by Peter Styles
“This counts as playing?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. She certainly seems to think so.”
My cheeks started to burn. I waggled the leash again, but Pongo was lost to the joys of the cool, wet grass. “Screw you, dude,” I snapped. “Leave me and my dog alone.”
His smile died down into something that looked less like amusement and more like pity. “Sorry,” he said simply.
“Sorry for what?”
“For being rude the other day.” He inched forward from the front door of his business. “I know you probably won’t believe me when I say this—and I won’t blame you for that—but I never meant to offend you.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t believe that.”
“Which I understand.” He sighed. He edged a little bit closer to me. At first, I thought he was afraid of Pongo’s supposed wildness, but I realized that it was me he was afraid of. I felt a little guilty when I realized that; I may not have liked the guy, but I certainly didn’t want him to be terrified of me.
“I haven’t been in America for long,” he explained abruptly. “I only moved here a few years ago. I’m still getting used to how Americans talk to each other. It’s… well, different.”
“What, you want me to believe that everyone in Germany is an asshole?”
A quick smirk flitted across his face. “Is that really so hard to believe?”
I thought for a moment. “I guess not.” I gave him a small smile, trying to prove that I was at least mostly kidding.
“I’ve never been good with people at all,” Rick continued. “Even back home, a lot of people thought that I was short or rude or mean. But I don’t mean to be. I’m very sorry that’s the way you thought of me.”
I shrugged. “No, I didn’t really think you were that bad.”
Rick chuckled, a soothing, almost smoky sound. “Even I know that you’re lying right now.”
“Okay, fine. You did seem like a total dick.” I thought of Diaz and his easy forgiveness. I’d never been quite as good at letting things go, but I wanted to give it a try. After all, this guy had come to me to genuinely apologize for a mistake. That had to count for something.
Plus, he was still really, really hot.
“It’s all good, man,” I said. Saying it made me more confident in the message. “I get where you were coming from. I’m sure you see people in here every day who really shouldn’t own pets, and I’m sure that’s incredibly frustrating.”
He shrugged off my empathy. The tips of his ears were bright red, and it occurred to me that he was actually feeling sheepish. “It can be a challenge,” he said. “I’m really not as judgmental as you might think, though. I know that everyone learns differently, and there is a lot of misinformation out there about how to train your animals. And every dog is going to be a little bit different. I understand where the problems come from. I just want to help.” He ruffled his hair and nibbled at his bottom lip. I noticed then that he had slightly bunny-like front teeth, which only made him hotter, somehow. “Unfortunately, you’ve seen what my help can look like. I’m not always the most… personable.”
I snorted. “I figured that out, yeah.”
“But I’d like to make it up to you,” he continued quickly. He gestured at Pongo, who had finally stood back up to show off her back, which was completely stained with green. “I could still help you train her. That is, if you wouldn’t mind.”
I actually let out a laugh. “I don’t mind at all. Anyone who knows anything about it is refusing to help, and my best friend is just as clueless as I am. And I can’t bring her back to the station with her still behaving like this. There are only so many times I can tell my bunk mates that their stuff just mysteriously vanished.”
“Understandable.” He smiled. “When do you work next?”
“Like ten days from now.”
He looked down at Pongo and nodded. “Don’t worry,” he assured me, “I think we can fix her.”
Chapter Six
I found out that our lessons were to begin bright and early the next day. Unfortunately, instead of texting me to relay that message, I got a phone call from Diaz at five thirty in the morning. He sounded positively murderous. “Hey, that douchebag dog trainer is here. He just knocked on my door and said the two of you have a class today.”
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Ah, shit. Sorry, man. I didn’t realize he was planning on starting already.”
“So you okayed this?!” he hissed. “This dude is at my house! You told a complete stranger where I live!”
“He’s not really a stranger,” I argued.
“Why not? Because he told you his name? You sound like the world’s most kidnappable idiot right now.”
“Just relax. He seems to be totally on the up and up, okay? It’s not a big deal. Just hang out with him until I get there.”
“Fucking hurry up,” Diaz snapped. “Did you forget he’s currently suspected of arson?”
“Yeah, but he burned down his house. I don’t think he’d burn down someone else’s.”
“Is this because he’s hot?” Diaz demanded. When I stayed silent, he added, “I’m going to fucking castrate you, I swear.”
“Didn’t you hear? That doesn’t always work.”
“Too bad. Guess I’ll have to murder you instead.”
I yawned. “Yup. Guess so.”
“Fuck you. Get over here. Now.” He hung up.
I rolled out of bed and made it to Diaz’s in record time. As much as I enjoyed messing with him over the phone, I really didn’t want to push him. He was already doing me a really big favor, and the last thing I wanted to do was make him regret that decision. I was surprised when Rick answered the door. “Where’s Diaz?” I asked.
“Ah. He went back to bed. Apparently, he’s not much of a morning person.”
I considered telling Rick that we got up earlier than five thirty at work, but it seemed like a pointless argument to start. As long as Diaz wasn’t going to be beating the hell out of me, I was happy.
