Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

want to drive here.
    I opened my suitcase, but I didn’t unpack. I rarely wear the kind of clothes that need to be hung up. I went back to the windows and sat on the cushioned window seat looking out at the park. The trees were in leaf, and over the low stone wall that rimmed the park I could see glimpses of joggers and bicyclers, people walking their dogs, nannies out with children. The sun was shining, and from my third-floor window, the park looked clean and safe.
    There was plenty of time before dinner for a long walk and a good look around the hotel when I got back. In deference to my paranoia, I hung the Do Not Disturb sign on my doorknob then, deciding to spare Jimmy, took the stairs, Dashiell running on ahead and waiting for me at each landing. We crossed the lobby quickly; this was no time to dawdle. There were trees across the street, thousands of them. Dashiell had his work cut out for him, and he was anxious to get started.
    We took a path that led east into the park and then snaked its way northeast, heading deeper into the park as we headed uptown. To my left I could see the Dakota, where John Lennon had lived and died, looming high above the surrounding landscape. Looking east, beyond the roadway, I could see no tiling but densely planted trees. Dashiell headed that way, doing his award-winning imitation of an untrained dog until I decided to take my chances of a hundred-dollar ticket for disobeying the city’s leash law. He ran ahead, stopping whenever the road or his padi would cause him to lose sight of me.
    As suddenly as we had entered the copse of trees, we came to a clearing, and when Dashiell turned to ask me with his eyes if he could run on ahead, I signaled him to lie down instead. Off to the left was a group of young boys, eleven- or twelve-year-olds on die verge of voice changes, growth spurts, and die sudden appearance of hair where there used to be none. They had a couple of six-packs and a pack of cigarettes and apparently were very funny chaps; no matter who spoke, they couldn’t seem to stop laughing. But what interested me was in the middle of the grassy meadow. It was Alan Cooper, a major consumer of and advocate for the products of Electronic Dog. Practicing what he preached, he was working his German shorthaired pointer with a shock collar and a remote.
    Of course, in keeping with the verbal game-playing so prevalent in dog training today, Electronic Dog’s literature and Cooper’s book, Instant Obedience, never calls the equipment by such a crude, defining name. It is an “electronic” collar, and the shock with which you zap your disobedient dog is called “electronic stimulation.” Most surprising of all, the brochure that accompanies the equipment suggests that the mild doses are felt as a pleasant buzz by the dog and can be used for praise; God forbid you should simply say, “Good dog.” The more powerful doses correct the errant dog and make him see the wisdom of instant obedience—that is, unless he wants his fur to stick straight out from his skin for the next week or two.
    I crouched next to Dashiell at the end of die tree line and watched Alan work, sending his dog out and calling him back. The first two times, the big dog was quick to obey. The third time he caught a scent in the air—a squirrel, a bird, something his genetic programming made more interesting than breathing—and he made the mistake of obeying his nature instead of his master.
    I didn’t need to watch Alan to know when he was making a correction. I saw it in the dog, too thin for his size, and once he’d stopped, I could see, too, that he was trembling.
    I heard Alan call out.
    “Beau, come."
    The dog stood facing him, head dipped low, one front leg bent and held off the ground, as if he were pointing a bird. His docked tail pointed to the ground instead of the sky. I saw him blink twice and pass his tongue over his upper lip. Then he ran toward his master, who, holding the remote zapper, welcomed him with almost as much warmth as a rattlesnake would display.
    I signaled to Dashiell to follow me, and instead of crossing the sunny meadow, we continued partway around it, staying hidden among the trees, emerging a few minutes later near a lake where Dashiell could swim.
    Other people apparently had the same idea; there in the water was a large, lovely male Golden, on his way back to shore with a tennis ball in his mouth. On the shore were four humans and three more dogs—a greyhound, a