Paws before dying

“Eight.”
    “So what’s one more? Because I have this feeling sometimes that I’m being driven crazy.”
    “So does everyone else,” she said, “except the people who are.”
    “Would you mind listening?”
    “I can’t. I cannot listen. I am listened out. So talk, anyway. Just don’t expect a response.”
    “Just one thing,” I said. “When I feel like this? You know what I feel like? I’m in ancient Rome. Okay? And everybody says, ‘Hey, it’s been a stressful week, so let’s go down to the Coliseum and have a few beers and watch the lions maul a few Christians.’ Right? Well, there must’ve been a few people—there must’ve been a few, at least, mostly women, I bet—who said, ‘But I don’t want to. I think it’s cruel.’ So people said, ‘What’s wrong, with you?’ Here is this thing that is obviously cruel, and sometimes I feel like the only person who wants to yell, ‘This is barbaric!’ ”
    “You’re yelling it right now,” Rita said.
    “Yeah, and at you. You see? It’s pointless. You don’t need to hear it. And what else do I do? I sit down and write a column that says that shock collars are great, and here’s a whole new way to use them. You take the collar and put it around your own neck. Every time the dog does something you don’t like, you push the button. Okay? Fair is fair. Who taught him to do whatever he did? Obviously, you did, so you’re the one who gets jolted. I could probably think up a vicious name for my remote training method and market it. Maybe Marcia Brawley would buy that. I could make it really expensive. Marcia Brawley is this woman... She’s a perfectly nice woman except that she gives electric shocks to her dog. Otherwise, she’s a nice, civilized person. When in Rome. It makes me feel crazy.”
    Rita looked sad and shook her head. Then she drank some gin and licked her lips. “None of this is new to you,” she said. “That there’s a lot of cruelty? This is not new. And most of the time, you can step back and say, ‘Well, why would someone do this? And how can I help her find a better way to get what she wants?’ But today you write this adolescent essay about people putting shock collars on themselves. And you regress into this semi-grandiose vision, where the rest of us are sort of casual, decadent sadists and you’re the only sensitive person on the planet.”
    “Grandiose,” I said. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned St. Paul. Rita is really amazing. She can spend all day with her patients or clients or whatever she’s calling them at the moment and then still find the right words and, not only that, say them so you can hear them. “Yeah.”
    “You ever use a choke collar?”
    “Yes. Everyone does, practically.”
    “Is it cruel? Does it seem that way to people?”
    “Okay! Yes. The more I train, the less I use the training collar, and the more I use rewards. Okay. But I get the point: Judge not. If I have to correct a dog, I do, and there are people who’d say I’m cruel. And for all I know, the damned collar was her husband’s idea. Maybe she objected, and they had a fight, and she lost. So now she feels ashamed. Probably she hates it. Or she doesn’t know what else to do. Probably she’s doing the best she can.”
    “Most people are,” Rita said.
     
    Among the people doing the best they could was Jack Engle-man, who called me the next morning to ask me to stop in because he wanted some advice. I am not St. Paul, and there are a lot of kind people out there besides me. And, oh, yes. I am not always kind. But the fact is that Jack wanted my advice about yet one more act of cruelty in this kind world that is not— I repeat, not—ancient Rome. The cruelty was not, of course, Jack’s and certainly not directed at Caprice, who was dancing and bouncing around as we sat at Jack’s kitchen table drinking good coffee with real cream.
    “Caprice looks good,” I said. “You haven’t let her put on weight.” I’d been wondering whether Caprice was the reason he wanted to see me. It seemed hard to believe that she’d developed some kind of behavior problem, but dogs feel loss, too, and maybe she was showing it.
    “She’s fine, except she keeps bringing me her leash. Rose taught her to fetch it. Vera did the same thing. Rose’d say, ‘Come on, let’s do some work!’ and Caprice’d go and get the leash and carry it to her. And now she’ll just go get it, all on her own, and jump around all excited and look at