Ruffly Speaking

you wouldn’t just complain about it. You’d find out what was going on.” That’s true. Rita knows nothing about dogs, but she’s an outstandingly responsible owner nonetheless. Maybe she’d buy the argument that Willie’s habitual yapping would impair his hearing. It would be worth a try sometime; so far, my other bids for silence had failed entirely.
    “Have I been complaining?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Forget it. Just get it checked, okay?”
    She promised. Then I changed the subject. If the dog at Morris’s funeral hadn’t been one of his Bedlingtons and really had accompanied the priest, a woman priest at that, I wanted the details. Dog’s Life runs my column in every issue, and I was about to start substituting for a writer on whelping leave, but my editor, Bonnie DeSousa, is always crazy about free-lance articles on what
    I she calls “interspecies bonding,” and she pays pretty well for them, too. A female cleric with a canine acolyte? If you write for Dog’s Life, that’s the kind of story that brings home the kibble.
     

4
     
     After Rita left, I checked the Boston Globe that had arrived that morning. Morris’s long, newsy obituary must have appeared in the Sunday paper, which Rita or my third-floor tenants had removed from my doorstep to avoid advertising my absence. Monday’s Globe had only a stark paragraph midway through the list of death notices.
     
LAMB—Of Cambridge, May 8, Morris Duncan, age 52.Devoted son of the late Harold and Mary (Duncan) Lamb. A memorial service will be conducted at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church of Cambridge at 11 a.m. IntermentMt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. Late graduate of Harvard College. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Bedlington Terrier Club of America Rescue Committee, 113 Fillmore Drive, Sarasota, FL 34236.
     
    It seemed to me that Morris would have made something of that “late graduate” business, but I couldn’t think what. In groping for the right clever remark, I found nothing but Morris’s absence.
    Then I went to the guest room to start the work of filling in for Beryl Abrams, who edits the canine products section of Dog’s Life and ordinarily writes most of the evaluations herself. Beryl has Papillons (average height at the withers about nine inches), and some of the products I randomly pulled from the two big cartons left by UPS would have to wait until Beryl’s two bitches were safely delivered. A postpartum Papillon might enjoy recuperating on a tiny self-warming dog nest designed to retain body heat, but as soon as Rowdy and Kimi discovered what the little pillow did, they’d decide that, being warmblooded and vulnerable, it was a fun form of dinner.
    Another product I’d have to return to Beryl or farm out to one of my dog-training friends was a leash with a snap at one end for the dog’s collar and, at the other end, a belt to strap around your own waist. The idea was Look-Ma-no-hands dog walking, but with Alaskan malamutes? My loyalty to Dog’s Life does not extend to kamikaze missions. Equally unsuitable in somewhat less terrifying ways were a tremendous number of sure cures for problems that Rowdy and Kimi failed to exhibit: chlorophyll drops to end bad breath, medicated pads to relieve itching, whiteners to eradicate tear stains around the eyes, enzyme tablets to reduce flatulence, a hot-oil kit to correct dry skin, foul-tasting furniture polish to discourage chewing, a package of Pee Wee housebreaking pads, and an ultrasound bark silencer and training device called the Yap Zapper. The Rowdy and Kimi Award for the canine product that a malamute needs least went to a flavor enhancer intended to tempt the appetites of finicky eaters. If I’d shined the Yap Zapper with the dog-repellent polish, seasoned it with chlorophyll drops and eye-stain eradicator, added a dressing of hot oil and enzyme tablets, and served the whole mess up to Rowdy on a bed of Pee Wee pads, he’d have wolfed it down, and Kimi would have fought him for her share, too.
    The more I pawed through the remedies arrayed on the guest room bed, the more Rowdy and Kimi seemed like paragons of personal hygiene and canine good citizenship. Even so, I’d managed to identify a fairly large selection of products we could reasonably test out, including pet hair gatherers, pooper-scoopers, a newfangled version of the silent dog whistle, and—pity the poor manufacturers—a variety of toys, balls, and flying disks