The Wicked Flea

admirers of Althea’s, but Ceci was obsessed with her new dog, who turned out to occupy a gigantic cedar-filled dog bed at the far end of the living room in a sort of mini conservatory with a tile floor, potted palms, and wicker furniture. The black bear of a dog looked at least as old as Althea. He was fast asleep.
    “Quest, wake up!” Ceci demanded. To me, she said, “As I may have mentioned, Quest has hip dysplasia, only mild to moderate, thank goodness, but no one else wanted to adopt him, and his age didn’t help, either, although we’re not quite sure what it is, maybe eleven, maybe more, but possibly less, so he wasn’t exactly the dog of most people’s dreams, but with Althea the way she is, we couldn’t have a young dog bounding around and bumping into her, but I had my heart set on a Newfoundland, and Quest is really very sweet and gentle, and he’s the perfect dog for us. Quest, wake up! We have company!” Turning to me again, she confided in an unnecessary whisper, “We think he may be a little hard of hearing.”
    As if awakened by the whispering, Quest raised his mighty head. His eyes had the opacity of old age. Like other giant breeds, the Newfoundland has a short life span. I’ve known Newfies to live to thirteen, but the average is more like nine years. Considering Quest’s elderly appearance and the hip dysplasia, he rose to his feet rather easily. The condition, a malformation of the ball and socket at the hip, is eventually accompanied by osteoarthritis, which is, in effect, the body’s effort to stabilize the unstable joint. Make your left hand into a tight fist. That’s the top of the dog’s thigh bone. Wrap your right hand snugly around it. That’s the part of the pelvis known as the acetabulum. The ensemble, a good femoral head set snugly in a correctly formed acetabulum, is a good hip joint. Loosen your right hand. Or make your left fist into a strange shape. Or pull your fist all the way out of the surrounding hand. As Tolstoy intimates in Anna Karenina, all happy hip joints are alike, but unhappy hip joints are unhappy in lots of different ways. And there you have dysplasia. Tolstoy, great family vet. I needed a new one, just as I needed a new man in my life. Steve Delaney had been both. Too bad Tolstoy was before my time.
    After offering a hand for Quest to sniff, I said, “Hi there, big dog. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
    “You can pat him,” Ceci assured me. “He’s a glutton for affection. For a Newf, he’s not really very protective. But you’re used to that.” Malamutes are not guard dogs or watch dogs. That’s what she meant. As I stroked the giant dog, Ceci went on to say that she was convinced that he came from show lines. “Doesn’t he have a lovely broad head? Good ears. His gait is less than ideal, but he can’t help that, can you, Quest? And he does very, very well, considering. And his antiinflammatories help a lot, don’t they?” On all subjects and in all circumstances, Ceci was a garrulous person. But when it comes to dogs, especially their own dogs, even laconic dog people turn voluble. Ceci continued for the next half hour, by which time we were having tea and cookies in the living room. Although Quest appeared to see and hear very little and to fall asleep at every opportunity, he followed Ceci in an endearing way and was now dozing at her feet. “He needs exercise,” Ceci rambled, “not that he can be expected to go running, which would be beyond me, if it comes to that, and he has the run of the yard, so to speak, but when he’s out there, he doesn’t actually run—dogs don’t, do they, unless you have more than one?—so I’ve been taking him to Clear Creek Park, where there’s a very nice dog group. Have I mentioned that Quest just loves other dogs?”
    “That’s wonderful,” I said before seizing the chance to follow Dr. Foote’s advice. “Speaking of the need for companionship, Ceci, I thought I might just mention that, um—”
    Before I could finish, she broke in, her face alight with glee. “You need to meet men. Of course you do. I understand completely. My marriage to Ellis was a very happy one, you know.” She glanced fondly at the tiny framed photo of her late husband that sat on a side table, then up at the mammoth portrait of the Newfoundland, Simon, that hung over the fireplace.
    “I thought I should say something,” I told her, “and not expect people to guess. Or think I wanted to be alone.