Pongo came thundering at me and jumped. If I hadn’t closed the door behind me, I would have ended up flat on my ass on the porch. As it was, she completely knocked the wind out of me, and she continued to scrabble at my hips and stomach, trying to reach my face so she could lick it. I laughed at first, but one look at Rick’s face proved this was a bad idea. “Does she do this every time?” he asked me, frowning.
“Kind of. Sometimes she just runs around me in circles, sometimes she does the full body tackle. I guess it depends on her mood.”
Rick nodded curtly. “Right. The jumping is a very unfortunate Dalmatian trait. We’ll have to train that out of her right away.”
I frowned. “Aw. Do we have to?” I asked. I may not have enjoyed getting bowled over, but there was something really charming to me about Pongo’s enthusiasm over seeing me. “Are you sure she won’t just grow out of it?”
“Perhaps eventually, but even then, it’s unlikely,” he explained. “Dalmatians are high-energy, and they tend to be very rough with humans. If you want her to be around people, you can’t let her jump on you like that. She needs to learn that jumping on any person is an unacceptable way to affection.” He swatted my hand away from her head where I was giving her a pleasant scratch behind her ear. “Don’t reinforce bad behavior!”
“Is it really that big of a deal? It’s not like she’s hurting me,” I protested.
“She’s not hurting you because she’s still not fully grown,” Rick explained, his voice cold and hard. The authoritative tone I’d heard from him before was back in spades. I wasn’t sure whether it was me or the dog being trained anymore. “Besides, you’re a large man. You’re, what, six feet tall and a few inches?”
“Six foot two, yeah.”
“And you’re how heavy?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Like two hundred, maybe? But it’s all muscle,” I assured him with a playful wink.
If he noted the flirtatiousness of my gestu
re, he didn’t indicate that he recognized it. He narrowed his deep brown eyes at me instead and adjusted his glasses peevishly. “Then it would make sense that she wouldn’t do any damage by tackling you, wouldn’t it? After all, you’re big enough to withstand the attack. But I have to assume that not every man at the fire house is your size. If you’re going to be bringing her around your co-workers, you need to think about their safety.”
I frowned. “Huh. I guess that’s true.”
“And,” he continued, “I read up on fire house Dalmatians a bit. They have a lot of time with children, apparently. Dalmatians can already be too rough for very small children, even when they’re trained to be gentle with them. They simply don’t know their own strength. And kids can be unintentionally rough with animals, too. You need to be sure that she’s not going to lash out at a small child or tackle and injure someone.”
I looked down at Pongo, who was looking up at me with wide eyes, apparently disappointed by the sudden lack of pets. “I never thought about it like that,” I mused. “I guess I didn’t really think of her as a weapon.”
“If you want a dog to be able to control a fire hose,” he reasoned, “that’s going to be a very strong dog. And you need to know how to control that power and energy. That’s what owning a dog is about: mastering nature. Conquering a beast and domesticating it. Taking something wild and untamed and honing it to your needs.”
“And companionship,” I added.
“Sure, if that’s what you want,” he said airily. “Now, I want you to firmly place her back on the floor, and I want you to say, in a firm voice, ‘unten.’”
“’Unten?’”
Rick visibly cringed at my pronunciation, but he still said, “Yes. It is the German word for ‘down’.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, “but I don’t speak German. I don’t know if anyone has told you this, but American schools aren’t that good. Most of us aren’t fluent in multiple languages, much less German. I mean, I took a half a year of Spanish, but all I remember from that is how to ask where a bathroom is.”
Rick didn’t even crack a smile. I couldn’t tell whether it was the German stoicism or whether it was because he was in teaching mode. Either way, I went silent immediately. “Put her on the ground and say ‘unten’,” he repeated, his voice severe.
Something about the sound of his no-nonsense tone made me shiver. Feeling like an idiot, I gripped Pongo gently under her front legs, lowered her to the ground, and said, “Unten.”
“Good,” Rick said. The note of approval in his voice was a soft one, but it was still there, and I was just happy to have made him happy. Then he said, “Now go back outside, wait a minute, and come in again.”
“What? Why?”
Rick sighed. He didn’t seem thrilled with all the questions, but I was never the type to let something go easily. “Think of it this way. When you were in school, how did you learn to write different words? Did you just learn it once, or did you have to keep doing it?”
I felt myself blushing. The answer seemed obvious when he said it like that. “The second one,” I said meekly.
“Exactly. Dogs are no different. They learn through repetition and consistency. You must train her to be consistent with you, which will then teach her to be consistent with others.” He waved a hand at me. “Now go on. Go out and come back in.”
I spent the next two hours just walking in and out of the front door. Almost every single time, Pongo still leapt straight for me. After about twenty minutes, I was frustrated enough to throw in the towel, but the look on Rick’s face told me there was no way in hell he was letting me quit. “What is the idiom in English that people always say about Rome?” he asked.
I sighed. “That it wasn’t built in a day.”
“Yes, that’s it.” He gave me a quick, sly smile. “I always seem to forget the exact phrasing. And yet it still rings true.” He half-shoved me back out the door with surprising strength. “Again.”
I was starting to think I’d gotten a defective dog when I opened the door for the umpteenth time and saw Pongo jump up towards me. Almost out of reflex at that point, I just said, “Unten.”
