her up,” said the husband. “She sleeps in bed and has her own pillow. It’s not really that much of a problem…we just thought she’d be happier if she wasn’t so scared when we made toast.” He glanced at his wife. Her face had crumpled under my onslaught of behaviorism.

 I listened to the sound of her sniffling and the husband clearing his throat as the poodle snored. My inner behaviorist tip toed away with its tail between its legs.

The sound of the garage door lifting came into the living room. Bebe sat up, barked three times and shot to the kitchen door, dancing a poodle happy step. The kitchen door opened and a teenage girl came inside. Bebe spun in circles until the girl picked her up.

“Oh Bebe I missed you today,” the teenager said.

As she came toward the family room where my inner behaviorist had just held her parents captive, I glanced into the kitchen. The dreaded toaster sat on the edge of the counter closest to the door leading to the garage.

As the family reunited and explanations of Bebe’s deep and chronic problems were made to one another, I walked into the kitchen. Opening the door, in five steps I was in a garage that looked like it belonged in a model home. In front of me was a butcher block worktable sanded to smoothness and clear of clutter.

I stepped back inside the kitchen where the family, worn out from their journey into the bowels of behavior, had gathered.

“Why don’t you put the toaster out here?” I pointed to the butcher block. “You can keep a box of Pop Tarts out here and she won’t hear the toaster, anymore.”

My simple solution hung in the air as Bebe twisted to kiss each one of her owners.

Relief flooded into the kitchen and shooed the tension away. The parents asked one another “Why didn’t we think of that” as the teenager rolled her eyes. Bebe kissed anyone close enough. “That’s so easy to do,” I heard the husband say.

As the wife wrote out the check she thanked me.

“My neighbor used you and said I should call. She said that you were a really smart person. Did you tell her all that stuff, too?”

On the ride home my inner behaviorist sat in the back, muttering. That’s where it is, still.

‘I told you to get her spayed!” Mrs. Claus snapped her apron and glowered at her husband.

“The vet said she had to go through one heat cycle.” Santa pulled on his boots. “Something about a new study…”
 
“Snow and nonsense!” she said. “All the other reindeer were spayed when they were six months. Dasher and Dancer when they were only three. Look what you did.”

Santa’s gaze followed the point of his wife’s finger and saw the new Cupid, a replacement for the last one now living at the Old Reindeer Rest Home, grinning at Rudolph and shaking her mane. In front of Santa’s wondering eyes she skipped toward Rudolph and winked; a sultry reindeer gesture that meant only one thing.

Rudolph’s nose flashed brighter and brighter, casting a penumbra of scarlet over Cupid’s face. She curtsied and simpered in reindeer blats as Rudolph’s tail waggled at a speed sure to guide the sleigh at unsafe speed, tonight. The other seven reindeer stood placid and spayed in their harnesses wondering how soon they’d see Sweden.

“It’s easy for a vet to say that…he doesn’t have to live with an in season reindeer. Simpleton,” she muttered. “It’s an hour ‘till take off.” She shooed Cupid away from Rudolph and grabbed his halter. “If you think we’re going to have another red nosed reindeer in this bunch you’ve got another thing coming, mister,” she addressed the lovesick sleigh guide. She tugged his head around and marched him back to his place at the front of the line.

The temptress of reindeer tossed her antlers and gazed in dreamy concupiscence at her swain.

Santa held a hand to his forehead. His white beard curled in the dry winter air. He blinked at the stars gathered in their once a year alignment and sighed. If only he had listened to his wife, he thought. If only he hadn’t thrown that post it note away; if only he hadn’t been swayed by a veterinarian spouting the latest study; if only he had neutered Rudolph at the low cost clinic last summer….Santa’s regrets swarmed through his brain as Cupid nickered.

“Can we leave Rudolph behind?’ he asked.

Mrs. Claus consulted her Telenavigation Weather Advisory “You’ve got fog over London even the locals haven’t seen in decades.”

Santa stared at his boots. “How about leaving Cupid here? The other seven can pull a little harder.” He gazed in hope and fear at his wife who bristled with increased exasperation.

