Puppy Tales 05 - Shelby's Story

by Cameron, W Bruce

  I was so started I jumped. Bruce did, too.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s a buzzer,” Teresa said. “I don’t know if the dogs will be able to smell the treats under the snow later on. But they can certainly hear a buzzer. If they learn to associate the treats with the buzzer, that will help.”

  I was puzzled by the strange sound, but Gusto started doing Dig with no hesitation, so I did, too. Last time there had been enough treats for everyone, but there was no guarantee that would happen this time, as well. I couldn’t let him get ahead of me.

  We found our way to the treats again, and there were enough for both. What a relief! In fact, I began to get a little full of treats. Treats taste amazingly fantastic when your stomach is empty. When your stomach is full, they simply taste normal fantastic.

  And I hadn’t chased the birds yet. They kept swooping low over our group, as if they wanted treats for themselves. When I barked at them, they’d soar away, but they always came back. Birds are not very bright. Perhaps that’s why Teresa kept hers in a cage, to keep it from bothering good dogs during Training. I needed to let them know who was in charge, the way I had taught the lizards in the yard to respect me.

  So the next time the buzzer went off and Teresa told me, “Dig,” I dashed away to teach those birds a lesson.

  “Shelby, no!” Teresa shouted. “Shelby, Come!”

  But I had to show one very large bird with a hoarse squawk that he was not in charge here. I chased him off and came back to Teresa, expecting praise and treats.

  Gusto was done with Dig. He had sand all over his nose and was eating the treats Teresa had given him.

  I looked up at Teresa pleadingly. Surely she’d see how I’d taken care of that bird for her. Surely she’d give me a treat.

  But she didn’t! Oh well. I was getting tired of Dig anyway. It was more fun to learn new tricks than to do the same one over and over.

  “I think Shelby’s getting bored,” Teresa said.

  I yawned. If we weren’t going to chase birds, all the loose sand would make for a very nice nap.

  “Let’s change things up for her,” Teresa decided.

  The people talked a little more, and then Bruce picked up April’s shovel and started digging. Were we going to keep playing Dig? What about our other games? What about Go Mark? I was very good at that one.

  And I was excellent at chasing birds.

  Bruce didn’t know how to dig right. He worked hard at it, but unlike April, he made a hole that was wide and shallow instead of one that was narrow and deep. Then he lay down in his hole—so Bruce got to take a nap? Why should he get a nap? He didn’t have any real jobs to do, unlike Gusto and me!

  April and Cathryn piled sand on top of Bruce in a high mound. His head and face stuck out at one end, and his feet could be seen at the other. “Okay, Shelby. Dig!” Teresa called.

  April kept hold of Gusto’s leash. This job was just for me.

  I went over and sniffed at the mound of sand suspiciously. I supposed digging up a person might be an interesting change from digging for treats, but even when I heard the buzzer I couldn’t get myself to do it. I was tired from all the digging, and I had seen Bruce dig a hole and lie in it. If he was dumb enough to do that, having a dog dig him back up wasn’t going to help.

  “This doesn’t seem to be going well,” Bruce remarked from where he was lying on the sand.

  Cathryn looked to Teresa. “But when we shoot the avalanche scene, it won’t be a real person. It will be a dummy, right?”

  Teresa nodded. “I just wanted to change things and see how Shelby reacted. Everyone is saying this is the one scene she can’t screw up—but it is the one scene I can’t practice for. I was hoping she would decide to dig Bruce out of the sand. This really worries me.”

  Everyone was quiet. I yawned.

  “Bruce,” Cathryn said, “Shelby doesn’t think you’re a dummy.”

  “Smart dog,” he replied.

  People laughed, but I was watching Teresa, who was frowning at the sand. “Hope we can make it work,” she muttered.

  Bruce stood up out of the sand, brushing himself off. As far as I was concerned, it proved he didn’t need my help.

  No one gave me a treat, though.

  9

  Not long after that day near the water where Gusto and I did all the digging, I got to take a long car ride with Teresa. Just me—not the rest of the pack. They stayed home.

