Mutt's Promise

by Julie Salamon

  They were joined by Dr. Suzy and Charlie’s new owner, a boy with shaggy hair just like Charlie’s. The boy and dog looked as though they were made for each other.

  “I have to go,” Charlie said as the boy stood quietly by his side. He gently placed his forehead against Chief’s and then Luna’s.

  “I will never forget you,” Charlie said.

  It took all of Luna’s strength to nuzzle her friend in farewell. Though she was much stronger than she had been, she didn’t know how many more times she could stand to be separated from someone she loved.

  Chief and Luna sat down next to each other and silently watched Charlie trot out the door. Before he disappeared, he gave one quick glance backward, but Luna could tell from the eager way he wagged his tail that Charlie was ready to begin his new life.

  chapter twenty-four

  MARTY THE MAGICIAN

  After Charlie left, Luna felt Dr. Suzy’s eyes on her.

  “Luna, come here,” the vet said briskly. Luna wanted to trust this kind person but she felt she had forgotten how. She walked over and stood next to Dr. Suzy, but stiffly, without moving a muscle, and without looking at her.

  Dr. Suzy laughed and knelt down.

  “You will never beg for love, will you, girl?” she asked as she pet Luna, who was surprised to find herself responding to the vet’s gentle touch.

  “Your brother is the same, isn’t he?” Dr. Suzy continued.

  As she scratched Luna’s ears, Dr. Suzy began to hum.

  The song she was humming reminded Luna of Gilbert’s song. Without meaning to, she felt her paws start to move, and the movement felt good.

  Dr. Suzy said with delight in her voice, “Luna! You know how to dance!”

  When Luna heard the word “dance,” she began to show off some fancy moves she’d forgotten she knew. As she twirled around, she was able to shake away the terrible memories she’d been carrying around.

  When she heard Dr. Suzy clap, Luna felt happy.

  “That was great!” Dr. Suzy said with a laugh. “Take a bow.”

  Luna was more than ready to take her bow.

  “I’ve just seen the most remarkable thing,” Dr. Suzy called out to Bill, who was in the other room.

  A minute later he was by her side.

  “What was it?” he asked.

  “Luna knows how to dance,” Dr. Suzy said. “And she knows what it means to ‘bow.’”

  “Really?” said Bill skeptically, wrinkling his forehead. “Luna knows how to dance? Are you sure she wasn’t just stretching her legs?”

  Dr. Suzy shook her head.

  “Watch,” she said, and asked Luna to dance again.

  Luna didn’t have to be asked twice. As she danced, she felt as though she had found a part of herself that had been lost. If only Gilbert could see me, she thought as she bowed again.

  Dr. Suzy was grinning.

  “There, you see?” she said.

  Bill scratched his head. “I do see.”

  Luna could feel how pleased they were. She raised her paw in a friendly gesture.

  Grasping the dog’s paw, Dr. Suzy said to Bill, “Do you remember me telling you about my old friend Marty the dog trainer?”

  For a few seconds Bill looked puzzled, and then he brightened. “Are you thinking what I think you are?”

  Dr. Suzy nodded. “Exactly.”

  Luna didn’t understand what they were talking about but she didn’t care. She was just happy that she felt like dancing again.

  “Excuse me, Luna,” Dr. Suzy said, giving the dog one more scratch behind the ears. “I have to make a phone call.”

  A few days later a large man with a beard and light green eyes appeared at the shelter. He almost skipped through the door, as though he were really eager to get somewhere. Though he mumbled a greeting and nodded at Dr. Suzy, he didn’t pause, just kept going, with the focus and purpose of a hunting dog.

  “Nice to see you, Marty,” Dr. Suzy said, but he didn’t answer. Luna noticed that he ignored the puppies who sashayed and cuddled and struck adorable poses to get his attention. He noticed Luna, though. In fact, he seemed to have come just for her.

  “That’s Luna,” called out Dr. Suzy.

  “I can see that,” he said, looking at Luna’s face.

  Then Dr. Suzy added a warning. “She doesn’t like strangers.”

  The man didn’t answer. With an intent look on his face, he dropped to his knees and gently laid his forefinger on the crescent moon above Luna’s eye.

  “Luna, what are you thinking?” he asked.

  Normally, Luna’s response to a stranger’s touch would have been to freeze. Her instincts remained on high alert, despite the kind treatment she’d received at Second Chances. Puppy Paradise had left its imprint on her soul, not just on her ear.

  But she trusted this man. He was big but light on his feet, as if he were dancing across the floor. Luna had noticed that none of the other dogs showed the slightest bit of fear as the stranger approached. Even the most timid ones began to thump their tails, like a round of applause.

  Still, Luna surprised herself when, without thinking about it, she rolled over on her back and stretched out, hoping he would pat her on the tummy.

  “You are a magician!” Dr. Suzy said, admiration in her voice. “She’s never done that before.”

  The man didn’t take his eyes off Luna.

  “That’s what they call me,” he said. “Marty the Magician.”

  He reached into the small bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a treat.

  Luna didn’t hesitate. She sat up and clamped her teeth on the biscuit.

  Chief walked over to see what was going on.

