by Tom Schreck
I could see the anger in him as he said it. I knew a little about puppy mills from something I got involved in awhile a go. I just didn’t put it together.
“Yeah, Shelly and Don get crazy when they talk about puppy mills. They have no use for—-Wait a minute—”
A weird look came over his face. He looked up at me.
“Al ever do any trailing?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, he’s pretty good.”
He got up and ran over to the Slobber Shoppe tent. He came running back with a dog bed.
“Hey Al, sniff.”
Al waddled over to Gary and his nose went to work. He snorted and looked up at me.
“Go to work, Al. Go to work!” I said.
“Grab the leash—let’s go!” Gary said to me.
I did what I was told. Al put his nose to the ground and went after Duke’s scent. He bolted through the Waddle grounds, didn’t hesitate by the port-a-potties, and crossed Main where the parade had been. He ducked between two houses, took a left on a dirt road and headed up a sidewalk. He was on his way to a strip mall with a dozen stores.
“He’s headed toward AnimalCo,” Gary yelled, a little behind me.
Al made a sharp turn at the parking lot and ran around the back of the buildings. I was in an all out run now and I had learned that when Al got like this he was close to what he was looking for. He stopped at a grey metal door with block letters that said “AnimalCo Deliveries.”
Gary, left behind by the charging nose machine, trotted around the corner and caught up with us. Al scratched at the metal door and let out a long baritone bay, the kind that pierced through your head like an ice pick. Immediately, a chorus of muffled dog barks answered Al. There had to be thirty dogs behind that metal door.
“Those assholes,” Gary said, “They must’ve got a shipment from the puppy mill. All the puppies are in little cages scared to death, dirty and probably hungry.”
“Aroooo!” Al yelled again and kept scratching at the door.
“Where the hell is Duke?” I said. I looked at Gary and he just shook his head. Before I could offer a suggestion a voice from behind startled me.
“Put your fuckin’ hands in the air!” I turned and saw Dorothy from the parade, complete with a bloody bandage around her right ankle. She was holding a large blue steel handgun. It was pointed at the three of us.
“Motherfuckers ought to mind your own business,” she said. The incongruity of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz cursing like a gangsta rapper freaked me out. So did the gun.
“Move the fuck over.” She waved for us to move to the left away from her door. Al let out a long slow growl.
“You better get him to shut his fucking mouth or I’ll put one between his ears.” She looked directly at me.
“Al, hush, buddy,” I said.
He didn’t.
“Grr…”
“Al, hush!” I yelled this time. It startled him enough to get him quiet. For now.
Dorothy smiled an evil smile more appropriate for a wicked witch. She was about 110 pounds of pure evil. She fished keys out of her pocket with her left hand and unlocked the door, all the while keeping the gun on us with the right.
She waved us in with the gun and the dogs in the cages went crazy. There was barking and whining and cage rattling. The open back door let in just a narrow beam of sunlight and it took awhile for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, I heard Gary gasp.
In front of us were Don and Shelly, bound and gagged. Don was bleeding from a gash to his foreman. Their eyes went wide with what seemed like a mixture of terror and doom.
“These two came around awhile ago protesting my business. Talking about puppy mill this and puppy mill that. I knew they’d be here this weekend. Now, they’re going to die,” Dorothy said it without emotion. “Maybe, I’ll grind them up and feed them to the puppies. You know, destroy the evidence.” She smiled out of the corner of her mouth.
“You,” She pointed the gun at me. “Tie up Mr. President.” She threw me some rope. I didn’t know what to do but with the gun fixed on me and the other lives at stake I did what I was told. I tied Gary’s feet to the legs of the metal chair and his hands behind him.
“Very good,” Dorothy said. She tugged at a table behind her. It rolled out in front of her. In the center of it was a large cast iron piece of machinery.
“I wasn’t kidding about puppy food. You’ve all heard about raw diets.” Dorothy smiled that evil smile. “But we’re going to need some privacy here won’t we?”
She moved back to the door. The sun light in the dark of the storeroom made it tough to see. She got to the threshold and reached out for the knob and that’s when the noise exploded.
“MOOOOOOOO!” The sound was deafening.
There was a dash of movement underfoot.
“MOOOOOOOO!” I couldn’t believe it got louder.
Dorothy screamed in excruciating pain and as my eyes refocused I saw Al’s jaws were affixed to her right ankle. Another bolt of movement and it was followed by another blood curdling scream. Duke’s canines had opened a new gusher of blood on the girl from Kansas’s left ankle.
“Ahhhhh!” Dorothy screamed and went to steady her gun at Duke’s head.
That’s when I did a quick shuffle step and drove the hardest left hand I can remember straight down the pipe and into Dorothy face. I could feel the crackle of nose cartilage and the snapping off of teeth. She went down hard, her head bouncing off the cement.
I had just knocked out Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.
We weren’t in Kansas any more.
“That bitch came out to our house and told us we better not protest puppy mill stuff at her store. We told her to get lost and that’s when she pulled a knife,” Shelly said. Duke was on her lap.
