The dog saw us coming. She bounded out of the cage, straining at the leash, instantly endearing herself to my 12-year-old twin daughters. I was hardly prepared. A Sheltie mix, the dog was one and a half years old and 30 lbs. of trouble. By the end of the first day, I had been barked at, bitten, and thrown up on. I had been knocked over and left lying on the porch and had given the splintered remains of my custom-made cherry wood blinds a speedy burial.
At the animal shelter, my daughters pointed out a sign that said, "Adoption is forever." My daughters are adopted; the mutt stayed.
I called several trainers. "Send her to our dog school," said one. "Have her put to sleep," said another. I was pondering the aptness of Cujo as a name, when my husband stopped a woman walking two large, well-behaved dogs and asked her for advice. She turned out to be both a nurse and a dog trainer. We arranged for her to meet our dog and make an assessment.
"What a sweet dog!!" she said of this wild-eyed mass of teeth and fur we'd named Abby. On this we disagreed. But we agreed to the diagnosis (knowledge deficit), if not on the object of education (me). I was the first in my family to begin training with Abby; I was the one who was most afraid. The trainer's first instructions were, "Grab the dog by her jowls, look her in the eye, and, no matter what happens, don't look away until she does."
"You've got to learn to be the alpha dog," the trainer told me. I did. Within 10 weeks, Abby was responding to "sit," "wait," "stay," "forward," "halt," "left," "right," "heel," "back," "off," "down," "slow," "fast," "come," and "no bark." Soon after she began to learn tricks. The trainer suggested that the dog was ready for a job that would make her feel useful and exhaust her energy. Clinical areas are great places for both, I thought, having spotted an advertisement in a church bulletin: "Dog wanted for pet therapy at local nursing home."
Abby and I showed up for inspection at the facility. Since I was on sabbatical, I had time to commit to an ongoing volunteer project, but I hadn't expected to experience the anxiety of a new graduate on her first day of work. While Abby was outgoing and polite, I was nervous-after all, my clinical experience was limited to hospitals.
As it turned out, Abby had a real instinct for patient care. This dog, who could be wildly exuberant at times, sat quietly by a chair, calming an agitated resident. She rode stoically in the wheelchair of a shy woman who became animated as she wheeled around showing off the dog. Abby listened carefully as another resident, who knew only a little English, spoke to her in loving tones in her native language. Who knew the dog spoke Russian?
Once, I heard a resident's small voice say it had been a long time since a dog had curled up with her, and watched Abby, without direction, settle into a spot on the bed in the curve of the woman's legs. Another time, after months of visiting, an elderly gentleman with Alzheimer disease finally reached out his hand to touch her fur. It was the only time I had seen him respond to anything.
Working with Abby had other benefits as well. Everyone seemed to expect that she would need breaks, something to drink, and a treat or two. Of course, whenever she spotted food, she had to be reminded to be quiet and not to pretend we never fed her at home. The residents weren't always on my side. I once tried to decline the cookies that someone had saved for her; I was met with a hostile, "Who are you, her mother?" (If they could only see me tossing her dry food one piece at a time, in a game of catch-a practice I mistakenly started while recovering from surgery. She now refuses, unless desperate, to eat dry food any other way.)
Sitting quietly, listening carefully, being patient, working with enthusiasm, Abby has talent-and she works more cheaply than most nurses. I have to be careful. But then I'm the one with the degree, the one Abby trained to be the alpha nurse.