A Big Little Life

her head raised. Something interested her. A piece of chicken the size of a plum lay on the patio floor, twelve inches from her nose. Evidently another diner had tossed it to her, but she was trained to disregard anything that might distract her from the person with disabilities whom she served.
    In CCI’s large training room, food is sometimes dropped at various places before the day’s lesson begins. The dogs then go through their paces, learning to ignore the treats and remain focused on the needs of the trainer who is a sit-in for the wheelchair-bound person with whom the dog will eventually be paired. While in working mode, assistance dogs also must ignore other dogs, as well as cats, rabbits, birds, and anything else they might ordinarily want to chase, such as butterflies and Peter-bilts.
    On the patio, at dinner with the CNN folks, Trixie was retired, had no person with disabilities to serve, yetshe remained faithful to her service-dog tradition. When we left the restaurant an hour later, she had not touched the chicken; as we departed, she stepped over the treat with more pride than regret.
    Largely because of the time constraints of a television show, the finished episode of Pinnacle got a few things wrong when my answers to some questions were trimmed and spliced. But that had nothing to do with any agenda of theirs and everything to do with my tendency to ramble.
    Near the end of the program, pressured by the producer, Gerda and I did a minute or two of swing dancing—without benefit of music, silently counting the beat—to demonstrate the result of all those years of lessons during which I had broken the spirit of more than one dance instructor. This is my favorite moment of the show, not because of our dancing but because the camera slowly zooms in on Trixie, who is watching us intently, as if she has never seen dancing before and as if she is solemnly wondering in what other peculiar rituals her new parents might engage.

VIII
i screw up, dog takes the rap
    GOLDEN RETRIEVERS HAVE glorious thick coats, and they shed with exuberance, especially in spring, when they create billowing clouds of fur each time they shake their bodies. Because we preferred not to live in drifts of Trixie’s cast-offs, we combed her for half an hour to forty-five minutes after her walk each morning, and another ten or fifteen minutes in the late afternoon or early evening. Inaddition, every floor in the house was swept at least once a day. No visitor ever saw fur on the floor or went home with more than a few golden filaments on his clothes.
    Trixie delighted in these daily grooming sessions, as if they were the doggy equivalent of spa visits. She learned the sequence of the comb-out, and lying on her grooming blanket, she extended a leg just when you needed to comb the feathers on it, rolled from one side to the other with a dreamy sigh. For Gerda and me, grooming this dog qualified as meditation and induced in us a Zenlike state of relaxation. As a result, her coat was always lustrous and silky.
    Not long after Trixie became a Koontz, we invited friends to Sunday lunch, already confident that Trixie would be better behaved than I would. Mine is not a high standard of conduct, so her behavior was impressive only because it exceeded mine by a wide margin.
    After combing Trixie, we had more tasks—preparing appetizers, arranging flowers, setting the table—than time to accomplish them. We raced this way and that all morning, and as eleven o’clock drew near, our anxiety escalated to panic. A moment after we completed preparations, the doorbell rang.
    Our friends found Trixie as delightful as she found them, and the next four hours unfolded so well that Martha Stewart would have pinched our cheeks in approval. Toward the end of lunch, Short Stuff began to bump her nose against my leg and paw at me for attention while we were still at the table. Just in case anyone has ever affectionately referred to Martha Stewart as Short Stuff, let me clarify that I am speaking here of Trixie. This bumping-pawing was uncharacteristic behavior. I told her, “Down,” a command I would never have issued to Martha Stewart but one that good Trixie obeyed, lying on the floor beside my dining-room chair. After a few minutes, she sought my attention again, and I said, “Down,” and as before she at once obeyed.
    After lunch, we adjourned to the living room with coffee, to continue our conversation. Trixie sought my attention and Gerda’s