Gaits of Heaven

shriek.
    That’s just what Eumie Green did. “Ron!” she squealed. “What a surprise! What are you doing here?” When he finally escaped, his normally ruddy complexion was outright red, but he managed to mumble the obvious, namely, that he was training his dogs.
    “The Greens won us at the Avon Hill auction,” I told Ron. “Their dog needs a collar and a leash so they can come in and observe. Do we have—”
    Ron was now expressionless. “Dolfo,” he said, “doesn’t wear a collar.”
    “Ron, vee geyts ? Ron does our plumbing.” Ted spoke with just a hint of a southern accent. “He’s one of the family. He and Dolfo are old friends.” Ron later told me that Ted and Eumie had waited six months to pay the last bill he’d sent them. Ron was a friend of Steve’s and mine, too, but he wasn’t one of the family. Consequently, we always paid him promptly.
    “Well,” I said brightly, “tonight is going to be a new experience for Dolfo.” The dog, I should say, was perfectly happy on leash. In fact, he was always happy. Bizarre-looking, yes, and uncivilized, but wonderfully cheerful.
    Ted and Eumie exchanged glances and then reluctant nods. “Nisht gut,” said Ted. “But we’ll try it for a few minutes.”
    By then, handlers and dogs were arriving, so I hustled Dolfo into the entrance hall, where people were checking in and paying, but before Ron even had time to borrow a collar and leash from the club’s equipment box, the Dolfo experiment failed. To avoid getting graphic or disgusting, I’ll just report that right there in the middle of the entryway, Dolfo staged a large and smelly demonstration of what happens when owners fail to housebreak a dog. Instead of apologizing, cleaning up after their dog, or helping me to get him outside, Ted and Eumie decided that Dolfo was responding to stress.
    “This whole situation is traumatic for him,” Ted announced.
    Far from acting traumatized, Dolfo was merrily sniffing the evidence of his crime.
    “Good boy,” Eumie told him. “We’ll take you home right now.”
    “Eumie,” said Ted, “you’re forgetting the crisis.”
    “We’ll find another housekeeper,” she replied. “We always do.”
    “And she’ll quit, too.”
    “We need to discuss this matter outside,” I said in my dog-trainer voice. As I led Dolfo out, he raised his leg on a doorjamb. Then he turned around and jumped on me. When I’d finally lured the Greens all the way to their brand-new silver Lexus SUV, which was parked in an illegal but nearby spot on Concord Avenue, I again apologized for what I called the “misunderstanding” about the auction item. “You probably paid a lot of money for dog training classes, and we can’t offer you anything until September. And Dolfo really can’t be loose. I know you don’t like to restrain him, but it’s a club rule. And it’s necessary. For the safety of all the dogs.” Ted opened the door to the backseat, and Dolfo jumped in. I reclaimed my spare leash and rubbed his ridiculous ears. “He’s really very cute,” I said.
    “I’ll bet you don’t know what breed he is!” Eumie exclaimed.
    “I can’t begin to guess,” I said truthfully.
    “You probably thought he was a mongrel,” she said. “Or a Goldendoodle. We hear that a lot.”
    There were so many Goldendoodles, Labradoodles, and cockapoos around these days that I’d learned to identify them, but my new skill hadn’t convinced me that they were anything other than costlypoos. Still, I said, “People always think that my malamutes are Siberian huskies.”
    “Dolfo,” said Ted, “is a golden Aussie huskapoo. We found him on the Web.” With warm condescension, he added, “It’s a new breed.”
    I refrained from asking how much Dolfo had cost. My bet was at least twice what Steve had paid for Sammy, who was a show-quality puppy out of a champion sire and dam, my Rowdy and American and Canadian Ch. Jazzland’s Embraceable You. I later learned that the Greens had actually paid four times Sammy’s cost, which goes to prove that I know less about dogs than I like to imagine. “Golden retriever, Siberian husky, poodle, and Australian cattle dog?” I asked. Because of my heritage, I can usually spot even a trace of golden retriever in a mixed-breed dog. I couldn’t see or sense any golden in Dolfo, but I wouldn’t have guessed the other parts of the mix, either.
    Ted was delighted. “Australian shepherd,” he corrected. His face fell. “But the breeder