“It seems to me more like a
sitting service, a kennel.”
“Wait till you try the food,” he
said.
I puffed out my chest. “I won’t be
here very long.”
Rusty cleared his throat. “Most of us are essentially permanent
residents.”
“Not me,” I said. “I’m going to graduate and go home.”
Rusty smiled and looked away.
When we bedded down at the end of
the evening, my mind could not lay down the thought I’d been left here for good.
I kept rubbing it like a sore, hoping it
would feel better, wishing I could rub it away. I lay all night trying to
figure out a riddle. Over and over in my
mind I pushed and pulled at the most confusing puzzle I’d seen so far in my
puppy life. How could the two old farts
not understand how much I loved them?
And what did my behavior have to do with my loyalty to them, my need to
be with them, to spark their attention, to get them to play with me, even if it
meant pissing them off once in a
while? And how could two people who had
been so clueless in their early experience as human babies not understand that
life was a process that didn’t start with good sense. But eventually it was learned.
Morning dawned bright and early in
the prison-kennel. The Guards woke us by
pounding on the roofs of our little houses.
Soon they were ladling out the tasteless gruel they called
breakfast. I felt a little sorry for
sticking up my nose at the crunchy food I was served at home. I didn’t care anymore if it was on sale.
After chow, I told the nearest Guard
I was ready for my obedience lessons.
Bring ‘em on. I would Ace the
tests and get out of here and go home.
But by mid morning I confirmed with Rusty there was no training. We were to do nothing but sit in our tiny
house all week, getting a little time to run and jump and … well, not play …
only in the evenings for ten minutes.
Just before noon, when Rusty said lunch would be what wasn’t eaten
for breakfast, the door at the end of the parade ground opened. Himself entered, followed by the warden who
appeared upset.
She called after him, “Murphy hasn’t
had time to learn anything.”
“I’m taking her home, in any
case,” said Himself.
When the little door to our house
refused to open easily, Himself gave a great pull. The door came off in his hand. He passed it back to Miss Ritalin, saying,
“Sorry.”
We were soon in the car on our way
home and Himself launched into a monologue.
He said he missed telling me to
stop chewing his shoelaces and he noticed there was no warm ball of fur draped
across his cold feet. He said he woke up
on his own that morning, because I wasn’t there to escape my cage and come
bounding across the bed to land on his face, kicking and licking and trying to
get my paws around his neck. He said he
didn’t miss my staring out the sliding door and barking at absolutely nothing
for ten minutes, but he had a plan to help me shorten it to two minutes. And he said Herself told him to not come home
without me.
So, I’ve been to Obedience school
and I would say I’m now a model of deportment.
(I’ll bet you haven’t heard that word since the third grade when Sister
Mary Contrary said your deportment was showing and you looked down to see if
your fly was open.) I don’t have all of
my behaviors quite in check, but when I act up and start chewing on the end of
the old guy's belt as he lies napping on the couch, one mention of the Canine
Correctional Institute causes me to stop
and find some other rule to break.
It’s good to be home. I plan on
staying here.
copyright 2015, David Griffin