  It was because I was Teresa’s most special dog, of course. I sat in the backseat and Teresa left the car window open just a little for me. I loved being the special dog! I put my nose up to the crack and joyfully breathed in all the scents from the world outside and felt so happy to be going somewhere—anywhere—with Teresa.

  As the car rolled on and on, I noticed that the land around us changed. At first it was hot and dry and mostly flat. Then I began to feel the car going up and down more and more hills, and I noticed a new odor coming in through the window.

  It was a smell that was fresh and chilly and damp and new to me. It made my tail wag and my ears perk up. What was this? When would I find out?

  When Teresa stopped the car at last, I learned what the new smell was.

  She opened my door for me and I scrambled out to find my paws buried in something white. My first thought was that it must be something to eat. I took a bite. It tasted like the water in my bowl—but cold! Freezing! My teeth and tongue ached. I shook my head and most of the white stuff fell out of my mouth.

  “Snow, Shelby. It’s snow!” Teresa said.

  Snow? Was she talking about the white stuff? It was cold on my feet! I lifted each paw, one after the other, and shook it. But that didn’t help, because I had to put my paws back down again, right into the white stuff.

  “Well, you were born in Tennessee, and you’ve been living in the desert—I guess snow does come as a shock,” Teresa said. “Come this way. I want you to meet somebody, and we thought a park was a good place.”

  She’d said that word again. I was beginning to understand that the white stuff was called snow. What was it used for? Clearly it wasn’t to eat.

  I lifted each foot high as I followed Teresa out of the parking lot and into a place with swings and a slide and a structure made of bars. Lots of children dressed in brightly colored, puffy clothes were running and climbing. Some were clambering up small mountains of the white stuff and sliding back down.

  Someone waved to Teresa and me—a tall young man with fair skin and dark hair. He knelt down right in the snow and held out his hands to me. Teresa let go of my leash, so I knew I had permission to run to him.

  I liked him! He had strong fingers that knew how to scratch my fur and he talked to me in an excited voice. Later on I heard a lot of people calling him Lucas, so I figured that was his name.

  “We’re going to do lots of scenes together, huh, Shelby?” Lucas told me. “You’re the real star of the movie, you know. Hey, Shelby, want to run? Come on, chase me, Shelby!”

  He got up and ran a little way away, looking back at me to see if I was following. This was a human who knew how to play Chase-Me properly!

  Of course I wanted to play. I’d been sitting in that car for such a long time! Running was hard in the snow, which came up to Lucas’s ankles and over my paws. But I learned to jump through it, a little like Hercules swimming in the pool back home. Then Lucas fell down on his back in the snow and I leaped on him to lick his face and check out whether he had any treats in his pockets.

  He rolled over. I wiggled after him and rolled over, too. That’s when I figured out what the snow was for.

  It was for playing in!

  Snow was soft and fluffy and even better to dig in than the sand at the beach. Plus, it tasted much better than the sand. I learned not to keep snow in my mouth, but just to snap at it and let it go. I left Lucas’s side and raced away from him, just to feel the white stuff crunch under my feet.

  Lucas, still sitting in the snow, picked so
me up and packed it into a ball between his mittened hands. Then he threw it.

  I knew what to do with balls! I ran after this one, watching as it arced through the sky. I saw where it would fall to earth and I put on a little extra speed so I would meet it.

  It hit the ground and …

  Where was it? I skidded to a stop, looking around, baffled. I’d seen the ball hit the ground. But I couldn’t find it now.

  Lucas was laughing. Why didn’t he help me find the ball instead of sitting there?

  Never mind. I could figure this out. The ball must have gotten buried in the snow. I’d dig for it!

  I jumped to where I’d last seen the ball and clawed at the snow. It flew around me in showers. But I never did find that ball. How irritating!

  “Watch Shelby for a minute!” I heard Teresa call to Lucas. “I want to get something from the car!”

  I wrestled with Lucas in the snow until Teresa came back.

