A Big Little Life

air.”
    Trixie at once stopped wriggling and remained on her back, all legs in the air.
    Kate, Linda, Tina, and I thought this was highly amusing. But then as Monique continued to express her wishes, moving around Trix, shooting from a standing position, then kneeling, and then lying on the ground, the dog did everything the photographer asked of her as soon as it was asked. We stopped laughing and fell into an astonished silence. Monique had been working with Trixie for a few minutes when I glanced at my watch and started to time the event. When Monique had taken every shot shehoped for, Trixie had been on her back, posing this way and that, for eight minutes. Add the three minutes that Trix clocked before I’d begun timing. That, we all agreed, was strange.
    Trixie’s Life Is Good went on to sell sixteen times as many copies as my first hardcover novel. She has since published two additional books for adults, a calendar, and has two children’s books coming from Putnam.
    The Trickster has become not only a busy author but also an entrepreneur. PetSmart, the national chain of stores, will have a two-month promotion of licensed products in the Trixie Koontz/Dog Bliss You line during July and August of 2009. We are in talks with other retailers about additional Trixie products, from toys and clothing to video games.
    Short Stuff has become a conglomerate.
    All author royalties and proceeds from the Trixie books and products are donated to the Trixie Fund at Canine Companions for Independence, which pays catastrophic veterinarian bills for the companion dogs of people with disabilities who cannot handle such large unexpected expenses. In 2008, seventy-one dogs received treatment that they might otherwise not have gotten.
    Gerda and I break into smiles every time we think about what a long shadow this little dog has cast even after moving on from this world. And she has just begun.
    Her books and other efforts are about laughter, love,finding happiness, maintaining hope, achieving peace, earning redemption, and embracing the wonder and the mystery of this world. As Reader’s Digest reported in its “Quotes” feature, Trixie believes, “Love and sausage are alike. Can never have enough of either.”

XXII
endings always come too fast
    OUR FRIEND CHRISTOPHER CHECK is a former marine, a devout Catholic, a writer, a speaker, a man of many talents, who crackles with so much energy that he makes my hair stand on end from a distance of forty feet. When he visited southern California to give the commencement address at St. Michael’s School, which is a project of St. Michael’s Abbey, Chris brought two Norbertine monksfrom St. Michael’s—Father Jerome and Father Hugh—to our house for dinner.
    I had corresponded with Father Jerome for a couple of years, but I had never met him. He generously wrote for me a lengthy account of daily life in a monastery, which was invaluable when I was writing Brother Odd .
    When Chris burst through the front door, fortunately breaking no glass, Trixie scampered straight to him, greeting an old friend. By the time she got the attention she deserved, the house electrical system adjusted to Chris’s presence, the lights stopped pulsing, and Trixie turned to the fathers, clearly fascinated by their radiant white habits.
    Her reaction to these two visitors could not have been more different from her reaction to X. Wagging her tail, wiggling her entire body, she offered them her belly without hesitation. During the evening, she stayed close to the fathers, even to the extent that, as we stood talking in the front hall, she sprang onto a sofa on which she’d never before perched, so she could be closer to our level, and at dinner she rested behind their chairs when usually she would curl up near Gerda or me.
    Knowing me so well, perhaps Trixie expected that when Father Jerome and Father Hugh stood up from the dinner table, their white habits would appear to have been tie-dyed. I must say I was most impressed when, at the end of the evening, those habits remained spotless.
    Gerda and I and our three guests had a grand evening full of stimulating conversation and laughter. One highpoint occurred when Father Hugh said to Father Jerome, “What do you think of this dog?”
    Father Jerome said, “She’s special, mysterious in her way.”
    “We’ve heard that before,” I assured them.
    The Catholic church has a long intellectual tradition that has produced some of the most rigorously