Dancing Dogs

by Jon Katz

  From far away, he heard the engine of Pete and Sally’s car. He jumped off the sofa, and took up his post by the back door.

  Lucky heard barks and signals from all over the neighborhood as the people began returning. There would soon be food. Treats, walks, balls, visits to parks, other dogs, other people.

  He heard the car pull into the driveway, next to the garage. He heard the sound of footsteps.

  “Oh, Lucky! Poor baby! Alone all day!”

  Puppy Commando

  HELEN WOULD HAVE LOVED THE ANNUAL SCHOOL FIELD TRIPS TO the local animal shelter if she could have taken home a puppy—which she had coveted almost every conscious day of her twelve years on earth—but her parents wouldn’t allow it. It was torture to visit dogs and cats that needed homes and know that you wouldn’t be taking one with you. She’d heard every possible excuse for why they couldn’t have a dog: Her mom might have allergies; her dad wasn’t really a dog person; they were busy and away from home too much; their neighbors might object; dogs were too expensive; they dug holes in the garden; they shed fur everywhere; they chewed everything from shoes to table legs; they ate garbage; they rolled in stinky things; they barked; they slobbered; they drooled. Mostly, she thought, her parents just didn’t believe that Helen was responsible enough to take care of a dog.

  They were wrong, but Helen doubted she’d ever have a chance to prove it.

  Mrs. Wuraftic, her seventh-grade social-sciences teacher, urged the kids off the bus, through the parking lot, and into the shelter’s lobby, where a worker wearing a badge began talking to them about the shelter—who paid for it, where they got the animals, how the adoption process worked. Helen tried to listen but she was distracted by the barking dogs, each of whom seemed to beg to come home with her.

  HELEN WAS THE OFFICIAL CLASS ODDBALL, though the other girls had called her meaner names than that. Over time, she had learned, as many girls do, to make sure nobody knew what she was really like, to hide those parts of herself that were most vulnerable. But rather than pretending to be interested in the newest teen hunk or fruit-flavored lip gloss, she wore an exaggerated form of her individuality like armor, protecting herself with the very same eccentricities that betrayed and isolated her.

  She didn’t notice what the other girls were wearing, nor did she giggle or moon over boys. She did not tweet about the inane details of her life or post intimate photos and experiences on Facebook. In the age of continuous connectivity, Helen was simply not connected. She browsed the Internet and researched her homework there, just like the other kids, but she was allergic to the social media that consumed her peers. For them, there was no part of life that was not known or shared.

  Helen was an only child and not well constituted for the social complexities and politics of middle school. She pined for friends, but didn’t quite know how to make them. Animals were the only living things—other than her kind but somewhat distant parents—who didn’t make fun of her. She had always loved animals. And she wanted a puppy desperately. She needed one.

  Iris, her preassigned “buddy” for the trip, was one of the popular girls. She rarely deigned to look at Helen, let alone talk to her, but she was clearly excited to be at the animal shelter. “I can’t wait to see the dogs and cats,” she said, craning her neck around the cluster of their classmates. “I love animals. We’ve always had dogs, and I really, really want a cat.”

  Helen felt the same way about animals, but she didn’t have any, and she wasn’t prone to gushing. “I just hope we get to see some puppies,” she said, popping one of the cheese crackers she always kept in her pocket into her mouth.

  It was time for them to head into the shelter. “Remember,” Mrs. Wuraftic told them, “no talking. Walk in a single file. Don’t touch any animals. Stay together.”

  JULIUS WAS LONELY. He and his siblings had been found in the basement of an abandoned house and brought into the shelter. The healthy ones had already been adopted and the really sick ones had been put to sleep; he was the last of his litter and was isolated in a special room in the shelter. People streamed by all day to look at the other dogs and cats, but they never came into the room where he sat in his crate, listening for them and waiting.

  The day before, he had been knocked out. When he woke up, his leg, which hurt badly, was in a large white cast and he could barely move. He howled and yelped for his mother, his brothers and sisters—for anybody or anything. But the shelter workers came in only twice a day to hold him, feed him, give him medicines, and move his leg around, which hurt.

