by Dan Walsh
Which was one of the reasons he felt so sad.
The main kennel door opened. Instantly, most of the dogs started barking. Finley didn’t join in. Didn’t see any point in it. No one hardly ever stopped by his door. It wasn’t time for food. Even if it was, he’d barely touched what they’d put down this morning.
The footsteps grew louder. So did the barking, especially from the dogs nearest him. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped. Right in front of him.
“Aww, Finley. Don’t look so sad.”
He looked up. It was that young lady who worked in here sometimes, the one who had come in with Kim a few hours ago. He couldn’t remember her name.
“Things are looking up for you, boy.”
He noticed a leash in her hand. Were they going for a walk? She unlatched his door and stepped inside.
“They’re coming to take you out of here. Do you know that? In just a little while from now.” She bent down.
He lifted his head to allow her to click the end of the leash on his collar.
“Kim said I needed to get you ready. How about we start with a walk?”
He stood. Involuntarily, his tail began to wag. He understood two words from all she had just said: Kim and walk. Both were good words. Was she taking him to see Kim? Was Kim going to take him for a walk?
She led him out of his pen and down the aisle toward the back door. He followed behind a few paces. “That’s it, boy. Keep coming. You’re going to like this. I promise.”
The dogs on either side of him barked furiously as he walked by. He couldn’t blame them. He knew how tough it was sitting in a kennel all day. But he refused to acknowledge them. Why should he? It wasn’t his fault. He was on the end of a leash.
She picked up her pace as she walked through the back door. Finley tried to do the same. The sunshine felt good on his face and back. The barking faded as the door closed behind them. Finley looked around but didn’t see Kim anywhere. They were heading away from the building across a field, mostly covered by patches of dirt and weeds. Close to the ground, the air was filled with dozens of conflicting smells. As they walked, he tried lifting his head above it, to catch moments of fresh air.
Up ahead, he noticed a fenced-in area. He’d been in there once before, the first day he’d gotten here. It wasn’t a big space but certainly big enough for a dog to cut loose. Back then, he ran like crazy all over the place and had so much energy. Seemed like they were going there now.
Finley didn’t feel much like running, though.
The young lady unlatched the fence door, and they walked in. As she re-latched it behind them, a host of new dog smells rushed through his nostrils. Some were pretty fresh. He quickly eyed inside the perimeter to make sure they were alone. Finley wasn’t in the mood to make friends.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Finley. It’s just you and me.” She bent down and unhooked him from the leash. “Go ahead. You’re free. You can run now.”
Finley wasn’t sure what she was saying, but by the way she was waving her arms it looked like she wanted him to go away. This confused him, because her face seemed happy not angry. He looked in the direction she pointed and even took a few steps in that direction. But he didn’t understand what she wanted him to do.
She picked up a ball and threw it across the yard. “Go on, Finley. Go get it. Get the ball.”
Finley understood get the ball. Chaz often played ball with him, and he loved it when they did. More than almost anything. He just wasn’t in the mood.
“You can do it, Finley. Bring it. Bring the ball.”
The ball. She wanted it for some reason. Finley walked toward it, slowly. Halfway there, he lost interest. He looked back at her. She was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at him.
“Don’t you want to get it? Says on your card that you love playing ball.”
He sat. What else could he do? She walked toward him. He looked at her face, her eyes, sensed her mood. She wasn’t angry. What was it?
She walked past him. “Okay, I’ll get it.”
He watched as she walked to the other side, near the fence and picked up the ball. She stood for a moment, held up the ball and said, “You sure you don’t want it?”
What was she saying? Now she was coming back.
“Okay, guess we’re not playing ball. We’ll move onto the next thing.”
She still didn’t seem upset, more like confused. He was, too.
She reattached his leash. “I’m supposed to get you all cleaned up. Let’s head back in, and I’ll give you a bath. You look like you haven’t had one in a while. We’ll take a look at your nails, too. Get you all spiffed up.”
He still had no idea what she was saying or where they were going. He followed along. Looked like they were heading back inside. Guess they weren’t meeting up with Kim after all. He wondered why this girl had mentioned her name.
They walked through a side door of the building into a room he didn’t recognize. That wasn’t much of a walk. Whenever Chaz had taken him for a walk, they’d be gone a long time.
He looked up at the young woman’s face. She looked so happy. He wished he knew why.
17
Amy
It was after lunch, and Amy had a little free time in the afternoon. They were told Brenda and Bill would be arriving sometime soon with the next group of dogs from the Humane Society. For the last thirty minutes or so, Amy had been straightening up her cell, her dorm. It was already pretty clean. She was mainly moving around the handful of things she owned, trying to make the room feel like her place. At least a little.
The effort ended with her holding onto a shoebox she had gotten from a prison ministry last Christmas. At the time, it contained mostly bathroom and toiletry items like deodorant, toothpaste and a nice hairbrush. Now she used it to hold little personal things. Like the last, and only, letter she had gotten from Cassie, her brother’s wife.