“Next thing we know we’re coming to and we’re tied up here. She must’ve drugged us,” Don said.
The cops had come and I had to explain why a professional boxer would punch Dorothy in the face. It took a little while but it looks like Dorothy will be going to jail after they move her nose back over to the center of her face and she gets some new choppers for her grill.
“How’d did you find Duke?” Shelly said. She was rubbing him behind the right ear. Al was sleeping at Don’s feet while Don petted the top of his head.
“He found me. He just walked into the bar where I spend my time,” I said. “He’s a cool dog.”
“You know he got sent back to rescues twice. People couldn’t take him,” Shelly said. She looked down, took him into her arms and hugged him tight.
“MOOOOOOOOO!”
“Hard to figure,” I said. “He was just waiting for the right place.”
It’s not every day you knock out Dorothy Gale’s front teeth and rearrange her cute little button nose. It’s not every day that Al saves a few human and canine lives either so I thought a Schlitz for me and an AJ’s cheeseburger for Al were in store.
A cold one was slid in front of me and I gave AJ Al’s dinner request.
The Foursome was locked into the local news. The anchorman was giving the lead story.
Strange happenings at this year’s Wizard of Oz festival in Chittenango. First the Dorothy Gale re-enactor was attacked by a vicious Basset Hound. Then she was assaulted in the back room of the store she managed. The whole story took a bizarre turn when she was arrested and charged with kidnapping, assault and a host of cruelty to animal charges. To say the least it was a strange day in the Land of Oz.
I could feel four sets of eyes on me. The bar was strangely silent.
I thought about Shelly and Don. I thought about Duke and as I looked at Al finishing off his cheeseburger in three bites, I thought about how lucky I was. I thought about the meaning of the Wizard of Oz.
There’s a scene toward the end when the good witch tells her she always had the power to go home. That home was where you were loved and that’s what made it home.
I thought about Duke and how he thought
he had a home a couple of times only to have it taken away from him.
Now, he didn’t have to worry about that ever again. He had Don and Shelly.
The Foursome continued to stare at me but I didn’t feel like talking about my day. Al was licking his lips and he was ready.
The Foursome, weren’t use to a lack of explanation but I wasn’t in the mood for going into details. Duke’s story had moved me and I didn’t want to talk about it.
“C’mon, Al,” I said and we got up to leave without a word. I looked down at my best friend and as we walked past the guys I said to Al,
“There’s no place like home, buddy. There’s no place like home.”
* * *
Can’t hear, don’ care. My
Heart is big enough that those
Ears are just for show.
—Ginny Tata-Phillips
Photo: Duke by Shelly Gordon
* * *
Al Goes to Agility Class
By Tom & Ginny
“You said ‘agility,’ right?” I said to Kelley.
“Yeah, dogs love it,” Kelley said. Mike Kelley was my cop friend and he was dating a woman who did dog training.
“You’ve met Al.”
“She says it will help him with obedience, anxiety and restlessness.”
“You’re talking about the dog I share a home with…”
“Yeah.”
“He seems anxious to you? He sleeps 23.5 hours a day with short breaks to eat, shit and annoy me. That must be where the ‘restlessness’ comes from, I said. I sipped from the long neck of Schlitz. It went down easy.
A loud banging interrupted our conversation. AJ was building something around the open doorway to his kitchen.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m sick of your bastard hound getting into my kitchen.” He was nailing planks up the doorframe with about two inches of space between.
“How are you gonna get in the kitchen?” I asked.
“Look, genius. It’s only going to go about three and half feet up. Just high enough so that shorty will be barred. I’m also making it a rule that when you come in with him you have to sit on that end of the bar and place two stools in front of the kitchen. I’m sick of him peeing back there and getting into the kitchen.
“But this has been my spot for years,” I said.
AJ just gave me his look and I decided to leave it alone.
Kelley waited until my interaction with AJ was over.
“Anyway, just try the agility thing, will ya? She needs customers,” Kelley said.
Kelley did me too many favors for me to say “no.”
On Saturday morning I showed up at the Crawford city dog park for agility class. The fenced in area had hurdles, fabric tunnels and various poles and what not for the dogs to run around. The park was filled with a dozen dogs or more of various shapes and sizes.
Al got out of the Eldorado and ran to the gate barking as if he objected to the company. The woman, who I suspected was Kelley’s GF, looked sporty with her tracksuit, whistle and “K9 Fun Zone” emblem over her heart.
Ginger, the dog trainer
“OK everyone, now that your dogs have had a chance to sniff everyone, let’s get control of them.”
A little nervous at my first solo gig as an Agility Trainer, at least I knew my stuff and looked good in my K9 Fun Zone uniform. Kelley had faith in me and had even sent a friend over with his dog, let’s do it!
“My name is Ginger and I am your Agility Trainer! Gather ‘round for some beginning instructions,” I said, doing my best perky.