“There’s more presents than ever. Don’t you remember the John and Kate plus Eight show and Octomom?”

Santa and Mrs. Claus watched as Rudolph slid his four hooves backwards toward Cupid. She strained in her harness and stretched out her neck as the pupils of her eyes dilated. Mrs. Claus stared at the two lovers and a look that frightened Santa crossed her face.

“That’s it! That’s it! Nerd, get to the Internet, now.

At her bellow huge eyeglasses wearing an elf appeared and saluted.

“Yes, Sir...I mean Mrs.”

Mrs. Claus grabbed Nerd by the shoulders and steered him into the workshop where she plunked him down in front of her computer.

“Quick as a wink I need you to find all the veterinarians who now recommend that pet reindeer go through one heat cycle before they’re spayed. Hurry! We’ve only got twenty minutes.”

Nerd’s fingers zoomed over the keyboard and his eyes followed curser, key stroke and web page. Mrs. Claus leaned over and tapped her fingers on his head. Once she turned to shout at Santa to grab hold of Rudolph’s bridle.

“Done!” cried out Nerd in his tinny elf voice. The printer whirred and out slid page after page of the cursed veterinary hospital addresses.

“Run!” said Mrs. Claus. “Get the rest of the elves, match the addresses with the presents in the sleigh and toss them out.”

A flurry of elves descended on the sleigh, sorting and tossing aside packages tied in grosgrain ribbon and wrapped in bright paper. The packages lay in a sad, discarded heap that grew as the elves reached the bottom of the sleigh.

“There,” said Mrs. Claus. “Only veterinarians who understand what it’s like to have an in season pet receive presents this year. I left the ones for every vet's child, though. Maybe they’ll grow up to be plumbers. Cupid,” she called, “you’re off duty. Maybe there’s a Hallmark Lifetime for Women on television tonight.”

And so, for the first time in Santa’s life and in all the history of the world on this night of stars, gifts and magic, a sleigh was pulled by only seven tiny reindeer. And, many a veterinarian who reads too much and understands too little searched for a present only to find coal in their stocking.

 Cupid? Oh, she and Mrs. Santa had a fine time that night, crying over hot cocoa and milk as Hallmark celebrated another Christmas dripping with tinsel and treacle.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good spay.

“A Blundershirt?” I asked.

“No, a Dundershirt….Dunder,” replied the owner. “Me and Buster saw it advertised on TV. He’s got the separation anxiety, you know, and the Dundershirt cures that.”

I looked down at the ten week old yellow Lab encased, sausage like, in a strange dark outfit. His blunt nose wiggled. The rest of his torso looked as though the Spanx manufacturer had produced a straitjacket for dogs.

His huge toed legs moved stiffly about the living room as the Dundershirt clung tightly to his body from neck to tail. He bent his head to sniff the carpet and the Dundershirt crackled. Pinning back his ears the pup tried to jump backwards, but the Dundershirt prevented his body from flight.

“He’s ten weeks old and you got him directly from a breeder, is that right?” I knew this pup’s short history.  I wanted to help this loving, sincere and late night television watching owner. I knew ‘the separation anxiety’ was impossible and needed the owner to understand that, too.

“Oh yes, the mother dog was so smart. We drove him right home. Do you think he was abused there...is that why he has the separation anxiety?”

No, I thought to myself. He hadn’t been abused at the breeder’s but he sure is abused, now. I watched the pup move across the room with his Dundershirt squeezing his rib cage.

“Buster,” I called. The pup turned around with all the fluidity of a destroyer at sea. The Dundershirt, a corset that even Victorians would have resisted, turned the pup in a wide, wide seafaring circle.

The owner, in tones earnest and rushed, described how ‘the separation anxiety’ arose only at night when Buster slept, and howled, in his crate kept in the spare bedroom and the owner slept, and worried, in his own room.

“The Dundershirt helps get him into his body,” said the owner.

 “Does he have déjà vu?”