  “Why do you look so surprised?” Luna asked him, chewing contentedly.

  Chief shook his head. “I thought you weren’t ever going to be yourself again,” he said.

  “Well, here I am,” Luna said with a grin. “And I just had a treat and you didn’t!” Being around Marty made her feel frisky, like it was okay to have fun.

  She was glad when she heard the man say to Dr. Suzy, “Give me some time with them.”

  Dr. Suzy led him to a large empty room, and motioned Luna and Chief to join them.

  Soon Marty was instructing, yelling, praising, whispering, and laughing. Luna and Chief fixed their eyes on his, waiting for his next signal with anticipation. Luna discovered she already knew most of his commands: Sit! Stand! Relax!

  From the get-go, she understood that Marty wasn’t anything like Raymond. There wasn’t a whiff of cruelty about him. He was more like Gilbert, who expected a lot of her because he believed in her. Obeying Marty felt like coming home, at least a little.

  When it was time to rest, Marty sat next to them on the floor, scratching their bellies and talking to them in a gentle voice.

  “Okay,” he said after a few minutes. “It’s time.”

  When Marty stood up, the dogs followed him into Dr. Suzy’s office. “What happened in there?” she asked Marty. “They look like different dogs.”

  “Basic training,” he said, and turned to give Luna and Chief a wink.

  “Could you elaborate?” she asked impatiently.

  He laughed.

  “No trick to it,” he said. “They’re smart dogs, these two. All they needed was someone to help them remember what they already knew.”

  Dr. Suzy nodded.

  “Well,” she said. “What do you think?”

  Marty looked at her. His face didn’t offer any clues.

  He stood there for a while, staring at Luna and Chief, who were quietly desperate to hear what he would say.

  Finally, he responded.

  “I’ll take them,” he said.

  Luna’s tail began thumping with a happiness she couldn’t explain. Chief joined in.


  “Just like that?” Dr. Suzy said with surprise.

  “Just like what?” Marty responded.

  A few minutes later, he led the dogs outside, opened the back door of his car, and pointed inside. Chief hopped in, but Luna felt it was okay to disobey Marty this one time. She ran back to Dr. Suzy and lifted her paw to say good-bye. Then she was ready to go. She returned to the car and joined Chief in the backseat. As she dozed off to the rhythm of the car’s steady motion, she dreamed of Mutt. How she wished her mother knew that her puppies had figured out how to be brave, just the way she said they would.

  chapter twenty-five

  DOGS IN THE CITY

  They soon discovered that while Marty wasn’t much of a talker, he loved to sing, just like Gilbert. He serenaded them for mile after mile. He didn’t mind if they howled along, and wasn’t insulted if they took a nap instead.

  Time passed pleasantly. Marty’s car was very old and quite large, with spacious windows that allowed a lot of sunlight to filter in. The seats became nice and warm, a lovely place to curl up and nod off.

  For the first time since she’d left the farm, Luna didn’t feel as though she were in limbo, even though she had no idea what lay ahead. She was satisfied just to exist, to be with Chief and this odd, appealing man. Marty gave her the feeling that she was traveling with a purpose.

  They stopped whenever Marty got hungry or saw something by the edge of the road that he felt required a closer look. During these breaks, he offered the dogs a few pointers on how to respond to commands. They sat. They relaxed. They rolled over. He began teaching them to pivot and to crawl.

  Sometimes Marty drove very fast, which caused the countryside rushing by to melt together into a blurry impression of colors. The dogs loved these stretches, when the wind blew their fur back. Marty always kept the windows rolled down. At other times he drove very slowly, allowing the dogs to take in the changing landscape as it drifted by.

  “He’s unpredictable,” observed Luna, after several hours had passed.

  “That’s true,” agreed Chief. “But I don’t find him threatening or nerve-wracking, do you?’

  “Not at all,” Luna agreed.

  Eventually the scenery changed from green to gray. The dogs pressed their faces against the window to look.

  “What are those things?” Luna asked Chief.

  He was trying to figure it out when Marty announced, “This, my furry friends, is the big city, your new home.”

  “What’s a city?” Chief asked.

  Luna replied, “You’ve heard about them on those shows Charlie used to watch on television. They’re just places where a lot of people live close together.” Then she added, “I wonder what it will be like there.”

  Chief tried not to sound worried, though Luna wasn’t convinced. “Marty wouldn’t take us somewhere that wasn’t good,” he said.

  Now they were driving much more slowly in fits and starts. They were surrounded by cars, buses, bicycles, trucks, and more people than they had imagined could exist.

  “Look!” barked Luna. “A dog!”

  The dog nodded at her and then walked away, pulling his owner with him.

  The car stopped.

  “You two have brought me luck!” exclaimed Marty. “We found a parking spot right in front of my building.”

  Luna didn’t know what he was talking about, but it seemed to make him happy.

  Marty stepped outside, stretched his arms in the air, and stomped his feet on the ground. Then he opened the back door so the dogs could jump out.

  They copied him by stretching their legs and stomping their paws on the ground.

  Then they sat and looked at Marty expectantly.

  Before he could say a word, a loud voice startled them.