  This morning Julius was alert, focused on the window of the sickroom where he knew people would pass by. He was eager to move beyond the small space and out into the world, to a calling he was drawn to but could not quite picture. It was a need, an instinct, perhaps his strongest one.

  These people were shorter than usual, and most of them walked right by the room where his crate was kept. He raised his nose in the air and caught a scent. It was a girl, one who smelled just a bit like cheese.

  Julius did not think like a human. He didn’t have organized thoughts, just images and smells that came pouring into his mind. The face of a young girl. A sense of need, of loneliness. A connection. He felt something ancient and inherited stirring inside of him, drawing him to this girl who evoked just the right mix of needs and feelings. She was his person, and he knew it with every fiber of his damaged body. Something deep inside of him awakened, and he howled and howled at the top of his very young voice.

  IN THE HALLWAY, Helen found it easier to talk to Iris than she had expected. The two really did share an interest in animals, and they “awwwwed” and exclaimed over a golden retriever puppy, three newborn kittens, and a Great Dane with enormous brown eyes. Helen saw that Iris’s love of animals was real, not just an affectation. She suspected that the class social butterfly was both bright and nice underneath the elaborate and sneering social veneer she had constructed to make herself popular. Maybe, just maybe, they could spend more time together.

  Helen heard a faint but piercing howl and turned toward the sound. She peered through the glass window on a door marked No Admittance—Medical Procedures. The howl was insistent, distinctive, and she had a strong reaction to it. Somehow, she knew—knew—it was meant for her.

  “Listen to that dog! I’ve got to get in there,” Helen told Iris, who was chewing her ever-present bubble gum and glancing down at her cell to see if anyone had texted her since they’d left the lobby.

  “You’re not allowed—it says ‘No Admittance,’ ” said Iris, her usual scorn for Helen returning.

  Helen was a bit surprised. She thought Iris might understand how she felt, how drawn she was to the sound, but the popular girl backed away and joined a cluster of her friends farther up the line. I should have known better, Helen thought.

  “I don’t care,” she said aloud. “I’m going in.”

  As Mrs. Wuraftic and the shelter workers led her classmates into the adoption bay, Helen, her heart pounding with excitement, grabbed the door and stepped into the darkened room. It felt a little creepy in there, and the second the door clicked behind her, she worried she had made a mistake. She couldn’t see much of anything, but she heard some whining and stirring and rustling. When she turned toward the sounds, she saw a tiny pair of brown eyes that shone faintly in the light coming from the hallway. Those eyes seemed to bore right into her soul, as if they knew her. As if they were saying, Helen, where have you been? I’ve been waiting so long for you.

  But the door opened suddenly and Mrs. Wuraftic’s voice came rocketing into the quiet room: “Helen! What are you doing in here? Do you want to get detention? Get out of here right now.”

  Mrs. Wuraftic’s steel grip closed on Helen’s arm, and her teacher pulled her out into the hallway. Iris and her friends were giggling and sneering at Helen. She fantasized about sticking a wad of gum to the back of Iris’s sweater, but she knew she couldn’t do it. Helen did not really understand cruelty, except that she was often on
the receiving end of it.

  Mrs. Wuraftic took Helen out of the shelter and told her to stay on the bus. A note would go home to Helen’s parents, who would be surprised. She didn’t break many rules and almost never got into trouble. She would just tell them she got confused.

  IN JULIUS’S ROOM, the smell of the young girl—and the cheese—had gone away. But she had still been imprinted on his consciousness, and she was, now and forever, his person—the person he was meant to be with and love. He was just a baby, but he already had the full instincts of a dog. There had been a moment, a connection. And now, he couldn’t forget the girl, even if he’d wanted to. Where had she gone? He had sensed her frustration, anger, and sorrow. And he knew she’d felt the connection too. He raised his nose again and again to find her smell. But it wasn’t there.

