by Susan Conant
As I sat at the kitchen table writing up the notes of my interview with Sally Brand, I was still trying to decide where and also worrying about who and how many. Then the phone rang, thus probably saving me from becoming the first tattooed lady ever exhibited by the American Kennel Club.
Four or five times a year, I pick up the receiver to discover that someone’s dialed my number by mistake. This call, though, was definitely for me: It was about a dog—not just any dog, either, but an Alaskan malamute.
“Holly?”
Holly Winter. Kute with a k, right? Welcome to purebred dogdom. And, no, the two litters whelped just before mine weren’t Samoyeds or malamutes or anything else Christmasy. They were golden retrievers, but, yes, of course: December. Woof woof. Let me reassure you, though, and while I’m at it, let me remind myself: Although I’m a member in good standing of the Dog Writers’ Association of America, this is not one of those tales—doubtless spelled t a i l s—told from the dog’s point of view. I don’t object to the dog’s point of view, of course; I just don’t know what it is. Although I’ve spent most of life trying to imagine it, I still see it only through a glass, darkly, which is to say that, from what I can discern, it is remarkably like God’s face. Anyway, I admitted to being myself.
My caller was Barbara Doyle. You know her? Well, if you show your dogs, you’ve seen Barbara. She has shepherds. (Foreigner? German shepherd dogs. Good ones, too.) She’s a few years older than I am, I think—maybe in her midthirties—and she’s kind of frail and romantic-looking. We train together at the Cambridge Dog Training Club.
“I happened to be at Puppy Luv this morning,” she said flatly. Like most experienced dog handlers, Barbara has complete control of her tone of voice: Even though she had known what to expect from me, she did not sound ashamed, apologetic, defensive, or challenging. Puppy Luv is a Cambridge pet shop that sells my living birthright for a mess of green pottage, lots of green pottage, but pottage nonetheless.
My own control slipped. I may even have yelled. In fact, I’m sure I did, because Rowdy and Kimi, who’d been enjoying a morning doze on the kitchen floor, opened their gorgeous brown eyes and lifted their beautiful heads. Anyway, what I yelled was: “What were you doing there?” Barbara Doyle isn’t a pet shop kind of person. In fact, she’s a sire-won-the-national-specialty, dam-went-Best-of-Opposite-at-Westminster kind of person.
“Ran out of food,” Barbara said, meaning, of course, dog food and not just any old kibble, either, but premium chow. “I know, I know,” she added, anticipating the lecture that was already dripping from my lips like drool from the mouth of a Newfoundland. “I got the smallest bag they had. I never buy from that place. The point is, you do malamute rescue, don’t you?”
“A little,” I said. “Hardly any.” I’d placed a few malamutes, sure, but most of my so-called rescue work had consisted of racking up giant phone bills while failing to find good homes for great dogs. Alaskan malamutes are big and strong, and, of course, they shed their coats, but that’s not why they’re hard to place. All rescue dogs, including all purebreds, are hard to place, all for the same reason: They aren’t puppies.
“Well, there’s a malamute at Puppy Luv,” Barbara said. “I thought you might want to know.”
“Damn.” Buy on impulse, neglect at leisure. That’s the real motto of every pet shop that sells dogs. “Damn it,” I said. “Are you sure it’s a malamute?”
The question wasn’t quite as stupid as it probably sounds. Alaskan malamutes are much bigger and brawnier than Siberian huskies. A malamute’s ears are set on the sides of the head, but a Siberian’s ears are set high, and a Siberian’s ears are fairly large in proportion to the size of the head, too, medium size, not smallish like a malamute’s. A Siberian has a fox tail, like a brush, but a mal’s tail is plumed and carried over the back. A Siberian has blue eyes or brown eyes or even one blue and one brown, but all malamutes have brown eyes. In brief, the two breeds are nothing alike, totally distinct, impossible to confuse, except—well, except that a great big brown-eyed Siberian husky looks quite a bit like a small malamute with a tail and ears that don’t conform to the breed standard.
“According to the sign,” Barbara said. “And it’s a big puppy.”