The “getting control of your dogs” and “gather round” was going pretty well except for the Basset Hound with the big guy. The Basset seemed to have control of him and was dragging him around to keep “getting to know” the other dogs – mainly by sticking his nose in their butts or jumping up on them with two massive paws on their backs. The young retriever was ok with it and one lab puppy was cool, but the Border Collie was getting pissed off and a Shiba Inu had totally had enough, as had their owners.
“Let’s get control of your dogs,” I tried again.
“Tryin’ here,” mumbled the Basset’s owner as his dog totally broke away from him and jumped up on a Poodle’s Mom who squealed, not in delight.
I grabbed the Basset’s leash and handed him off to his owner.
“OK, time to make sure your guy knows you are the boss,” I encouraged him.
“Oh, I’m not the boss of him,” Big Guy murmured. “We’re kinda like partners.”
“Good then,” I tried in my perky trainer’s voice, “Time to get your partner in line.”
How a 75 lb. dog could drag along a 200 lb.+ man was beyond me, but that is what was happening as the Basset decided it was time to check out the place and lifted his leg on every piece of agility equipment in the place.
This was not going well.
Duffy
Kelley’s girl was nice enough and definitely easy on the eyes but the never quit perky doggy-talk was getting on my nerves. The retriever ate it up and the weird looking yippy dog with the hair was all for it.
Al, on the other hand seemed to take offense at the condescending tone and demonstrated his civil disobedience by choosing not to cooperate.
“Time to get your partner in line.”
“Ginger” said with the all warmth of a concentration camp sergeant. Al pre-growled, a sort of bass injected hum in the direction of the commandant.
“We need to get going,” Ginger said, this time without even the facade of charm. There was no mistaking who she was addressing.
Al dispensed with self-control and growled in her direction. Then he did a quick, and I must say, agile, turn. His sharp twist buckled my wrist like a black belt’s knife defense and he was running off the leash again, this time headed for the white yippy dog. You didn’t have to look real close to see what Al had on his mind.
His lipstick was out.
Before anyone could say “Fuck agility class” Al was acting it out on the cute frou-frou bitch with the pink flowery collar. He wasn’t big on foreplay and dove right in to the chagrin and horror of the woman who brought the little furry four-legger.
“Oh my God! Paris, Paris! Make him stop, make him stop!” The woman squealed.
Al’s eyes rolled back in his head while Paris seemed to grunt once or twice before it was over. It might just be me but I think the little pain in the ass dog had more of smile on her face after Al was done.
This wasn’t working out well. I thought about doing a lame Bogart and saying something about Al always having Paris but I decided against actually verbalizing it.
“We probably should be going,” I said. Al however had dropped to his side and was snoring. This player had absolutely no stamina and when I pulled on his leash he just slid across the wet grass. I slid him all the way out the gate and picked him up and gently laid him in the passenger seat of the El Dorado.
Ginger
Nice…
My first paying gig doing agility class and my wealthy Shiba Inu owner gets to witness her little girl get sexually assaulted. Not only that but now there’s the future promise of a litter of Shibasset Inuhounds. Or would they be Basseba Houndus?
My mind never really got a chance to focus on that concept because the Shiba’s owner just started to cry.
“My poor baby will have to live with that her whole life! She’ll never be the same. She’ll never trust.” It was over the top, even for a wealthy drama queen.
“Hey lady,” There was an edge to his tone. “If you ask me, your little bitch seemed to enjoy herself. If you ask me, she started it,” he said. I don’t think he was using the term “bitch” like show dog people did.
Nice…
“How dare you! You—he didn’t let her finish.”
“You’re telling me she wasn’t giving him looks? You’re telling me she didn’t lift that little rump of hers up in the air inviting him?”
Nic
e…
To be totally honest, at this point it was getting really difficult to not break a smile. I mustered all I had to remain in control.
“Bring him back when he is less anxious and restless…maybe after an obedience class or two,” I said. The goal was to help Mrs. Shiba save face and get the guy and his hound out of the dog park as fast as possible. That’s when it dawned on me.
Big guy, weird sense of humor, stupid dog—that must have been Mike’s friend. Now, I was going to have to deal with Kelley too. Just then the Basset Dude mumbled:
“Obedience class, ha! I got your obedience class…damn, she sounds just like her anal retentive boyfriend.”
That’s the last thing I heard before the El Dorado zoomed away. As if the situation didn’t have enough weirdness the guy blared the car stereo with Elvis singing: “You ain’t nothin' but a hound dog…”
Duffy
Right after Al got laid I kinda knew it was never gonna work out. I mean maybe he just wasn’t meant to be an agility dog I told Kelley that night over beers.
He gave me that look that he always gives me. The kind of look someone might give the running of the bulls, or those polar bear people who jump in ice-cold water. Not a look filled with condemnation. It’s like he’s looking at something he just doesn’t understand.
“Well, whatever,” he said after he took a pull of the Coors’ Light. “She said it was kind of funny.”
AJ was on the other side of the bar and setting up the two chairs in front of the kitchen. The half wall was in place at the kitchen door and even though he almost fell ass over teakettle, he wore a certain pride when he draped an awkward leg over it.