  “IS THAT MARTY THE SO-CALLED MAGICIAN NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO HIS ANIMALS?”

  The dogs didn’t move.

  A skinny man with a long white beard was walking toward them.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled at Marty.

  Chief put a paw on Luna’s back. She was glad, because she was feeling nervous. She noticed that Chief was also keeping his eyes on the ground. Neither of them moved a muscle.

  “Those dogs could run out into traffic and get hurt!” the man yelled at Marty. “What are you thinking?”

  Marty ignored him and knelt down next to the dogs.

  “Well, my friends,” he said with a grin, “welcome to New York.”

  The dogs remained frozen in place. Marty, however, stood up and headed directly toward the white-haired man and gave him a hug.

  “Hey, Izzy,” he said. “Don’t you have anything better to do than lecture me?”

  Luna was afraid to look. Was Marty just as crazy as that man? What was he thinking? Had he saved them just to end up in trouble himself?

  “Look at that,” Chief whispered.

  Izzy was chuckling and talking to Marty in a normal tone.

  Luna couldn’t catch what they were saying to each other, but it was obvious that they were friends. Soon Izzy turned and walked away, shaking his head.

  “He’s got his own way of looking at things,” Marty said as pulled his knapsack out of the car. “He worries about everything.”

  “Why are humans so weird?” Luna asked Chief.

  “I don’t know,” Chief said. “But Marty is cool.”

  “Agreed,” said Luna. She nodded, but her body remained wary. The excitement she had been feeling was replaced by uncertainty.

  Without looking at them, Marty walked up to the closest building and put his key in the front door. He looked over his shoulder.

  “Well?” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Does he think we know what to do?” Luna said to Chief, feeling annoyed. “We don’t even know where we are or why we’re here.”

  Chief said gently, “I think he just wants us to come inside.”

  Luna responded, “I know that, but I’m tired. I want to go home.”

  Chief seemed to understand. “Me too,” he said.

  As they communicated in low growls, Luna felt Marty looking at them.

  “Poor things,” Marty muttered, but he didn’t budge from the doorstep.

  When Luna and Chief didn’t move, he asked them again, “What are you waiting for?”

  With that, he walked inside, leaving the door open.

  Luna sighed.

  “Come on,” she said to her brother. “What else can we do?”

  chapter twenty-six

  FITTING IN

  Their first days in the city didn’t put Luna’s unease to rest. She was accustomed to sniffing things out, but in New York there were so many smells and sounds, it was hard to tell one thing from another. Everything was loud, fast, big.

  Marty had them dive right in. They barely had time to walk around his giant loft before he’d hitched them to leashes and plunged them into the fray. Things that city dogs took for granted were alien to them. Fire hydrants, bus stops, police sirens, pizza: They had encountered none of these things in the Pennsylvania countryside.

  Things that were familiar were unfamiliar—city dogs, for example. They pranced next to their owners like royalty, casting disdainful looks at the country bumpkins. Or that’s what it felt like to Luna.

  But it didn’t take long for her to see the city’s strange beauty. Marty took them for nighttime prowls in parks, where they could run without their leashes, with light provided by lamps rather than the moon. There they could inhale the smell of grass and trees, roll in dirt, race each other until their hearts pounded with exhaustion and happiness.

  Luna and Chief became accustomed to having people stop Marty to discuss them. “Are they related to each other?” “I love your dogs!” “Can I pet them?”

  They made the acquaintance of some neighborhood
dogs and learned to avoid the local bullies.

  Even Izzy became their friend, always sneaking them a treat when he saw them. They discovered that he was just one of a large cast of characters who seemed to know Marty. Elegant women dressed in stylish clothes waved and said, “Hi, Marty.” Firefighters and police officers seemed to know who he was.

  They learned that he was called Marty the Magician because he was the most respected dog agent in the business, known for his astute judgment and his unconventional methods.

  Marty explained his philosophy to them one day. “I like to work on my own terms,” he said. “I am just as interested in providing service dogs to people who need them as I am in finding the next movie star dog.”

  Luna and Chief were too busy being tourists in New York to worry about what Marty’s job actually was.

  Then one day Marty said to them, “It’s time to get to work.”

  “Work” turned out to be no different than play. Marty’s home was like an indoor park. He’d carved out a tiny bedroom for himself; the rest was open space dedicated to training. There were a big overstuffed couch, a big television, and lots of tables and chairs scattered around. There were a stove and a refrigerator, which contained raw meat for the dogs and not much else.

  The floor was made out of a variety of surfaces: wood, carpet, stone, and tile.

  And there were many places to hide. Marty had rigged tents of various sizes and plopped them down in no special pattern.

  It was an odd abode for a human but delightful for dogs. It didn’t hurt that Marty believed treats weren’t reserved for rewards. Sometimes he just handed one out for fun.

  On their first day of “work,” Marty just kept tossing toys at them, then hiding them in different tents.

  From the moment Marty threw a rag doll across the room, Chief loved the game. Luna could tell that the sport drove everything else from his mind. Nothing could distract him from his goal of tracking down every single ball, squeeze toy, fake bone, and piece of rope that Marty had hidden. Chief was relentless.