“Brown eyes?”
“Yeah. I took a good look. I just thought you might want to know.”
“I do,” I said mechanically. “Thanks.”
Now that I knew, I’d have to do something. Or do nothing. Neither prospect felt good. Do you understand why? If so, and especially if you love dogs, stick around anyway, huh? It started that Friday morning in February when Barbara Doyle called to tell me about a malamute for sale in a pet shop. It ended less than a week later. If a dog had died during that time, I’d warn you right now. I promise. I wouldn’t want to hear about it, either, you know. I wouldn’t ask you to listen. Honest to God spelled backward.
“Barbara could be wrong, you know,” I told Rowdy and Kimi, who sat directly in front of me as I stroked their white throats. As I often remind them, they are certainly the two most beautiful and intelligent Alaskan malamutes in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and possibly in the entire world.
After I’d hung up the phone, I went into the bathroom to wash my face in cold water. Then I returned to the kitchen and reseated myself at the table, where I discovered that one of the two most beautiful and intelligent Alaskan malamutes in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and possibly in the entire world, had emptied the cup of milky tea I’d carelessly left in reach. Wet tan splotches dotted my pages of notes about Sally Brand. The dogs’ black noses were wet, their muzzles white and dry, their expressions happy and innocent. When the sugar bowl is licked clean, the culprit is apt to be Rowdy. The shredded remains of a grease-soaked pizza carton mean that Kimi’s raided the trash. She’s usually the one who removes the ripening bananas and tomatoes from the kitchen windowsills, but Rowdy shares her spoils. I can even identify who’s eaten what where: Kimi swallows the tomatoes whole, but Rowdy leaves a puddle of juice and seeds. Rowdy is fantastically adept at peeling bananas; a slimy brown and yellow mess bearing visible tooth marks means Kimi. An empty teacup, though, can be either one. When I warn prospective adopters that Alaskan malamutes are big, strong dogs that shed, I should probably add that they’re opportunistic predators as well. On the other hand, they are highly intelligent listeners.
“So,” I went on, “all I do is go take a look, and then I call Siberian Husky Rescue and break the news, and then, too bad, but it’s their problem, not mine.”
Have I lost you? Most pet shop dogs get flown in from the Midwest. The puppies are in crates, the papers aren’t, and whoever picks up the pups at the airport matches up the puppies and papers. Got a fifty-five-pound pet shop “malamute” with pretty blue eyes? Well, now you know why. Don’t let it worry you, though. Siberians are great dogs, too. Oh, but you wanted a malamute? What can I say? The obvious, I guess: You should have gone to a breeder.
The dogs gazed soulfully at me. Objectively speaking, they really are beautiful. If you’re not used to our New England malamutes—Kotzebues—they’d look small to you, I guess, even though they’re considered big around here. Rowdy’s permanent diet usually keeps him reduced to eighty-five or ninety pounds, and Kimi weighs seventy-five, which happens to be ideal for a bitch. They’re both dark wolf gray with white undercoats and white trim—white feet, legs, underbellies, and the undersides of their tails—but Kimi has some pale beige-tan, too. Their faces, though, are distinct: Rowdy has what’s called an “open face.” Yes, I know. It sounds like a Danish topless sandwich, but it means all white, in contast to black facial markings like Kimi’s. She has the works, a full mask: black cap, black bar down her nose, and black eye goggles. Her eyes are deep brown but slightly lighter than Rowdy’s. His are so dark that you have to look closely in good light to see the line between the pupil and the iris. I might also mention in passing that Rowdy happens to have the ideal malamute head, rounded over the skull, with standard-epitomizi
ng wedge-shaped ears set on the sides of his head precisely where they belong. Oh, and a nice blocky muzzle, too. Thick bones. Great front. And rear. And you really should see him move. Very typey dog. Breed champion, finished easily. Have I digressed?