  “She’s already digging,” Teresa told Lucas. “So we could get a little extra practice in for that avalanche scene. This is her first time in snow, and she’s doing great! Let’s take advantage of it. Play with her some more while I bury the buzzer.”

  Lucas and I roughhoused some more, and I won. I was sitting on him when I heard Teresa call from a few yards away.

  “Shelby! Dig!”

  I jumped off Lucas, who let out his breath in an ooof sound, and ran to Teresa’s side. She had used her Training voice. I knew I had to pay attention to it.

  But it seemed like a funny command. Dig? There wasn’t any sand. What was I supposed to do?

  I looked up at her for a clue.

  “Shelby, Dig!” Teresa said firmly.

  Had she gotten mixed up? Did she think we were at the beach? Anyway, where was Gusto? Didn’t we play Dig with Gusto?

  I heard a familiar sound. Something went buzz!

  My ears perked up. I looked around. There would be sand somewhere, and I’d do Dig, and Teresa would tell me I was a good dog.

  But … where was that sand?

  Lucas came panting up to us as I hunted for sand. He started to ask something, but Teresa made a quick gesture with one hand, and he got quiet.

  Teresa was looking at me seriously. The buzzer sounded again.

  I took a step toward where I heard the noise. The buzzer was under the snow.

  And I could dig snow, right? I’d just been digging in it to find that ball that Lucas had thrown.

  I hadn’t found the ball. But I could find the buzzer.

  I’d find it, and Teresa would be happy, and there would be treats!

  I hurried to where I’d heard the sound. My front feet sank into the fluffy snow, and I dug and dug. It was a little different from digging in the sand, because the snow packed down and got harder under my feet as I went deeper.

  But I didn’t give up. I was a good dog, and I knew how to do Dig, and I’d find that buzzer!

  And I did. My claws scraped it up, and Teresa was right there next to me, to praise me and give me a treat from her pocket.

  I wagged up at her happily. Then we played Dig lots more, and I always reached the buzzer and got my treat. Lucas seemed just as happy as Teresa every time I dug it up.

  “She’s going to be great!” he told Teresa.

  “I hope so,” Teresa said seriously. “But it’ll be different at the shoot. Gusto will be there, too…”

  I heard Gusto’s name and looked around, but I didn’t see or smell him anywhere nearby.

  “… and there will be new actors that she’s never met. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”

  Lucas stroked my head. “It’s your big scene, Shelby. I know you can do it!”

  * * *

  I guess Teresa thought the snow was as much fun as I did, because the next day we drove some more, up and up and up the side of a very big hill to a place where there did not seem to be much besides snow and trees.

  Oh, and people.

  The trees were tall and dark, with long needles and a sharp smell that tingled in my nose. The snow was packed down hard where all the people had been walking but fresh and fluffy where they had not. I loved jumping into big piles of it, just like Hercules jumped into the pool back at Teresa’s. But snow was better than the pool because it was easier to climb out.

  The people all seemed busy. Very, very busy.

  They were dressed in bright, puffy clothing, like the children I’d seen at the park. And they were doing jobs, just as I was when I did Training with Teresa. I could tell that by how serious they were, how focused on what they were doing.

  As far as I could figure out, their jobs were mostly to walk back and forth, carrying things.

  They carried clipboards. Pieces of paper. Tall ladders and platforms and long metal arms that could be hoisted up into the air. Giant lights on skinny legs. Cups of coffee. Many of the people had big, funny-looking black boxes that they spent a lot of time staring at. They were like phones—I’d seen Teresa look at her phone often—but bigger. I never understood why people spent so much time staring and poking at phones when there were dogs available for petting and playing, but they did.

  Other people had different kinds of black boxes with tubes sticking out from them. They called those boxes cameras.

  There were tents, too, arranged around the edges of all the activity, and Teresa took me to one of them. There were already people inside it, sitting on stools—Brian and April! I was so excited to find old friends here in this new place that I ran to them. Even without Teresa telling me to do Up I jumped to put my feet in their laps and lick their faces.

