One day Al had to carry me out into the yard to do my business and I felt the sadness in him break sharply as he came to terms with what this meant. I licked his face in reassurance and put my head in his lap when he sat on the ground to cry.
When Maya came home she brought the baby outside and we all sat together. “You’ve been such a good dog, Ellie,” Maya said over and over. “You’re a hero dog. You saved lives. You saved that little boy Geoffrey.”
A neighbor lady came over and picked up Gabriella. Maya bent over her child, loving her, whispering something in her ear. “Bye-bye, Ellie,” Gabriella said. She held out her hand and the lady stooped so I could lick it.
“Say ‘bye-bye,’ ” the woman said.
“Bye-bye,” Gabriella said again. The lady took Gabriella into the house.
“This is so hard, Al.” Maya sighed.
“I know. If you want, I will do it for you, Maya,” Al said.
“No, no. I need to be there for Ellie.”
Al gingerly picked me up and carried me to the car. Maya got in the backseat with me.
I knew where we were going on this car ride. Groaning with all my aches, I collapsed on the seat, my head in Maya’s lap. I knew where we were going and was looking forward to the peace it would bring me. Maya stroked my head, and I closed my eyes. I wondered if there were anything I would have wanted to do one more time—Find? Swim in the ocean? Stick my head out the car window? These were all wonderful things—I had done them all, though, and that was enough.
I wagged my tail when they laid me on the familiar steel table. Maya was crying, whispering, “You’re a good dog,” over and over, and it was her words, and the sense of her love, that I took with me when I felt the tiny prick by my neck and then was washed away by the wonderfully warm ocean waters.
{ TWENTY-SIX }
My new mother had a big, black face and a warm pink tongue. I stared up at her numbly the first time I realized it was all happening again—it didn’t seem possible, not after being Ellie.
I had eight other brothers and sisters, all of them black, all of them healthy and full of play. For the most part, though, I preferred to wander off by myself and ponder what it meant that I was a puppy once more.
It made no sense. I understood how I would never have been with Ethan if, as Toby, I hadn’t learned how to open a gate, and from my days in the culvert learned that there was nothing to fear on the other side of the fence. With Ethan I learned about love and companionship, and felt I was truly accomplishing my purpose, just by accompanying him on his daily adventures. But Ethan also taught me how to rescue from the pond, and so when I was Ellie and learned how to Find and Show I was able to save the little boy from the tunnel of water. I would not have been so good at work if I hadn’t had the experience of being Ethan’s dog—Jakob’s cold distance would have been incomprehensible and painful to me.
But now what? What could possibly happen now that would justify my rebirth as a puppy?
We were in a well-kept kennel with a cement floor, and twice a day a man came in and cleaned it out and took us out into a yard to romp in the grass. Other men and women spent time with us, lifting us and looking at our paws, and while I felt joy coming from them, none radiated that special love that I’d had with Ethan and with Maya and Al.
“Congratulations, you’ve got a fine litter here, Colonel,” one of them said, holding me up in the air as he spoke. “Fetch top dollar.”
“I’m worried about that one you’ve got in your hands, there,” another man replied. He smelled like smoke, and the way my new mother responded to him when he came into the kennel let me know he was her owner. “Doesn’t seem to have much energy.”
“You have the vet look at him?” The man holding me flipped me over, running his thumbs under my lips to expose my teeth. I passively allowed this; I just wanted to be left alone.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. He just goes off by himself and sleeps,” the one called Colonel replied.
“Well, they can’t all be champions,” the first man said, setting me down.
I felt unhappiness from Colonel as he watched me trot away. I didn’t know what I could have done wrong, but I imagined I wouldn’t be here long anyway. If previous experience had taught me anything, it was that people who had a litter of puppies liked them, but not enough to keep them.
I was wrong, though. A few weeks later, most of my brothers and sisters were taken away by people, leaving just three of us left. I felt a sad resignation from my new mother, who had stopped nursing us but who still lowered her nose affectionately when any of us approached her to lick her face. She had apparently been through this before.
Over the next several days, people came to visit us and play games, like putting us in pillowcases, jangling keys in front of us, and tossing a ball past our noses to see what we would do. None of this struck me as a very rational way to behave around puppies, but everyone seemed very serious about the whole thing.
“Lot of money for one so small,” a man remarked to Colonel.
“Sire’s a two-time national field champion; mother’s placed in state six years in a row, won twice. I think you’ll get your money’s worth,” Colonel said.
They shook hands and then it was just my mother and a sister I’d named Pounce because she always leaped on me as if I couldn’t see it coming. With her other brother gone, Pounce was on me relentlessly, and I found myself wrestling with her in self-defense. Colonel took note of my more active relationship, and I felt something like relief coming off him.
Then Pounce was taken away by a woman who smelled like horses and I was all alone, which I have to admit was how I preferred it.
