Breathless

sores, clipping knots out of coats, deticking, and other tasks, all of which were complicated by the need continually to calm and reassure the dogs.
    Cammy was unaware that the morning had passed until she checked her wristwatch at 2:17 in the afternoon. Having skipped breakfast, she took a fifteen-minute break and retreated to her apartment above the veterinary facility, to have a bite of lunch.
    For a long time, Donna Corbett had run the practice with her husband, John, who was also a veterinarian. When John died of a heart attack four years earlier, Donna divided their large apartment into two units and sought a partner who would be as committed to animals as she was and as John had been, who was willing to
live
the work.
    The Corbetts viewed veterinary medicine less as a profession than as a calling, which was why Cammy didn’t need to consult with her partner when agreeing to treat the puppy-mill dogs pro bono.
    After quickly putting together a cheese sandwich, she opened acold bottle of tea sweetened with peach nectar. She ate lunch while standing at her kitchen sink.
    As she’d been working with the folks from Rocky Mountain Gold, two calls had come in, one regarding a sick cow. She referred the caller to Dr. Amos Renfrew, who was the best cow doc in the county.
    The second inquiry came from Nash Franklin, regarding a horse at High Meadows Farm. Because the situation wasn’t urgent, Cammy would pay Nash a visit later in the afternoon.
    She had nearly finished the cheese sandwich when Ben Aikens, her vet tech, rang her from downstairs. “Cammy, you’ve got to see this.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “These dogs. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “Be right there.” She shoved the last piece of the sandwich into her mouth and chewed it on the run.
    Puppy-mill breeders were routinely so physically and emotionally traumatized by their abuse that the new experiences of freedom—open spaces; cars; steps, which they never before climbed or descended; strange noises; soap and water; even kind words and gentle touching—could induce a dangerous state of shock. Most often, the cause of shock was chronic dehydration or untreated infections, but there were times when Cammy could attribute it to nothing else but the impact of the new, of change.
    If they could be cured of their diseases and conditions, the dogs would need months of socializing, but in time they would find their courage, regain the joyful spirit that defined a golden, and learn to trust, to love, to be loved.
    Descending the exterior stairs from her apartment, she prayedthat all these dogs might survive and thrive, that not one of them would be lost to infection or disease, or shock.
    Cammy entered the clinic by the front door. She hurried through the small waiting room, along a hallway flanked by four examination cubicles, and through a swinging door into the large, tile-floored open space that included treatment stations and grooming facilities.
    Awaiting her was a sight far different from the crisis she had anticipated. Every one of these brutalized dogs appeared to have shed its anxiety, to have suppressed already the memories of torment in favor of embracing a new life. Tails wagging, eyes bright, grinning that fabled golden grin, they submitted happily to belly rubs and ear scratches from the Rocky Mountain Gold volunteers. They nuzzled one another and explored the room, sniffing this and that, curious about things that a short while ago frightened them. None lay in cataplexic collapse or hid its face, or cowered, or trembled.
    This unlikely sight had startled Cammy to a stop. Now, as she moved farther into the room, Ben Aikens hurried to her.
    Ben, twenty-seven, had a perpetually sunny disposition, but even for him, his current mood seemed unusually buoyant. He was virtually shining with delight. “Isn’t it fantastic? You ever seen anything like it? Have you, Cammy?”
    “No. Never. What happened here?”
    “We don’t know. The dogs were like before, anxious, distressed, so pitiful. Then they—Well, they—They went still and quiet, all of them at once. They lifted their ears, all of them listening, and they heard something.”
    “Heard what?”
    “I don’t know. We didn’t hear it. They raised their heads. They all stood up. They stood so still, motionless, they heard something.”
    “What were they looking at?”
    “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. But look at them now.”
    Cammy reached the center of the room. The