  Brian and April laughed and hugged me back. Then I hurried away to sniff around the tent. Along one side were some boxes in a corner that smelled like Teresa’s house. One had a rip in a corner and inside it I could catch the scent of my squeaky toy.

  I pawed at the box to see if anyone would notice and get my favorite toy out for me, but Teresa and Brian and April were talking and nobody did. I left the box reluctantly and investigated the rest of the tent.

  There was a very nice lamp low to the ground that beamed down heat as well as light. Sitting in front of it felt like sitting in the sun in Teresa’s backyard. In front of the lamp was a thick blanket for me to lie on. That was nice. I liked the snow, but my feet did get cold in it after a while.

  “Look what Brian has for you, Shelby,” Teresa told me.

  I recognized Brian’s name, so I glanced at him. He opened up a box and pulled out a big blue something. And then four small black somethings.

  “Here, let’s try them on,” Teresa said, and she knelt down beside me.

  The big blue something went over my back. It was soft and smooth and felt very cozy when Teresa pulled the straps tight.

  It was a coat, I realized! Just like the ones April and Brian and Teresa were wearing. I had a coat of my own.

  Then Teresa took one of the small black things. She picked up my foot and slipped the thing on.

  I shook my foot. The black thing did not fall off.

  I put my foot down to sniff at it. It smelled odd—sort of like cloth and sort of like plastic. I nibbled it. It did not taste good.

  “No, Shelby, leave your boots on,” Teresa told me. “They’ll keep your feet warm and safe from the ice, too.”

  I looked at her, wondering what she was talking about and why she was putting these odd things on my feet. It was nice having her face so close to mine, though. I licked her ear.

  April helped Teresa put the three more black things on my other paws. I took a few steps in them, lifting my feet high to see if I could step out of them.

  I couldn’t. I sat down and looked up at Teresa.

  “You’ll get used to them, sweetie,” she told me, and looked over at Brian. “About time for her first scene, right?”

  Brian nodded, and Teresa took me back out of the tent, right in the middle of all the hurrying people.

  It felt so funny to walk in the boots! I couldn’t feel the cold snow u
nder my feet. That was … good? Maybe? But I couldn’t use my claws, either, if I started to slip. What if I needed to run fast? What if they wanted me to do Dig?

  The coat, though—I loved the coat. It was snug and warm and I felt so happy in it that my tail swished through the air and whapped against people’s knees as I walked.

  Teresa took me to a patch of deep, fresh snow. I wiggled with excitement. Would I get to play in it?

  Several people were standing nearby as if they were waiting for us. Some of them had clipboards. Some had the big black boxes I’d noticed earlier. One was standing near a long metal arm with a camera on the end of it.

  Teresa bent down and took off my coat and my boots. Maybe she understood how funny the boots felt.

  Then Teresa took something out of her pocket. It was the wooden disc that we used to do Go Mark.

  I understood right away that we were not playing. We were Training. It seemed funny to be Training in front of all these people. But I could show them all that I knew how to do Go Mark.

  Teresa took the disc and put it on top of a big snowbank, making sure that I could see it. Then she came back to my side.

  “Okay, this is it, girl,” she told me, looking down at me. “Shelby, Go Mark!”

  I knew exactly what to do! I leaped into the deep snow and plowed straight through it. All the people stood around and watched me. The camera on the metal pole swung around to follow me as I ran.

  When I reached the slope of the snowbank, I scrambled up. Teresa must have known I’d need my claws for this—that was why she’d taken those funny boots off! At the top, I found the Go Mark and stood right on it. I paused and looked back at Teresa.

  “And … cut!” somebody said.

  “Shelby, good girl!” Teresa said warmly. I bounded down off the snowbank straight to her, and she rubbed her hands through my fur and gave me a treat, just like she always did.

  10

  “That was great! She did it!” exclaimed a familiar voice. I looked up and saw Bruce standing next to Teresa. It was funny how so many of my old friends had come to this mountain. Maybe it was because they wanted to see how good I was at Training.