Bloodlines

didn’t know what to do. I mean, I still don’t.”
    “First of all,” she said firmly, “it’s not the end of the world. Most of the people who buy from a pet shop just don’t know where else to get a dog, okay? You’ve got to try and think that they aren’t bad people. They just don’t know any better.”
    Well, they damn well ought to, I thought.
    Betty went on. “So what you want to do is go back there and be nice.”
    “I was nice this time,” I said.
    “What did you say?”
    “They, uh, assumed I was interested in buying a puppy.”
    “Jesus,” Betty said. “Why’d you...? Look, just go back there, say who you are, talk to them, and act nice. That’s what the affenpinscher people say to do, and they know about it. They’ve got a much bigger problem than we do.”
    In case you didn’t know, an affenpinscher looks something like a tiny terrier with the face of a really cute monkey. That combination of very small and very cute makes for a big problem: Puppies of large breeds rapidly enter a gawky preadolescence, but little bitty adorable balls of fluff have a long shelf life in a pet shop; a four-month-old Akita, malamute, collie, or chow is undoubtedly a dog, but a six-month-old affenpinscher, Maltese, bichon, or mini anything is obviously puppyish, which is what most buyers want. Consequently, it’s the toy
    breed people who have the giant problem with pet shops.
    “So I go back there and say I’m from Malamute Rescue?” I hated the idea.
    “Yes,” Betty said in a Kimi-like voice. “But act nice! Get them on our side. What you want them to do is put something with the papers. You have any of those booklets?”
    The booklet, The Alaskan Malamute: An Introduction, is what we mail to people who inquire about the breed.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Okay, so put your name and address on it, or mine if you want, and go back there and try and talk them into leaving it with the papers. Or get them to pass along your name. That’s the best you can do at this point.”
    “But what if—”
    “Don’t buy that dog!”
    “I won’t. But what if—”
    “Look, how old is the puppy?”
    “I’m not sure. Maybe seven weeks, I think. She’s a baby.”
    Seven weeks is the minimum age at which a good breeder will let a puppy go—most insist on eight weeks —but all good breeders warn buyers not to let the puppy have any contact with strange dogs until four months, when he’s fully immunized. Pet shop conditions maximize a puppy’s chances of getting sick: A large and changing population of incompletely immunized puppies from different but mostly dirty places, all living together indoors, isn’t great, but it’s especially dangerous with a ventilation system designed for people, not animals. Dogs require many more changes of air per hour than we do, much more fresh air than a pet shop provides, especially a shopping mall pet shop. Cat lover, too, are you? Kittens are the canary in the pet shop gold mine because they’re the first animals to show upper respiratory diseases and ringworm. I didn’t make up that canary business, either. It’s a quote from an article in a magazine for pet shop operators: “Think of those kittens as the canary in your gold mine.” Is that unbelievable? I mean, is that how you think about your cat? It’s probably not even how you think about your canary, for God’s sake.
    “Seven weeks old,” Betty said. “Honest to God. I would really like to strangle these people.”
     

5
     

     
    Enid Sievers lived in one of those late-Victorian houses a few blocks off upper Mass. Ave. in North Cambridge on the Somerville line. It stood out from its neighbors by virtue—or sin—of being painted an unspeakably intense shade of raspberry. Because of that god-awful color, it was the kind of house that makes people gasp, titter, and return with friends who just have to see it and simply won’t believe it when they do. But they do believe it, of course—its undiluted reality is undeniable—and ask one another whether that ultraraspberry was the embarrassing result of some unimaginable misunderstanding with the house painter or whether, God forbid, it was chosen deliberately.
    Thus the stunned queasiness on my face must have been the expression Enid Sievers saw whenever she opened her front door to anyone, and in case you’ve ever wandered by there and wondered the inevitable, the answer is, no, that raspberry was no accident, as I guessed the second Enid Sievers