Oh, yes. Puppy Luv. I’d never entered the place before. Ever since I’d started writing my monthly column for Dog’s Life, I’d been warning my readers that pet shops that sell dogs support the puppy mill industry, and I’d urged my readers and everyone else not to buy so much as a single toy-size dog biscuit at a place like Puppy Luv. Obviously, then, I wouldn’t have gone there to replenish my supply of food, collars, leads, Vari-Kennels, Redi-Liver, Souper-size Nylabones, Gumabone Plaque Attackers, Boodabones, Nylaflosses, chew-resistant Frisbees, undercoat rakes, wire slicker brushes, shampoos, coat conditioners, flea-control products, or any of the other bare necessities of life. In truth? I’d never entered the place because I’d been afraid to see a malamute puppy for sale there. Yes, I know. I should have been upset at the prospect of seeing any puppy of any breed sold to any dog-ignorant, dog-negligent, and maybe even dog-abusive credit card carrier who’d plunk down a Visa Gold. And I was distressed, too. But I cared more about my own breed than I did about the others. Not every human being values a great listener. Some people don’t want a fascinating companion who takes an active, intelligent interest in the world. Many people don’t enjoy a dog who’s a mental and emotional equal. The average person does not actually relish being dragged along the street like a sledge on the permafrost. In brief, the Alaskan malamute is the wrong breed for most people, and one of the worst breeds for someone who should never own a dog at all.
So I knew I had to go to Puppy Luv, but I didn’t quite trust myself. Was I afraid I’d shoot the salespeople, ransack the place, and steal the puppy? I’m not sure, but I definitely didn’t trust myself. So I called someone I do trust, Steve Delaney, who is Rowdy and Kimi’s excellent vet and my equally excellent lover, but, in this context, as one says here in Cambridge, a person who can be relied on to discourage a companion from shooting salespeople, ransacking pet shops, and shoplifting small malamutes.
“Steve, there’s supposed to be a malamute for sale at Puppy Luv,” I said breathlessly, “and if I go there alone, at a minimum, I’ll make a scene, and I need you to make sure the puppy’s at least healthy.”
Steve has a rumbly voice. “Good morning,” he said slowly. “Last night was great for me, too.”
“Yes,” I said. It took me years to master this kind of seductive patter. Just imagine my pillow talk. “So meet me there when you finish for lunch, at what? Noon? Twelve-fifteen? It’s in that sort of shabby little shopping mall near the—”
“I know where it is. Holly, you aren’t going to buy—”
“Of course not. I’ve written about it a thousand times, okay? The puppies will be all right. It’s the breeding stock that suffers.” You know about that, don’t you? Twenty-five hundred licensed puppy mills in this country, another twenty-five hundred unlicensed, only that can’t be right, can it? Because there are four thousand just in Kansas, and Missouri is worse. I know all the stats. Ninety percent of puppy mills are filthy, close to a hundred percent of pet shop dogs come from puppy mills, pet shops sell about half a million dogs a year, and when you buy a puppy from a pet shop, all you do is perpetuate the suffering of the breeding animals. “I know!” I said. “I write about this!” I thought for a second and added feebly, “Or I try.”
“Holly, you’re going to have a real hard time seeing that puppy and walking out. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“That’s the point! I don’t want to do it. Steve, please come with me. I don’t want to go all alone. I need you. Please come with me. The puppy could be sick. He might need help. Please.”
“Twelve-fifteen,” he conceded. “On the sidewalk outside.”
“Beautiful. And Steve? Uh, don’t dress like a vet.”
He laughed and asked what that was supposed to mean.
“You remember that sweater your mother gave you for Christmas?” I said. “Did you put it in the Saint Vincent de Paul?”
Just off Concord Avenue, a few blocks from my house, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul maintains a large collection box in which prosperous Cantabrigians deposit wearable presents they don’t like. When Steve opened his mother’s Christmas package, saw the sweater, and said, “Huh. Saint Vincent de Paul,” I suggested that he attach a stamped envelope addressed to his mother so that the true recipient could thank her for the gift, but he refused. Steve’s main objection to the sweater was the crocodile. He said that his own mother should know that he didn’t specialize in exotic pets and that whoever ended up wearing the sweater probably didn’t, either, and wouldn’t be any more grateful than he was.