To my surprise, without me having to guide her, she dropped back down to the floor and looked up at me, wagging her tail.
I stared in shock. She’d listened to me. Hell, she hadn’t just listened to me—she’d obeyed me in another language.
Before I could recover, Rick slipped Pongo a treat, which she happily devoured. I pointed at her, still stunned, and said, “What the fuck was that about?”
“That,” he said smugly, “is dog training.”
“Wow.” I blinked, watching Pongo lick her lips and wag her tail so hard the entire back half of her body moved with it. “I can’t believe that actually worked.”
“Of course it worked. It just takes time.”
I nodded in agreement. I bent down, about to pet her, then stopped and looked up at Rick. “Can I…?”
“Sure. She did something well. You can always reward her with affection when she’s done well.”
So I did. I lavished her with pets, kisses, and even a belly rub. Whether or not she knew what it was for, she seemed perfectly happy to receive it. I finally stood up and rubbed my hands together gamely. “Alright, so what next? We going to teach her how to play dead and shake and find little boys in wells?”
“No,” Rick said calmly, his smile gone. “You’re going to go back outside and continue the exercise.”
“What? Why?!” I cried in aggravation. “We’ve done it about a thousand times! She got it right!”
“If I told you that the man performing brain surgery on you had a one in a thousand success rate, would you be comfortable letting him cut you open?”
“She’s not a brain surgeon, Rick. She’s a dog, for crying out loud.”
“Exactly. She’s a dog. She doesn’t speak English. You can’t just tell her what to do and expect her to understand. She must practice until she’s doing it correctly every single time.”
I growled in the back of my throat, but I didn’t want to argue with him. Something told me it wouldn’t make me look very tough or very smart. Instead, I turned around, walked out on the patio, and came in again.
Around the time Diaz woke up, Pongo was starting to respond pretty consistently. A few times, she didn’t even jump at all, which she got extra love and treats for. I informed Diaz of this major milestone as he made himself breakfast. He appeared unimpressed.
“So that’s why I was woken up at the tippity top of the plumber’s ass crack of dawn?” he asked irritably, sipping at his coffee. “So you could teach the dog some rules about personal space?”
“Give her a break,” I said, offended on Pongo’s behalf. “Everybody has to start somewhere.”
He sighed. “Yeah, okay. I’ll give you that.” He flopped down at the kitchen table. “So, what’s next? Anything cool? Are you guys going to teach her how to help blind people cross the street or bark to the tune of the national anthem or something?”
Rick snorted. “I don’t think Pongo would make much of a seeing eye dog,” he said. “And it’s going to be a while before we start training her to do things instead of training her not to do things.”
I frowned. “Really?”
Rick nodded. “Really. It’s a process I developed that has worked extremely well for me. We start out by training out negative behaviors, then start training in positive behaviors. It gives us a much more solid foundation to build on in the future.”
“So right now you’re just… teaching her not to be an asshole?” Diaz asked.
“Essentially, yes.”
“Wow.” Diaz shot me a smirk. “You got one busted-ass dog, huh?”
“Shut up,” I grumbled, but I could see Pongo desperately chasing her tail on the other side of the room. Maybe she was a little bit broken. She didn’t seem super bright, and she definitely had way too much energy. She was probably never going to be the fire dog I had hoped she�
��d be.
But, dammit, she was my dog, and as much trouble as that ball of spots had caused me, I loved her. She’d grown on me, much like any other kind of parasite, but I was surprised to find I was excited to teach her more and more. It wasn’t just because I wanted her to be “better”—I wanted to spend more time with her.
And, to be fair, spending time with Rick wasn’t shaping up to be such a bad thing, either.
“So, Rick.” Diaz scratched at his stubble. “Is that short for something? It doesn’t sound like a particularly German name.”
“My full name is Heinrich van Buren,” Rick replied.
“Oh. Wow,” Diaz muttered.
“That’s… insanely German-sounding,” I agreed.
“You may as well have said your name is Adolph Josef Hitler,” Diaz joked.
In that moment, I felt the temperature of the room drop about twenty degrees. Rick gave Diaz the kind of glare that would look polite if you hadn’t known how badly the person receiving it had screwed up. “Ah. So you enjoy Hitler jokes?”
“Uh.” Diaz scratched at the back of his head. He glanced at me, and I looked away. He could dig himself out of this hole on his own. “I mean, no. I just thought… it’s more the whole name thing…”
“No, no. I’m not surprised,” Rick said. His voice was colder than the tundra. “A lot of Americans find it exceptionally funny. I’m afraid I’ve never quite understood why, but I suppose I don’t need to. You all seem to find it hilarious enough for everyone.”
“Do they… not makes jokes like that in Germany?”
“Make jokes about our greatest national shame, the thing that very nearly destroyed our people? No, I’m afraid that we don’t,” Rick said primly. “We acknowledge the horrors that have happened in our history, but we do not joke about them.”
“Wow. Germans seem…” I fought to think of the right word. “Progressive.”
“In some ways,” Rick agreed. “But then again, I’m also a gay Jew and all of my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. So perhaps I just find it a bit less funny than the average person.”
