Robert Calder: The Dogs

Get some sleep."

He braced a piece of plywood across the doorway with a chair. The pup watched without alarm. He turned off the kitchen light. The dug was not disturbed.

Bauer went to bed.

He woke early and lay feeling the gray burden of yet another day. He closed his eyes. He had no morning classes. He could sleep, and dream, for another few hours. He'd come to enjoy best in his life his dreams, where there was drama and intensity. Then he remembered the dog.

"Well hell." Waking seemed more attractive. He pushed back the covers.

The puppy was up. It sat in the center of the floor and wagged its tail when it saw him.

It had soiled the papers during the night, but at least had used them.

"You're a smart little guy." Bauer dumped the paper and took the dog out.

He didn't know how much puppies were supposed to eat, or when. He'd had a dog, briefly, when he was young, but remembered little. His parents had gotten rid of it because it had shed too much and barked a lot.

He dished out more chopped meat and cheese, and the pup devoured it all and licked the bowl. He showered and dressed. The pup investigated the house again, as if to confirm its judgments of last night, then trailed after him looking eager and anticipatory whenever he glanced at it or spoke. While he drank his coffee it circled restlessly around the table and gave him small sharp barks, as if it were expecting something.

Bauer looked through the lost-and-found column of the Covington Freeman.

The pup wasn't listed. In the phone directory under veterinarians he found a Dr. E. V. Collier on the near side of Covington. He put the pup in the car and drove in.

The doctor was a woman, the E for Elizabeth. She was thirtyish, oval-faced, with shoulder-length dark blond hair and gray eyes. She wore a crisp white medical jacket unbuttoned over a skirt and sweater.

Bauer had to wait an hour.

"You really should have called for an appointment," she said when she summoned him into the examining room. "Hi, pup," she said to the dog.

"Sorry. I didn't know."

"Well now you do." Her receptionist was out sick and she was growing irritable handling everything alone. She poised a pen over an index card.

"Your name, please." She took his address and phone number. "Name and age of your dog?"

"I don't know. I found him. I just wanted to have him checked, find out what kind of shots he should have, get some feeding information."

She sighed and laid the card and pen down. "Okay. Put him up on the table."

Bauer lifted the pup to the slippery steel surface. The vet placed a hand palm down near the dog's head and let it sniff, then touched its shoulder.

"Good boy," she said. She slipped her hand under its belly and raised it to a stand. She palpated its abdomen, listened to heart and lungs with a stethoscope, softly pried its mouth open and examined the teeth, took its temperature. Her touch was deft. She patted it on the head.

"You're a very good boy." The dog regarded her calmly.

As she made notations on the card she said to Bauer, "What you have there is a purebred German shepherd, and a very good one. He's about four months old and probably bred from German stock. The Germans breed a heavier, more massive dog than Americans 'do. His conformation-that's the way he's put together, proportion, angulation, that sort of thing-is good. Something tore or bit a little piece from his ear, but it's healed fine. Hip dysplasia is the biggest physical problem with shepherds. You can't really be sure without an X ray, but these look sound to me. He's going to be a big dog. His dentition is fine, he's healthy and in good condition. A puppy needs a series of four triple-shots-that's distemper, hepatitis and leptospirosis-once every other week for two months. He's probably already had his, but personally I'd rather be sure. Double shots won't hurt him.

The shots are ten dollars apiece, forty dollars for the series. It's up to you. He doesn't get his rabies inoculation until he's six months old. I can't tell about intestinal parasites, you'll have to drop a stool sample off. There's been a lot of heartworm around recently. I'd advise a blood sample. It's all up to you." Her tone was impatient.

"Look, I'm not a vivisectionist," Bauer said. "I like the dog."

She was startled. Then she gave him a smile. Professional, but still a smile. She took the curtness from her voice. "I'm sorry. I had a run of cases all this week of abuse, neglect, stupidity and outright cruelty.

There are thirty million dogs in this country, and I'll turn in my license if more than five percent are owned by people who have even a remote idea of what a dog is or how to deal with one. I know a breeder who says, "If my dogs were as dumb as half the people who come to my kennel, I'd have to put them to sleep." It gets me down sometimes. But I am sorry for my abruptness."

Bauer had her administer the first of the DHL series and draw a blood sample. He made an appointment for the next shot. She gave him a mimeographed sheet of dietary information.

"He really is a nice little guy," she said by way of parting conciliation.

"He's alert, very confident and selfassured for his age. Maybe too much.

He's going to grow up bold and independent. If you stay on top of him, train him well and give him constructive outlets, he'll be impressive.

But if you don't, you might have problems."

Bauer bought papers from the surrounding communities and searched the lost-and-found columns, but he was waking in the morning with growing pleasure over greeting the dog and beginning to appreciate its presence, the sense of another life in his house, and was surprised by its autonomy and minimal demands. He began checking the advertisements later each day, not wanting to find a claim of ownership, and by the end of the week, feeling he had discharged his ethical obligation, he stopped looking at all.

He decided that Orphan was as good a name as any. But that was too formal to roll easily from the tongue, and it soon shortened itself to Orph.

Bauer changed into Levi's and a sweatshirt while Orph waited with bright eyes and a tail half raised in anticipation.

"Okay."

Orph ran out of the bedroom and turned an excited circle in the living room. He went up on his hind legs, pawing at the door.

"Off. Goddamn it, Orph, stop it."

The door and framing were deeply scratched. It was beyond wood-puttying, Bauer would have to replace them when he moved.

Orph quartered across the yard with his nose down until he found a stick.

He hurried back to Bauer and dropped it at Bauer's feet. Bauer threw it; the stick spun round and round to the edge of the woods. Orph raced after it, seized it as it struck and came loping back to Bauer.

On the next throw the dog overshot, tore up the ground in a tight reversal and clamped the stick on the run. His teeth had made indentations in the wood. Bauer threw for a quarter hour. Orph's enthusiasm didn't falter and he still breathed without effort.

"Enough," Bauer said. "Let's go for a walk."

The forest here was mostly poplar, with some sycamore, pine and ash, an easy woods in this season. Later, nettles would spring up and choker vines would wind across the floor and around tree boles and into lower branches, like the webs of giant psychotic spiders, and it would be rougher going, but then it would offer the compensation of a sweat.

They walked along a creek, whose water was cold and high with spring rains. Orph waded in and drank. He spent some time in the shallows snapping at a school of minnows that flitted about his legs nipping at the hairs. The minnows frustrated him and he barked, chopped up the surface with his teeth. Bauer smiled at him. Orph came out and nuzzled into Bauer for some petting. Satisfied, he crossed the stream to the opposite bank, shook himself.