All Shots

Rowdy on top of his head, Mellie moved to his side and gently touched his shoulder while murmuring, “Nice dog, nice big boy, Rowdy.”
    Big Boy responded by hurling himself to the ground, rolling onto his back, and presenting his white tummy. Mellie laughed like a child and then gave Rowdy the tummy rub he wanted. “All done for now, Mr. Rowdy,” she said.
    “Yes, all done,” I echoed. “You’re really good with dogs,” I told Mellie.
    Her face fell. “I was bad. I lost Strike. I—”
    “We’re going to look for her right now. Here’s what I think we should do. You stay here, okay? In case she comes back. If you see any of your neighbors, tell them to watch for Strike. Ask them whether they’ve seen her. Ask children. Especially children. Kids notice dogs. If you see Strike, use your treats. Just hold out your hand with the food in it and walk toward your house door. Don’t run after her.”
    “If you run after them, they run away.”
    “Exactly.” I handed her a fabric slip lead from Steve’s clinic. “You know how to use this?”
    With an expression of concentration, she passed the lead through the ring to make a loop.
    “Perfect. If she gets close enough, just slip the loop over her head and tighten the leash. It’s easier than grabbing her collar. Now Rowdy and I are going to check out the neighborhood, okay? And you’re going stay right near here. And call for her. Okay?”
    Armed with treats of my own and a second slip lead, I set off. I kept Rowdy’s lead loose and kept a close eye on him. Rowdy was not trained to track; his job right now was simply to be a lure for Strike. Still, I wanted to take advantage of the canine ability to hear sounds beyond the range perceptible to mere human beings, the miraculous canine power to detect scent, and my own skill in reading my dog. In between studying Rowdy for any change in his expressive face, the position of his ears and tail, or the quickness of his gait, I scanned for the lost dog, but neither Rowdy nor I picked up a hint of her presence. Our walk was an ordinary walk along city sidewalks paved in uneven brick, past wood-frame houses, many apparently built at the same time by the same builder, some gentrified, some not, many with porches, most set close to the street in a way that gave the area the cozy feeling of being a real neighborhood. A few blocks from Mel-lie’s house, we ran into a couple of people, and I asked about a loose dog. One of them said he’d seen a husky about an hour ago. I tried calling Strike. Because of a lifetime devoted to dogs, I have a dog trainer’s voice, by which I do not mean that I bark out commands; rather, when I speak to dogs, I expect them to understand and cooperate, and that’s often what they do. “Strike!” I called. “Here, good girl! Strike!” My efforts entertained Rowdy, who waved his gorgeous white tail, pranced around, and conveyed his optimistic eagerness to have my happy expectations fulfilled by bursting into peals of woo-woo-woo-woo-woo. Rowdy, I might mention, is musically gifted. Kimi has a clear, true voice and excellent articulation, and Sammy woo-woos with force, but Rowdy’s range and power are extraordinary. He is the Pavarotti of mala-mutes. Still, neither my calls nor his arias summoned Strike.
    We headed back toward Mellie’s. When we were four or five houses away, a young woman with braided hair and library pallor emerged from a doorway, and I asked whether she’d happened to notice a loose dog.
    “Actually, I did,” she said. “A big husky. Smaller than yours, but something like that. It went down a driveway. This was maybe thirty minutes ago.”
    “Near here?”
    “I’ll show you,” she volunteered.
    Rowdy and I trotted after her. When she was two doors from Mellie’s, she stopped and said, “Here. The dog ran down that driveway. Good luck.”
    The woman walked away, and Rowdy and I headed down what was, in fact, a small cutout, a freshly graveled area with low shrubs on either side and exactly the space required for the one car that occupied it, a bright blue subcompact hybrid sedan. I remember wondering why the owner of the house hadn’t sacrificed the greenery, widened the cutout, and rented out the parking space. In every possible way, Cambridge parking is a nightmare. Even if you have a resident permit for on-street parking, you’re in danger of being ticketed and, worse, towed. In the winter, you have to be careful not to park in places that are tow