The Dogfather

spray of citronella. Alas, some dogs don’t mind citronella. Some actually like it. Luckily, Anthony hated it. The very first squirt startled him into silence. “Good boy!” I spoke calmly and gave him a minuscule bit of liver.
    “This is a useful tool,” I told Carla, “but all by itself, it won’t perform miracles.” After explaining how the collar worked, I got her to praise and reinforce Anthony for silence. Anthony’s expression was comical, at once astounded and relieved.
    “See how happy Anthony looks,” I observed. “He knows he’s a lucky dog to have someone who loves him enough to train him.”
    Having given Carla the crucial experience of being able to influence the dog’s behavior, I moved swiftly to the proper use of the clicker. I had Carla click and treat ten times. By the tenth click, Anthony had the idea: He looked eagerly at her in expectation of a morsel of food.
    “Both of you are doing great,” I said. Moving far faster than I’d normally have done, I questioned Carla about Anthony, learned that he’d supposedly been taught to sit, and coached her through clicking and treating him for doing it. In the purist version of clicker training, I’d have waited for him to sit on his own, I’d have clicked and treated each time, and I wouldn’t have spoken the word sit for a long time. I’m not a purist. But I got results. Then we stopped. “Always end a session on a note of success,” I said.
    Carla removed the citronella collar and returned Anthony to her car. Over second cups of cappuccino, we went over some basics of dog training: “No free lunch,” I said. “If he’s barking, he doesn’t get anything he wants. Don’t feed him, don’t touch him, don’t speak to him, and do not pick him up. Anthony has to earn everything.” Then I gave her the book about toy dogs and instructed her about introducing Anthony to the crate. She was to leave the crate door open and encourage Anthony to explore the interior by putting toys and little treats inside. “Remember to keep the training session short,” I said. “Short and happy.”
    “This is so nice of you!” Carla screamed.
    My eyes drifted to the tiny citronella collar, which lay on the counter. Truly, there’s a market for a human version. Still, I left the shop with a sense of satisfaction. Luckily, Anthony had responded to the collar, and so far, he hadn’t figured out the trick of rapidly yap-yap-yapping to empty the collar of its citronella supply, thus rendering it useless. Carla had gained a sense of control over Anthony. She was highly motivated: She wanted the shop to succeed, and, surprisingly, she had what struck me as a romantic interest in pleasing Enzio Guarini. Even the shop had benefitted: Citronella smelled better than floral air freshener.
    Oh, one last thing. The flowers Carla had ordered arrived just before I left. When she insisted on giving me a spray of delphiniums, my resolve weakened. I love delphiniums. And I really had done her a favor.
    Damn it all.
     

CHAPTER 17
     
    It took me a long time to drive from Carla’s nonfloral flower shop in Munford to my house in Cambridge because as usual my car staged a malamute-worthy display of disobedience. When I halted at a red light in Arlington, it stalled and then the engine flooded. As always happened on clear, dry days like that one, the windshield wipers went on whenever I signaled for a turn. The backfiring made pedestrians run for cover. Agents Deitz and Mazolla were probably too busy tailing real mobsters to follow a mere Mob-associate dog trainer like me, but I couldn’t help wishing I’d catch sight of them: If the horrible Bronco quit completely, maybe I could dream up a tidbit of inside-Mafia information to trade for a ride home. After what felt like hours of annoyance and embarrassment, I eventually pulled into my driveway, got out, slammed the door, and kicked the nearly treadless front tire.
    “ ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a—’ ” proclaimed a quintessentially Cantabrigian voice. Robert Frost. He had lived only a few blocks from my house. Not that Frost was now speaking from the grave. The words were his, but the speaker was the female, although somewhat androgynous, owner of Kimi’s attacker, the dust mop with teeth.
    Finishing the quote, I said, “A wall would be a more effective means of transportation than this so-called car.”
    “She being not brand-new,” the woman said. The allusion was to another