  Julius whined and howled for the girl, first softly, then loudly, but his keening cries only brought a few shelter workers in to check on him. They gathered around him and spoke in soothing tones, but Julius would not be consoled. He could not possibly make them understand.

  THAT NIGHT AT DINNER, Helen, a poor liar, told her parents the truth. She said she’d heard a dog howling and felt a connection. “That’s my dog in there, my puppy, and I think he’s sick. We need each other.” She explained that she looked for him in the Medical Procedures room. And she told her surprised parents—Helen rarely asked for anything, let alone demanded anything—that she was going to go back to the shelter to see about adopting him.

  “It was an amazing moment,” she told them. “I don’t know, we just connected. I’m old enough to have a puppy and take care of him.” Her father began reciting the familiar list of reasons why Helen couldn’t get a dog, but she put her hands over her ears and stormed off to her room. This time, she refused to hear it. Her parents looked at each other in confusion.

  “I’ve never seen her like this,” her father said in bewilderment.

  “She’s never been like this,” said her mother, equally dumbfounded.

  HELEN HAD ALWAYS WANTED a puppy not only because they were adorable, but because she and the dog could grow up together. She already knew she would need that; she could barely speak to her peers. But now, she no longer just pined for any dog. She pined for the dog that had howled for her at the shelter.

  Later, when she went downstairs for a glass of water, her mother was sitting on the sofa as if she’d been waiting for her.

  “Helen, we should talk.”

  “No, Mom,” said Helen. “We talk all the time. We should go to the shelter together after school and look for this puppy. I love you and Dad, but you don’t understand how difficult my life is. I need this. Badly.”

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Helen and her mother arrived at the shelter. Since Helen was a minor, she couldn’t adopt a pet by herself, but her mother let Helen do the talking. She was surprised by her daughter’s poise and determination. She hadn’t seen that in her before.

  Helen explained that she had gone into the Medical Procedures room by mistake. Was the puppy crated in that room up for adoption?

  “That’s Julius, a nine-week-old beagle,” said the adoption counselor, her ID badge clinking against her necklace. She looked sad. “I’m very sorry to tell you that he’s not up for adoption. He was injured—we think he was hit by a car or motorcycle—and his right hind leg was shattered. He had surgery yesterday and he will be in a cast for weeks.”

  Helen met the women’s gaze and fought back tears. “Why isn’t he up for adoption then?”

  The woman looked over at Helen’s mother before answering. “Well, we don’t know if he’ll get through this, and if he does, he’ll need a lot of care. We don’t put sick dogs up for adoption. No exceptions.”

  There was a long silence in the room. Helen finally burst into tears, and her mother took her hand and started to lead her out of the adoption room and toward the main lobby.

  Suddenly, all three of them heard a mournful howl, more piercing than loud. It cut right through the din of the other dogs and cats.

  Helen whipped her head around. “That’s him!” she exclaimed. “That’s him. I need to see him.” The shelter director looked at Helen’s mom and shook her head. And so Helen’s mother took her arm and guided her out of the shelter.

  JULIUS SMELLED THE GIRL and recognized her voice. She was in the shelter again. His howls had brought her back. He waited for her to come to him, and when she didn’t, he took a deep breath, lifted his head to the skies, and let out the loudest howl a puppy could produce.

  And then she was gone again. He’d lost her smell. Julius whined and howled all night. He didn’t eat any of his food. No one at the shelter could console him, or figure out why he was so upset.

  THE NEXT MORNING Helen woke up at six A.M., left a note for her mother explaining that she had gone to school early, and walked two blocks to the bus stop. The 114, which cost $2, went right by the shelter.

  When she arrived at seven A.M., it wasn’t yet open. She walked around to the back and looked around, then took off her backpack and hid it behind the big green Dumpster.

  She used the rear loading dock to get into the shelter and was met by a security guard sitting at a desk by the back door, drinking coffee and playing a game on his cell phone.

  “Can I help you, miss?” asked the guard suspiciously.

