Bad Dog Read Free Page B

me.
    “No.”
    She picked up a particularly roly-poly, docile example of the breed and instructed me to cradle him in my left hand close to my body and run my other hand down his little fuzzy body. He all but purred.
    “Cute, huh.”
    It wasn’t a question.
    Out of the corner of my eye, down in the puppy corral, I noticed one of the litter careening around like a nutcase, kicking newspaper out of the way, trying to chew a hole in the back wall, and doing a Mexican hat dance with her hind legs.
    Gosh
, I remember thinking,
what’s wrong with that one?
    What’s wrong was that three weeks later, when we drove back to Rochester, that was the one we took home.
    My Scottish mother experienced the Miracle of Birth three times and claims she could tell right from the beginning what we would be like when we were older.
    “Your brother was a wonderful baby,” she told me many times. “Very calm and in control. I knew he’d be special.” Gag.
    “Your sister was a fighter, right away. She scrambled for everything. She’s still quite, uh, insistent on her point of view.”
    “What about me?” I asked her, begging for a beating.
    “Well,” she said, looking plaintive and misty, like one of her favorite sheep had choked on some haggis. “I won’t lie,” she lied. “You were a difficult child. Always sensitive and moody. It was hard to keep you interested. I think you had that ADD. And you decided you didn’t need your mother. It was like you didn’t trust me to take care of you.”
    Most breeders claim that a dog has a basic personality from the start, called a temperament, and they try to match it with the prospective owner. Want a dog to do work on the farm? Aserious disposition with good focus, high drive—check. Want a dog to bring you the remote and lie in your lap during
Nick at Nite
? Placid, not too smart, unambitious—check. Want a dog you can bring to nursing homes as a therapy dog? Smart, submissive, not easily startled—check.
    Want a dog that is naturally dominant, feels no pain, is as outgoing as Ethel Merman on Jolt and is orally fixated? Say
hola
to Hola. The dog for the couple so ignorant they didn’t even know to ask for the results of the puppy temperament test. Good breeders do this test at around seven weeks, and it involves a few simple probes, like putting the puppy on her back, making a sharp noise, setting her down, and walking away—tests for dominance (bad), sensitivity (good), and friendliness (super).
    Florence did the test on Hola. I saw the sheets of paper in her hand. For some strange reason, she was reluctant to let us get a look at them.
    “She’ll make a great therapy dog,” she said. “She’s got a great temperament.”
    Unless that woman was practicing her stand-up comedy act, she is going to Hell.
    But no matter. I’m grateful for our lack of knowledge, in a way. The other buyers were obviously more savvy than we were—they didn’t get Hola, after all—but if we’d known better, we wouldn’t have taken her. We’d have seen the red flags. Then where would she go?
    The ride back to the city was complicated by the fact that Rochester was frosted by ice from a massive storm that had left its suburbs dark at noon. Florence had a generator, or we wouldn’t have been able to see the puppies. It took eight hours to get home, and Hola squirmed and cried in my lap in the passenger’s seat until I stumbled on a strange way to shut her up.

    The trouble begins
.
    Three words: Christian contemporary radio.
    Put her out like a Christmas light.
    “I know this seems like a mistake,” I said to Gloria as we skirted around Ithaca. “But I want you to know, I feel in my heart this was a good idea.”
    I’m not sure what made me so sure, so sincere. It was out of character. But I meant it. Hola was peaceful now, the Christians were singing, the ice storm was behind us, and our family’s average attractiveness level had just doubled.
    I didn’t even think about a drink until we