Paws before dying

Or getting neurotic? I didn’t return the stare, but I watched him out of the comer of my eye and began to edge my way toward the street. He maintained a steady three-yard distance from me until I reached the sidewalk, where he came to a peculiar, rapid halt, backed up, and barked.
    A boy with Marcia’s fair coloring came running around the side of the house and told him to quit it. He did. “He doesn’t bite,” the kid assured me. “And he doesn’t go out of the yard.”
    “Ever?” I asked. “That’s amazing. Border collies are such smart dogs. Did you train him?”
    The kid shook his head no.
    “But he’s your dog? You’re Zeke?”
    He nodded.
    “My name is Holly Winter. I’ve just been visiting your mother. She’s going to make a scarf for me. A present for my
    father. Are you ever lucky to have a border collie! They’re great dogs.”
    He smiled and patted Rascal’s head.
    “You go to school here, right? I forget the name of it. The one around the corner.”
    “Case,” he said.
    “Case. Did you have Mrs. Engleman?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “She died.”
    “I know,” I said. “She was a friend of mine.”
    “She was a friend of mine, too.”
    It seemed like a strange thing for a boy of nine or ten to say about his kindergarten teacher. He reminded me of Rascal. They were both hard to read.
    “I miss her,” I said.
    “Yeah,” he said, taking the dog by the collar. “I gotta go.”
    “Me, too,” I said. “Bye.”
    I didn’t notice the collar until Zeke wrapped his hand around it. I still didn’t understand Zeke, but I knew why Rascal didn’t move beyond the lawn, why no ugly chain link marred the pretty landscape. Here’s how it works. Around the perimeter of the yard, you bury a wire that transmits a radio signal that’s picked up by a receiver on the dog’s collar. Whenever the dog crosses the boundary, he hears a warning beep. Warning? Oh, yeah. If he doesn’t back up instantly, the collar gives him an electric shock. A system like that isn’t cheap, but, as I’ve said, it doesn’t mar the pretty landscape.
     

Chapter 14

     
    AS soon as I got home, I kicked Leah, Jeff, and some of the Seths and Emmas out of the kitchen, sat down at the table, buried my toes under Rowdy’s nonelectrified chin, and did a column about electronic training. My editor, Bonnie, had rejected my previous columns and articles on the topic because the subject “is not of interest to the readers of Dog’s Life. ” The readers she had in mind were mostly advertisers, not subscribers, but she’s right that some of our readers do use electronic trainers and might not be happy to read that they ought to quit. As I told Bonnie after the last rejection, St. Paul’s editor probably told him that the Epistles were not of interest to the Corinthians, either. Bonnie replied rather sharply that Pm hired to write about dogs, not to spread the gospel. Then she hung up. I felt angry and perplexed. I mean, I wasn’t trying to suggest anything weird or radical.
    Anyway, the column wrote itself, and when it was done, I outlined another on tips for removing dog hair from carpeting and upholstery.
    “So probably I won’t even bother mailing it,” I told Rita, who stopped in when she got home from work. “And Bonnie’ll love Holly’s Household Hints, and she won’t be mad at me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life telling people how to get woven-in dog hairs out of the furniture. Christ! Here I am feeling like St. Paul, and I end up Heloise. Honest to God, I feel ashamed of myself. Just what you want to hear now, right? It’s probably the first time today that anyone said that to you. I’m sorry. Scotch or gin?”
    “Gin,” she said, “if you have limes.”
    Because Groucho has never won anything at a fun match or an obedience trial—he’s never so much as been to one pre-Novice class—Rita has to buy serving trays, pottery sets, goblets, mugs, mint dishes, fruit bowls, candle holders, and compotes. Her tumblers and shot glasses are not engraved with pictures of hurdles and names of kennel clubs. Even so, she manages to contain her envy if I pour generously and refrain from reminding her that I could set a banquet table with the booty my dogs and my mother’s have brought home over the years. When I’d dropped in ice cubes and lime, I added enough gin to clear the high jump.
    “So how many patients did you see today?” I handed her the glass.
    “Clients,” she corrected me.