Gaits of Heaven

filing cabinets. The bottom drawer of one filing cabinet was wide open. The floor space was occupied mainly by Dolfo and the manila folders and papers with which he was playing.
    “Jesus Christ! Damn it all!” Ted yelled.
    Dolfo responded by dropping the single sheet of paper he’d been chewing and turning his attention to what at first registered on my writer’s eye as the manuscript of a book, a thick stack of paper bound with one large clasp.
    “Boundaries,” I said calmly. “You see? He’s begging for boundaries. It’s in the nature of dogs to search for them, to force us to set limits by a process of trial and error. Is this a violation? Is that?"
    “Goddamn it, Dolfo, give me that!” Ted shouted.
    Enough. I had to shove past Ted to squeeze all the way into the little office. As I did so, I filled my left hand with treats from one of my capacious pockets. Instead of trying to persuade Dolfo to trade the manuscript for liver goodies, I took the expeditious course of tossing the food on the floor a foot or two away from the dog’s head. Predictably, he released his grip on his booty and turned his attention from the merely interesting to the irresistibly delicious. Pushing past Ted, I swooped down and quickly grabbed what I was embarrassed to recognize not as a book manuscript but as a copy of a thick federal tax return. There’s nothing wrong with my sense of boundaries: books are intended for publication, but tax returns are private. Still, I’m a rapid reader. The same quick glance that had enabled me to identify the return had also shown me a gross adjusted income that was impossibly low for someone living as Ted did; at a guess, Ted was reporting less than half the amount of money he actually took in. The responsibilities of a dog trainer, I decided, did not include the obligation to inform the IRS that her client was cheating on his taxes. Furthermore, this was not the time to tell him that if he underpaid, I therefore ended up overpaying because of his dishonesty. Etiquette having triumphed over ethics, I put the thick return facedown on the desk. By then, Ted was on the floor gathering up loose papers and folders. Dolfo, having wolfed down the treats, helped him by licking his face. When Ted stood up, I realized that he was, for once, angry at something Dolfo had done. Instead of psychologizing, Ted said, “Point made, Holly. Enough is enough.”
    “It’s like the end of Portnoy’s Complaint ,” I agreed. “Maybe now we can begin.”
    Five minutes later, Ted and I sat at the kitchen table. Dolfo, on leash, sat at my side. Ted took notes on a yellow legal pad.
    “Doors will be kept closed,” I dictated. “Dolfo will be loose in, at most, one room at a time. If you can’t watch him every second, he will be either outdoors in your fenced yard or in a crate. I will leave one of the crates I have in my car. Dolfo will be taken out once an hour. If he produces, he will be given praise and food. He will be fed twice a day. You will put the bowl down for ten minutes. At the end of that time, you will remove it. You will hire a trainer. Not me. I will give you her name.”
    “You sure you don’t want coffee?” Ted asked. “Something to eat?”
    “Nothing, thanks. I can’t stay, and we have work to do.” The remaining work actually took only a few minutes. Ted helped me to carry a big folding crate from the car to his kitchen. I dug in my purse and found the number I’d promised, and I added the name and number of a reliable dog walker. Then I apologized. “You don’t have the time to train Dolfo by yourself. And so on. I should have known that from the beginning. I’m sorry.” I really should have. Ted and Eumie did things by hiring other people; it was a way of life, and I should have recognized and accepted it as such.
    To my astonishment, Ted began to cry. “I can’t do much of anything without Eumie.”
    “I’m sure you can learn. Ted, I’m really very sorry.“
    “Caprice hates me,” he said.
    As I was on the verge of mendaciously assuring him otherwise, Caprice walked into the kitchen carrying a big trash bag that presumably contained her winter clothes.
    “What we’ve got here,” he said to her, gesturing to me, “is a real mensch.”
    “Keep the Jewish shtick to yourself,” she said. “I just ran into your un-bar-mitzvahed son, who’s a prize piece of dreck, and all the Yiddish and all the knishes going aren’t going to get you the Jewish family warmth