Ruffly Speaking

I check things out, and, believe me, if Ruffly wants something checked out, he won’t take no for an answer. That’s one of the things they drill into us: Watch your dog! Trust your dog! Really, it’s more like: Obey your dog!”
    “Tracking is like that,” I said. “When a dog is following a trail, you have to remember that he has this incredible nose that’s telling him absolutely everything, so most of your job, really, is to trust your dog. Trust his nose. And it’s easy to think, oh, well, no, the track layer couldn’t possibly have gone that way, so the dog must be wrong. But if you trust your little brain instead of the dog’s big nose, will you ever be sorry.”
    Stephanie smiled in recognition. “But with a hearing dog, you need both. I need his ears. He needs my brain. And my hands. He needs me. The word is bonding, of course, but that’s so au courant that it trivializes it, I think. But... Maybe you can understand it. Ruffly and I have spent all day every day together from the second he entered my life, and I am convinced, I am absolutely convinced, that something is bothering him now.”
    Ruffly continued to look—dare I say it?—completely unruffled. Sorry about that.
    “Is there anything, uh, specific?” I asked. “Any specific behavior?”
    Stephanie sighed. “Well, since you’re here, of course, he isn’t doing it now. For some reason, it’s usually in the evening. It’s almost a fit of some kind. An attack. A bizarre attack. He jerks his head. He winces.”
    “In pain?”
    “No! Not that I can tell. That’s what’s so frustrating about it. It’s very frightening, terrifying, but I have no idea what it is.”
    “Does he fall down?”
    Stephanie leaned forward. Ruffly’s eyes followed her. “No. It’s... It is not epilepsy,” she said emphatically.
    “If it were,” I said gently, “not that it is, but if it were, it wouldn’t necessarily be a big deal, you know. Seizures can be scary to watch, but—”
    “It’s not epilepsy. I’ve seen people having seizures, and that’s not what this is. I am positive.”
    Well, I’m not, I thought. “You’ve asked your vet?”
    “I don’t have one here yet. Actually, I meant to ask you about that. We saw our regular vet just before we moved, only a couple of months ago, and she did his heartworm test and a physical and all the rest, so he isn’t due for anything, but—”
    “Did she check for parasites?” Worms. Sometimes I think you can’t take me anywhere.
    But Stephanie Benson was unfazed. “She always does. Did, I should say. It was negative. No parasites.”
    “You might want to have it repeated.” I avoided stool sample. Fecal terms are like artichokes and oyster forks, best left to the hostess to touch on first. “In situations like this,” I added, “no matter how sure you are that it’s a behavioral thing, it’s usually a good idea to rule out the physical stuff, just in case.”
    Stephanie Benson nodded. “I was going to ask you,” she said again. “The truth is, I’m worried sick about Ruffly. I thought I understood everything about him, and these strange episodes have really thrown me. You don’t happen to know a good vet around here, do you?”
    “Do I ever,” I said. “I know the best there is.”
     

13
     
     When I’d written down Steve Delaney’s name and the phone number of his veterinary clinic, I asked Stephanie Benson about photographs to accompany the article. Although my camera seemed to have survived my crash onto the hall floor, Stephanie spared me the need to use it. As a photographer, I’m barely adequate, and I’d have photographed Stephanie at home in mufti. The pictures Stephanie offered me had been taken in church, and she wore clerical garb. I selected two. One was a lovely close-up of Stephanie and Ruffly in which the two dissimilar faces had an identical expression of alert intelligence. In the other, Stephanie and Ruffly stood in front of an altar. Stephanie was raising her draped arms upward in what looked like an instruction to her congregation to rise in joy. The wonderful thing about the photo was the way Ruffly’s big, dark ears echoed the sleeves of Stephanie’s black gown. I was surprised and abashed to learn that the gifted photographer who’d caught the identical expressions and that repeated pattern of owner and dog reaching toward heaven was Matthew Benson.
    “Matthew has quite a good eye,” his mother commented, when I complimented her on the