Rachel Alexander 05 - The Wrong Dog

they’re
    producing clones with impartial DNA testing, if they can also show that a particular talent translates, then they’d be able to say, ‘Okay, the clone will not only look like a winner, he’ll act like a winner.’ Now you’re talking big money.”
    “Except..
    “Except what?”
    “When you add up travel, handlers’ fees, advertising, entry fees, and incidentals, it costs one hundred fifty to two hundred thousand a year to get a dog to Westminster. Then add the cost of the cloning. Even if the clone did look and act like a winner, you’d never make money. No way.“
    “Okay, suppose the rich guy’s an epileptic himself. Or he has a close relative who is, his wife or his kid maybe.“
    “Could be. Still, he'd have to be stinking rich to try something like this.”
    I nodded. “Probably is.”
    “Rach?”
    “What?”
    “About the seizure alert. I wouldn’t think you’d have to go through all this. You get a bright dog with a willingness to take on responsibility, it could be taught. I’m sure of it.“
    “Me, too. But that doesn’t mean the stinking-rich guy would know that. No one’s saying it’s so, that it’s just an issue of focus and training. Sophie says the medical profession doesn’t even recognize that there is such a thing as a seizure-alert dog. They say the evidence is anecdotal.“
    “That’s exactly the sort of stuff I heard at the convention. And the sensible rejoinder—how could anyone run a study to test seizure-alert dogs when it would mean preventing the epileptic subject from taking the appropriate medication after the dog had alerted? To know if it was legit, you’d have to do just that, and watch to see if the person had a seizure.”
    “No one could be that cruel.”
    “Hence the notion that since it can’t be proved, it’s not real. So you end up with an underground of people who, despite what the doctors say, claim their dogs do indeed alert them prior to the onset of a seizure.”
    “Hence Bianca.”
    He leaned back against the door. I did, too. The sky was blue-black, the air crisp. As if he knew that I’d gotten cold, wearing just an oversize T-shirt and sweat socks, Chip put his arm around me and drew me close.
    I was tired, but I had no desire to go to sleep. Even with Chip at my side and our protection-trained dogs just yards away, I had a sense of foreboding, a feeling there was something treacherous in the night, something that required vigilance to keep it at bay. I had told Chip that my new job would just be a matter of research. But I wasn’t convinced of that myself. I was sure he wasn’t either.
    Over dinner, I’d even asked Sophie why she didn’t do the work herself instead of spending a small fortune to have me do it. It was a logical question in this case. At first, she’d said she was too busy, and too tired after work to do much else. “The medication makes me sleepy,” she’d told me. “I’m lucky to get through the day.”
    When I didn’t respond, she’d gone on, telling me how stressful the whole idea was to her, that millions of dollars were being wasted on this project, money that could be used, one way or another, to really help people who needed help. She’d taken my hand then and told me that stress and exhaustion were the two major factors that triggered her seizures. She’d said she hoped I wouldn’t change my mind. That’s when she’d reached into the inside pocket of her coat and counted out my advance, in cash, thinking if all else failed, money might do the trick and persuade me to stay on the case.
    “Would you do it?” Chip asked.
    “What?”
    He didn’t elaborate.
    “Oh, you mean, would I clone Dashiell?”
    He nodded.
    I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be him. It would only look like him,” I said. “What about you?”
    “It sounds like an expensive way to get your heart broken.”
    “I’ve had it done for very little.”
    For a few moments, neither of us spoke.
    “I’ll have him as long as I can,” I said into the night yard. “When he’s gone, I’ll cry my heart out and get another dog.”
    Chip nodded and tightened his arm around me.
    The dogs were lying down together, chewing on each other’s faces.
    We sat there for a long time with nothing else to say. We both knew what was inevitable. For people like us, the life span of dogs is the world’s dirtiest trick. When we finally went upstairs to bed, we called the dogs to join us and held the blanket up so that they could come