The owner explained that a Dundershirt was designed to give the pup a sense of his body’s energy fields, an idea that seemed far too advanced for a pup unborn only ten weeks prior. The chubby pup marched around the room as the owner talked in depth about blunt and pointed energy and did I think dogs had chakras?

The pup squatted and peed on the carpet.

“I think he’s in his body just fine,” I said. The owner rushed about with paper towel and carpet cleaner. Buster’s day improved immediately as he grabbed his owner’ hand sopping up normal puppy pee and even the Dundershirt did not prevent him from snatching the paper towels and shredding them. His tail wagged free and clear of his asylum issued garb.

The owner sat on the couch and plopped Buster in his lap.

“Let’s take him out of his shirt and we’ll talk about ‘the separation anxiety,” I said. The sound of Velcro ripping away from the collops of baby Labrador blubber startled both Buster and I. Freed of his constraints he rolled in his owner’s lap, bit at his nose and kicked his drumstick fat Labrador hind legs in the air. The owner laughed.

I explained how ‘the separation anxiety’ was impossible for a pup of this age and history to develop and even threw in a few ten dollars phrases such as thermal regulation, differential diagnosis and the difference between isolation and confinement. Neither Buster nor his owner paid much attention to my palaver as they cavorted together on the sofa. One of them peed, again.

I left the House Call with a now freely moving pup and instructions to move Buster's crate into the owner’s room at night. Buster demonstrated his gratitude by rushing about the house exploring in ways Vasco de Gama would have envied.

A week later I got an email from Buster’s owner.

Thanks so much for helping with me and Buster. I moved the crate into my room and the separation anxiety went away. He never makes a sound now when he’s in the room with me.  I gave the Dundershirt to my neighbor who just got a new pup and it’s got the separation anxiety, too. Their pup picks up on all the negative energy in the house.

No doubt.

Donder, that’s you today, isn’t it? It’s you and your reindeer paws making all that racket. Don’t you know dogs, pups and calling birds are scared of all your snortin’ and pawin’ up on the housetop?

Thunder scares the Christmas cheer out of many dogs. Instead of roasting their chestnuts by an open fire dogs try to jump out windows, race down the street to nowhere or burrow into the backs of closets. Their owners can’t even have eggnog they’re so upset for their pet. Donder, you need a new gig.

First, we shut the windows. Scared dogs leap first and regret later. They cram themselves out tiny dormer windows if they get the chance and go headfirst off a second story roofline. Half-open sliders become wide open and the screen is a holiday decoration around the dog’s neck. The chair under the bay window gets knocked over as the dog scrambles up out and through.

Second, today owners have to ride fence without a horse. Dogs scale fences they’ve never attempted or chew their way out through an old wood one meant to be replaced in the spring. Thunder drives them under fences where no self respecting garter snake would slither. Termites would pass on the parts of wood dogs buzzsaw through when thunder runs across the sky.

Third, we turn on the Beach Boys Christmas CD full throttle and dance around the living room. We invite the dog to do the two step since that’s all we’ve got. When Donder makes a stink topside we create a dance floor downstairs where our gyrations create a successful, if odd looking, distraction. Few dogs can resist ‘Dances with Humans’ and their distress about Donder subsides for the moment.

Fourth, we slip ‘em the veterinarian prescribed sedative stashed away in the manger just for this moment. A drowsy dog sleeps under the Christmas tree dreaming of Santa driving eight tiny…cats.

Fifth, we sit down and hug ‘em. Lots. We hug ‘em not to “reward their fear” as the Grinches of Dog Training admonish but to demonstrate that they have a little island of safety. Hugging a scared- to- death-by-Donder dog lets them know they aren’t in this alone.

Sixth, when the rain lets up, we bundle the dog into the car and trundle around town. Here’s a chance to listen to the Christmas CDs your kids tease you about. Bring Glen Miller, John Denver and Barry Manilow into your flivver and sing along. I do. The dog rides along in close comfort and agrees that “the music kids listen to today…”

So, Donder. We’re not impressed. As for your little friend Blixen, he can stash the lightning where the sun don’t shine. You two can start a vaudeville act in the Catskills where Santa now recruits for his new team. Seems you’re out of a job.