For now, she set the shoebox on the floor and slid it under her cot near the headboard. Something tugged at her heart, so she pulled it back out a moment and lifted the lid. There was the letter folded, sitting on top. It was really the only connection she had to her family. No photos. No little gifts or mementos. Just the one letter and, really, if you thought about it, Cassie wasn’t even family. Not blood anyway.
She opened the letter and read it again:
Dear Amy,
Heard things weren’t going so well for you. I mean even worse than they had been going. Your brother told me about you getting arrested and going to prison. He didn’t know if it was for 3 years or 5. I’m guessing you hadn’t heard he and I got married, almost a year ago now.
I know we haven’t been close since, well, since you got hooked on meth. I want you to know I forgive you for stealing from me. Guess it wasn’t just me. According to your brother, you robbed them blind. He said it was so many times they finally had to cut you off completely. I guess you already know this, but they want nothing to do with you anymore. I didn’t even mention I was writing you. It would probably have started a fight.
But I had to write you, at least this once. Cause there’s something else you probably don’t know. I became a Christian shortly after high school. A real one (read my Bible every day and everything). Jesus changed my life completely, I know he can help you too, no matter what you’ve done. I looked it up, and there’s a really good prison ministry going on out there where they’re sending you. I wrote the name and website on the back of this page. Don’t know if they let you use the internet in prison. If not, ask somebody out there about them.
Well, better go.
Your new sister-in-law,
Cassie
Amy folded the note back over, blinking back some tears that were making their presence known. It wasn’t anything Cassie had said. Not especially. She knew her family had given up on her long ago. And she didn’t blame them. But she wished there was some way she could let them know she was different now. Some way she could tell them how sorry she was for what
she had put them through.
But there wasn’t. She had better just accept it. She didn’t even know why she kept this letter anymore, or the envelope it came in. Wasn’t like the return address was any good. And reading it like this only made her sad.
She looked over at the small trashcan next to the desk. Then she set the letter back in the shoebox, closed the lid and slid it back under her bed.
While Amy waited for the dogs to arrive, she decided to use the remaining time to read some of the dog training materials Miss Bridget had given her. She’d been told each of the newer inmates in the program was assigned a more seasoned inmate-trainer to get them up to speed. She was glad to find she’d been assigned to Rita.
At the moment, Amy was on her cot lying on her back holding the booklet over her head. She was fascinated by what she read. She was thinking the training would be all about things like teaching a dog to sit and stay and walk on a leash. That was certainly part of it, but this booklet was about things she’d never heard about before, the way a dog thinks, about its behavior.
Rita walked in. “Are you understanding that? I know it’s quite a lot to take in. Ask any questions if something doesn’t make sense.”
Amy set the booklet down and sat up. “Is this stuff for real? Have you really seen it work with dogs?”
Rita pulled out the chair from the little desk and spun it around, sat. “Course it’s for real. There’s all kinds of science behind this stuff now. Dogs can’t talk, but they sure have a lot to say. Once you understand how they communicate. One of the biggest problems I had at first was having to unlearn so much crap I believed about dogs.”
“Like what?” Amy said.
“Just the usual stuff. People think they know dogs because they love ‘em and spend so much time with them. And because dogs seem so eager to want to be with us and make us happy. I think the biggest mistake I made, and I see others make when they start out in this program, is thinking dogs think like people do. But they don’t. They got their own way of looking at life, and it’s not the same way we do. Half the time we wind up treating them like we treat kids. But they’re not kids.”
“Can you give me an example?” Amy said. “I’m not really following you.”
Rita thought a moment. “Here’s one. Like when dogs bark. People yell at them to stop barking, like you yell at a kid. If you say it loud enough, and the kid thinks he may get punished, he might even stop. That’s because he knows what you’re saying. Dogs don’t. We yell at them to stop barking, and they usually keep right on barking. So we yell louder. They look at us, and if you’re paying attention, you see this confused look on their face. Then they bark some more. You know why? It’s not because they don’t want to obey us, they don’t understand what we’re saying. They think we’re barking, too. That’s what our yelling sounds like. So they bark some more.”
Amy smiled. “I never thought about this before. But it makes sense.”
“Course it does,” Rita said. “You keep reading. There’s all kinds of good stuff in there.”
“So how do you make them stop barking, if yelling at them isn’t the answer?”
“You distract them with something else, or redirect them. They’re barking because they think there’s a problem. Yelling just makes them think you agree. It’s okay to tell them to stop barking, once, but then you give them something else to do to get their minds in a new direction. Tell them ‘Enough’ and pat your leg. When they come, give them a treat or a toy. You make coming to you a whole lot more rewarding than barking. In a few moments, they’ll forget all about what they were barking at.”
“Wow,” Amy said. “Does that really work?”
“I’ve seen it work,” Rita said. She tilted her head like she heard something, then stood and looked out the window. “Thought so. That’s Bill’s van getting checked in at the gate.”
Amy stood up and walked to the window.
Rita turned and walked past her toward the door. “The new dogs are here. This is always interesting.”
Amy looked out the window, saw a big white passenger van being inspected by a guard. Her first dog was probably in there. Not just the first dog she’d ever trained, but the first dog she’d ever had.
