Dean Koontz: Breathless

Authorities raided the illegal puppy mill late Saturday afternoon. Saturday night, Rocky Mountain Gold, an all-volunteer golden-retriever rescue group, took custody of twenty-four breeder dogs that were filthy, malnourished, infested with ticks, crawling with fleas, and suffering an array of untreated infections.

Dr. Camillia Rivers was awakened by a call on her emergency line at 5:05 Sunday morning. Rebecca Cleary, president of Rocky Mountain Gold, asked how many of the twenty-four Cammy might treat in return for nothing but the wholesale cost of what drugs were used.

After looking at the nightstand photo of her golden, Tessa, who had died only six weeks earlier, Cammy said, “Bring ’em all.”

Her business partner and fellow vet, Donna Corbett, was in the middle of a one-week vacation. Their senior vet tech, Cory Hern, had gone to visit relatives in Denver for the weekend. When she called the junior tech, Ben Aikens, he agreed to donate his Sunday to the cause.

At 6:20 a.m., a Rocky Mountain Gold caravan of SUVs arrived at the modest Corbett Veterinary Clinic with twenty-four goldens in as desperate condition as any Cammy had ever seen. Every one was potentially a beautiful dog, but at the moment they looked like the harbingers of Armageddon.

Having endured their entire lives in cramped cages, not merely neglected but also abused, having been forced without vet care to bear litter after litter to the point of exhaustion, they were timid, trembling, vomiting in fear, frightened of everyone they encountered. In their experience, human beings were cruel or at best indifferent to them, and they expected to be struck.

Eight members of the rescue group assisted with bathing, shaving fur away from hot spots and other sores, clipping knots out of coats, deticking, and other tasks, all of which were complicated by the need continually to calm and reassure the dogs.

Cammy was unaware that the morning had passed until she checked her wristwatch at 2:17 in the afternoon. Having skipped breakfast, she took a fifteen-minute break and retreated to her apartment above the veterinary facility, to have a bite of lunch.

For a long time, Donna Corbett had run the practice with her husband, John, who was also a veterinarian. When John died of a heart attack four years earlier, Donna divided their large apartment into two units and sought a partner who would be as committed to animals as she was and as John had been, who was willing to live the work.

The Corbetts viewed veterinary medicine less as a profession than as a calling, which was why Cammy didn’t need to consult with her partner when agreeing to treat the puppy-mill dogs pro bono.

After quickly putting together a cheese sandwich, she opened a cold bottle of tea sweetened with peach nectar. She ate lunch while standing at her kitchen sink.

As she’d been working with the folks from Rocky Mountain Gold, two calls had come in, one regarding a sick cow. She referred the caller to Dr. Amos Renfrew, who was the best cow doc in the county.

The second inquiry came from Nash Franklin, regarding a horse at High Meadows Farm. Because the situation wasn’t urgent, Cammy would pay Nash a visit later in the afternoon.

She had nearly finished the cheese sandwich when Ben Aikens, her vet tech, rang her from downstairs. “Cammy, you’ve got to see this.”

“What’s wrong?”

“These dogs. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Be right there.” She shoved the last piece of the sandwich into her mouth and chewed it on the run.

Puppy-mill breeders were routinely so physically and emotionally traumatized by their abuse that the new experiences of freedom-open spaces; cars; steps, which they never before climbed or descended; strange noises; soap and water; even kind words and gentle touching-could induce a dangerous state of shock. Most often, the cause of shock was chronic dehydration or untreated infections, but there were times when Cammy could attribute it to nothing else but the impact of the new, of change.

If they could be cured of their diseases and conditions, the dogs would need months of socializing, but in time they would find their courage, regain the joyful spirit that defined a golden, and learn to trust, to love, to be loved.

Descending the exterior stairs from her apartment, she prayed that all these dogs might survive and thrive, that not one of them would be lost to infection or disease, or shock.

Cammy entered the clinic by the front door. She hurried through the small waiting room, along a hallway flanked by four examination cubicles, and through a swinging door into the large, tile-floored open space that included treatment stations and grooming facilities.

Awaiting her was a sight far different from the crisis she had anticipated. Every one of these brutalized dogs appeared to have shed its anxiety, to have suppressed already the memories of torment in favor of embracing a new life. Tails wagging, eyes bright, grinning that fabled golden grin, they submitted happily to belly rubs and ear scratches from the Rocky Mountain Gold volunteers. They nuzzled one another and explored the room, sniffing this and that, curious about things that a short while ago frightened them. None lay in cataplexic collapse or hid its face, or cowered, or trembled.

This unlikely sight had startled Cammy to a stop. Now, as she moved farther into the room, Ben Aikens hurried to her.

Ben, twenty-seven, had a perpetually sunny disposition, but even for him, his current mood seemed unusually buoyant. He was virtually shining with delight. “Isn’t it fantastic? You ever seen anything like it? Have you, Cammy?”

“No. Never. What happened here?”

“We don’t know. The dogs were like before, anxious, distressed, so pitiful. Then they-Well, they-They went still and quiet, all of them at once. They lifted their ears, all of them listening, and they heard something.”

“Heard what?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t hear it. They raised their heads. They all stood up. They stood so still, motionless, they heard something.”

“What were they looking at?”

“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. But look at them now.”

Cammy reached the center of the room. The rescued animals were everywhere engaged in the spirited behavior of ordinary dogs.

When she knelt, two goldens came to her, tails wagging, seeking affection. Then another and another, and a fifth. Sores, scars, ear-flap hematomas, fly-bite dermatitis: None of that seemed to matter to the dogs anymore. This one was half blind from an untreated eye infection, that one limped from patellar dislocation, but they seemed happy, and they were uncomplaining. Ragged, tattered, gaunt, freed from a life of cruelty and abuse less than twenty-four hours earlier, they were suddenly and inexplicably socialized, neither afraid any longer nor timid.

Rebecca Cleary, head of the rescue group, knelt beside Cammy. “Pinch me. This has got to be a dream.”

“Ben says they all stood up at once, listening to something.”

“At least a minute. Listening, alert. We weren’t even there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like they weren’t aware of us anymore. Almost… in a trance.”

Cammy held a retriever’s head in her cupped hands, rubbing its flews with her thumbs. The dog, so recently fearful and shy, accepted the face massage with pleasure, met her eyes, and did not look away.

“At first,” Rebecca said, “it was eerie…”

The animal’s eyes were as golden as its coat.

“… then they became aware of us again, and it was wonderful.”

The dog’s eyes were as bright as gems. Topaz. They seemed to have an inner light. Eyes of great beauty-clear, direct, and deep.