  Helen blushed, stammered, then recovered. “I’m a volunteer—a junior volunteer,” she said quickly. “Our class came by earlier this week, and I volunteered to come in the mornings and help socialize the animals. You know, take them out for walks, sit with them, and stuff.”

  The guard looked around. “You here alone?”

  “Yes, my mom dropped me off on her way to work,” she said, marveling at the lies that kept slipping out of her mouth.

  The guard looked wistfully at his muffin and coffee, then picked up the phone and spoke quietly before hanging up.

  “I talked with the night staff, and they don’t know about any volunteers,” he reported. “I can’t let you in here on your say-so, miss. Besides, the dog you’re here to see is leaving the shelter today. I know you were here the other day.”

  The look of grief and shock on Helen’s face was so powerful and genuine that the guard’s expression changed quickly from one of wariness to sympathy.

  “They told me he was going off to a vet school, where they would know how to work on his broken leg,” he told her.

  Helen nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Can I see him?” she asked. “Just to say good-bye? I know he’s in the Medical Procedures room, ’cause that’s where I saw him when I first came to volunteer.”

  The guard looked up at the clock, then at her. “I don’t see why not,” he said carefully, “but you can’t go in now, not without an escort. You can come back when we’re officially open and there are more staffers here. I can’t let you wander around the shelter alone. If you get lost or one of the dogs bites you, I’ll be out of a job. You don’t want that, do you?”

  Helen said no. She thanked the guard and headed out of sight toward the bus stop. Then she circled back and listened by the door. In a minute or two, she heard a chair scrape, and then she opened the door a crack. The guard was gone, perhaps to the bathroom. She crept in quietly and closed the door behind her.

  JULIUS SMELLED THE girl the minute she came into the shelter. He smelled the cheese crackers also. His barking had worked again. He was a social creature and liked humans, but he had attached to this one in a new and particular way. It would be for life. There would not be another connected to him in this way, and he knew it in his bones.

  He could hear her talking to another person, an older one with a deeper voice. The girl sounded sad to him, and lonely. He stood up in his crate and started making a racket. He longed for this girl whom he could sense and smell but not quite picture.

  He missed her.

  THE DOOR TO JULIUS’S CRATE opened. “Poor thing,” said an unfamiliar human voice. “He can’t run or walk much. I’ll
put him in the bigger open pen where he can move around a little bit. He’ll be confined in the van for a long time.”

  Two hands came in and gently lifted him out. He was given a pungent treat, carried down the hall, and then placed on the floor in a large pen with sawdust on the bottom and the smells of many other animals, mostly dogs. He could only move slowly and it hurt, but he began to sniff, soaking up the stories in the smells of the place. There were a lot of sad and painful stories in that pen, and Julius trembled. He took small and careful steps before coming to the door at the end of the pen. He howled for the girl.

  …

  HELEN THOUGHT SHE HEARD her puppy. She found the Medical Procedures room and opened the door. It was dark inside. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled to his crate. But there was no dog inside it. He was gone.

  An envelope taped to the front of his crate read “Pennsylvania Regional Veterinary School, Research Lab.” She tore open the envelope and read the note inside: “Julius … male beagle … nine weeks … multiple leg fractures … picked up for surgery, rehabilitation, tensile-tendon experimentation, and, if possible, eventual re-homing.”

  Helen didn’t understand the word “re-homing,” but what really bothered her was “experimentation.” Her mind raced. Was the vet school going to experiment on him? She had heard about labs where they practiced complicated surgeries on dogs and cats without homes. Animal-rights groups were always protesting these experiments, but the vets argued that there was no other way for them to hone their surgical skills and learn about the insides of animals. How else would they get to practice? She didn’t know, but practicing on a live animal didn’t seem right to her.

  She opened another crate and picked up a happy, squirming black puppy, a small girl. She cuddled it then put it back. It was adorable, but she didn’t feel the same thing she felt with the injured beagle. She didn’t know why. Her father always said that one dog was like another, but she didn’t agree. And this puppy didn’t howl.