Lord, don’t let it be a pit. At least not this time.
18
Amy followed Rita down the hall through the main room, where the graduation luncheon had been held. Most of the other inmates had gathered there already. They were all looking out the window as the white passenger van pulled into a paved area near the building.
“Can all the dogs fit in that?” Amy said quietly.
“No,” Rita said, “only about half. Bill will drop them off then go back for the other half.
“How do they decide who gets what dog?”
“Well, you and I won’t be getting one out of this batch.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because our team lost the last round.”
“Am I on a team?” Amy said.
“Not you so much. The girl whose place you’re taking. She was on our team. We divide up into two teams for the Top Five Contest.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s just something the program directors came up with, to spice things up I guess. The idea is, they pay extra attention to how we’re doing the last month before graduation. You’ll see them sometimes taking notes. They decide which dogs make the Top Five but don’t tell us. Not until graduation day. I guess they’re thinking if the girls know they didn’t get picked, they won’t try so hard. During graduation, they announce which dogs made it. The girls who train the dogs win, too, because the team with the most girls in the Top Five get first pick of the new dogs that come in the next round.”
“I see,” Amy said.
Just then the door connecting to the yard opened up and Miss Bridget walked in. “Okay, the winners can line up in order. Soon as you do, you can head out to the yard near Bill’s van. Your dogs await.”
The ladies instantly responded, formed a line and headed out into the yard. They all looked pretty excited. Once they had left the room Miss Bridget told the “losers” they could watch things unfold outside from the picnic benches if they wanted. The benches were set up in rows on a concrete slab. During the graduation ceremony, this is where they had set up the white tarp for shade. Today, it was cloudy and not too hot, so most of the girls headed outside, including Rita and Amy.
Amy watched where Rita sat and sat nearby. “You said the winning team is the one with the most dogs, or trainers, in the Top Five. Why did Miss Bridget just tell the winners to line up in order?”
“Oh,” Rita said. “I didn’t mention…one of the five dogs is named Top Dog. That dog and trainer are selected to give a public demonstration during the graduation ceremony, sort of show off everything we’ve taught the dogs. And that trainer gets her choice, first pick, of the new dogs when they come in. See the girl in front? That’s Jane. Her dog was Top Dog, so she’s at the front of the line. The rest of the team picks numbers out of a hat.”
Amy looked across the grass area at the line of girls waiting by the van, each one holding a leash. The leashes had been sitting in a plastic tote bin on the last picnic table. Bill opened the back door of the van then the side doors. He said something to the girls and stepped off to the side. As soon as he did, the dogs began to bark. Amy couldn’t see them from where she sat, but she could tell by the tone of the barking they were all fairly big dogs.
That was confirmed as the dogs were let out from their cages in the van onto the grass, one by one. Half of them looked like pit-mix dogs to Amy, but she had to admit they looked very friendly. Wagging their tails, playfully jumping up on the girls who just put them on a leash, even licking their hands. The rest of the dogs behaved just the same way. Some looked like they were part Labrador retriever. One had curly hair like a large poodle. It was half-poodle anyway. The last one coming out of the van had to be part German Shepherd.
“Now, that’s a bea
utiful dog,” Rita said, pointing to the Shepherd mix. “I would’ve loved to work with him.”
The surprising thing to Amy was, that the Shepherd wasn’t picked first. That’s the one she would’ve picked. The girls who had won the first several slots and had their pick of all the dogs in the van had all picked pits.
“All right, ladies,” Bill yelled to the inmates sitting on the picnic benches, “I’ll be back before you know it with your dogs.” He said something to Miss Bridget, closed the van doors, got inside and headed back toward the gate.
Amy watched as all the girls with dogs began spreading out across the grass area to let their dogs go the bathroom.
“Don’t forget to bag it,” Miss Bridget yelled, “if any of them poop.”
For the last forty minutes, Amy had been laying on her cot reading more of the dog training booklet. The whole dorm area had been abuzz with activity. Mostly related to the dogs and trainers getting acquainted. She could hear the trainers introducing the dogs to their new rooms and crates, and dog toys being squeezed, tossed and squeaked. The atmosphere resembled nothing of the prison life she had known for the last two years, and the inmates sounded nothing like hardened criminals.
More like…well, happy college girls in a dorm.
She turned the page to the next chapter, which was all about how to get a dog to walk properly on a leash. Before she finished the first paragraph, Rita stuck her head in the door.
“Bill’s here with the van. Ready to meet your dog?”
“Definitely.” She sat up, set the booklet down on the bed. Rita had already headed down the hallway. Amy stood, then walked over to the window. Sure enough, Bill’s van was inside the gate getting inspected. She felt mostly excited about getting her dog, but a little nervous.
Rita had said she’d help train Amy herself. That’s how they did things around here. The newer trainers were taught by the more seasoned ones. Bill and Brenda would also conduct group training classes. Besides all that, Rita had said, dogs were extremely patient and forgiving animals, so it would be pretty hard for her to screw this assignment up. A few more inmates walked past her doorway in the hall toward the main room and the door leading out to the yard. Amy decided it was time to join them.
