What the Dog Knows Read Free Page B

Being a litter of one had its perks. Joan took him everywhere with her: to acupuncture appointments, to Lowe’s, to friends’ houses, on walks in the woods to explore. I followed his exploits via e-mails and photos. He had everything a puppy could desire and beyond. Everything, that is, except other puppies to interact with. His young mother, Vita, an intense West German import, wasn’t a mentor. Her idea of mothering Solo was to nurse him frenetically and then race away like Road Runner from Wile E. Coyote, leaving him “in a cloud of dust.” So Solo’s great-aunt Cora, with her fawn-colored coat and sweet face, her impish sense of humor and tolerance for unusual puppies (because she had been one herself), took over the task of raising him. It is always thus in extended families, and some are the better for it. Solo interested and amused Cora. She taught him her love of toys and games, and he got away with everything. In one picture, Solo is walking across Cora’s reclined body, carrying his favorite stuffed duck, leaving dents in her plush coat.
    Solo was no longer a squashy mole; I could now see that his head was going to be glorious. Part of that big block of gorgeous was dedicated to his olfactory system. Even at a fast run toward Joan, he oftenscreeched to a halt, nostrils flaring at some wayward scent. “His nose rules,” Joan said. That wasn’t welcome news. Megan, because of her hunting lineage, froze at the sight of a bird, cat, or squirrel, every synapse alight and devoted to that one task. I had planned for a dog who would focus only on me. I knew it was going to take a year or so to get him up to speed, but I’d always watched with a touch of scorn as obedience handlers with flop-jowled bassets and beagles had to plead with their dogs to raise their snorkeling, scent-mesmerized noses off the ground and pay attention to them.
    It was mid-May 2004 and already hitting the eighties in Ohio, a preview of ever hotter summers to come, when we drove the 450 miles from North Carolina to meet and pick up Solo. He was lying alone in an open cage on the front lawn when we arrived, a still life in red and black, one paw tucked under his chest, relaxed, surveying his domain. He was already past the brief cute phase that shepherd pups have when their ears are soft and floppy and their noses don’t yet look like shark snouts. Solo greeted us briefly, sniffed us, ignored us. He ran around grabbing at toys, pushing them at various adult shepherds. He had nerves of steel. He was full of himself. He made me slightly nervous. Joan had arranged a lovely dog-and-people party to launch us back down the road to North Carolina. Solo ran, growled, and leaped during the entire event. He said farewell to his dignified father, Quando, by grabbing and holding on to his bright gold scruff. He finally had to drop off when Quando looked down his considerable Roman nose and backed up slightly.
    We gathered up Solo and his precious toys and drove down the country road, back to North Carolina. In the rear seat, locked in a travel crate for his safety and ours, lay our furry future. I don’t remember much about that long drive except that it was hot and Solo was a perfectly equitable traveler, happy to hop out of the car, wag, do his business, and clamber back into the crate like a miniature adult shepherd. I started feeling better about him.
    â€œOh, my,” said our friend Barb Smalley, who arrived that night towitness the homecoming. She watched as nine-week-old Solo leaped on Megan, bit her ears, and tried to hump her. “He’s quite something, isn’t he?” David and I were exhausted. Solo wasn’t. Megan was drooling and panting in distress. I already looked like a junkie from my efforts to intervene: My arms had black-and-blue puncture marks where Solo had swung back on me in a frenzy.
    He spent his first night with us whining and growling, methodically chewing through an