Lab Results - Chapter One

It has been a while since I've made a post.  Sometimes inspiration fails or writer's block intercedes.  However, I've written a couple of essays that are longer than my typical blog posts.  So, I'm going to try something new.  This post will be the first part or first chapter of a three part serialized story.  I hope this won't be too jarring for those of you who have been regular readers and I welcome your reactions and comments.  Chapters 2 and 3 of this story will be posted soon - probably about three days between chapters.  As always, I'm grateful for the thousands of times this blog is read - I hope this new wrinkle will be to your liking.  td


Lab Results - Chapter 1

Each fork in the path, each turning point in life gets condensed to a single moment when a decision must be made. Yes or no, left or right, up or down, life or death. Such moments arrive whether you are ready or not.  Some hit as hard as tornadic winds while others show up like the absent final scene of a recurring dream. The moments when you are called to decide always arrive in your moments of unreadiness. 

For me, scattered among such moments are the ones that etch their details – carve the day into memory’s stone.  It’s hard to know if pain or joy holds the sharpest chisel.  Some memories reside close to the door while others are found in the dusty library stacks deep in the corners of my mind.  I don’t know why.  I am convinced, however, that some memories are guideposts and some are awakenings.  Sometimes memories are woven together as time’s thread makes its perfect stitches.

Puppet.  I always thought it was an odd name for a big dog. 

To be clear, Puppet was an 80 pound, glossy coated, Black Labrador Retriever.  Pure bred and destined for the show ring, her official, somewhat regal, name was “Cressmoor Labs – No Strings Attached.”   That name failed her; she was a compatriot never a wanderer.  Luckily the breeder called her Puppet.  Simpler, uniquely hers, the name became her.  Puppeteer might have been far more apt when she was with me.

Everything about a show dog is controlled and monitored.  She spent eighteen hours a day in a crate twenty-four by thirty-six inches, six square feet. An hour or two with her siblings and the rest learning to strut around a show ring.  Puppet had a thousand strings attached, stifling her spirit.

Success as a show-dog demands perfection, precise conformance to the breed standard.  A couple of months before I met Puppet, the breeder noticed she had an underbite.  Her days in the show ring were over.  The breeder decided she would be sold if a new owner would agree to have her spayed so the scourge of this flaw would not be propagated. 

At the time, I had been regularly checking shelters’, rescues’ and breeders’ websites looking for the big dog I had always wanted.  While I was growing up we only had small dogs.  I envied the kids with big dogs, dogs who would chase the baseball or leap into the pond to retrieve a stick. 

Puppet’s story on the website reminded me of Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree – because of some silly flaw this dog was judged unworthy.  Her eyes sagged slightly in a forlorn pose in her photo.  I sent an email asking to meet her.  The breeder responded that they would bring her to the Regional Dog Show held at the American Royal Center.  They emailed a pass to the Breeders Prep Area.

A cavernous structure used for exhibitions of all kinds of animals, the breeders were assembled row upon row in the area closed off from the show ring and spectators. Using my pass, I entered the city-sized maze of grooming tables, dog crates, and blow driers running at high speed.  Hundreds of breeders, handlers, and groomers were managing eleven hundred dogs – some of whom were vocalizing their opinions about show prep or attempting to intimidate their competitors.  

Section M3 was deep within the maze but I found them.  Cressmoor’s ten crates were arrayed five wide – two high.  Nine were occupied with Labs, three black, four yellow and two chocolate.  A groomer was harvesting a bushel of fur from a Yellow Lab in the center of their space.

I introduced myself to Dave and reminded him that we had exchanged an email about Puppet.  He said, “Of course.  She is right over there.  There’s a lead hanging on her crate.  I’m really busy here so go ahead and take her out and walk her around.  Take as long as you like and if I’m not here when you get back, just put her in the crate.”  He had said it all without a glance at Puppet or at me.   “Oh,” he added without looking up, “she might not be very good on the lead – she hasn’t been walked very often.”

 Her ebony coat glistened with more highlights than a freshly waxed limousine and rubbing her ears felt like rolling an empty velvet purse through your fingers.  She was eleven months old and had been a conscripted show dog for nine.   Releasing the latch and clipping the lead, I took Puppet out for our first walk. The lead didn’t matter.  It hung limply between us as she matched my stride, step for step.  On a crumbling, tire marked concrete curb at the far edge of the parking lot, I knelt to rub her head.

I sat.  She sat.  She looked me in the eye.  I think I saw a dog grin form.  “You and I have some work to do,” I said.  “We’ve got to convince my wife that you need to come and live with us.  So you have to be gentle and calm.”  I didn’t know how a dog could be gentler or calmer.  She licked my palm and cocked her head a little to the left as if to say, “Tell me something I didn’t know.”

Returning her to the breeder felt wrong.  It was as though I was betraying the trust we’d sealed with her lick on my palm.  “I’ll bring my wife to your kennel tomorrow,” As I handed Dave Puppet’s lead, I said.  “If it’s all okay, I’d like to take Puppet home with me then.”  He nodded.  I glanced back as he put her in the crate.  Her head hung a little lower and her tail sagged without a wag.  I walked close and knelt.  In a whisper, I said, “I know what you’re thinking.  You’re right, we do have a deal.  I’ll come for you tomorrow.”  With a half wag of her tail she curled into the back of her crate.

When morning came, I began making preparations for our new arrival.  My bride, I call her that sometimes even though we’d been married for decades, wasn’t convinced that she had much say in the decision about this dog.  I used the hour long ride to Cressmoor Kennel for making my best case for bringing an eighty pound shedding machine with a tail that could clear a table of all knickknacks with one wag into our house.  Finally, I just admitted, “I promised Puppet that I’d come and get her.”  This, of course, caused Winnie to produce her wifely knowing grin and say, “Tell me something I didn’t know.”

So began the process of teaching and learning.  Puppet had never seen stairs, so I had to teach her how to navigate treads and risers.   I stood astride her and reached forward for her right front paw and placed it on the first step.  Left front, right rear, and left rear, each placed in order.  She paused, looked back at me, then lurched up the steps knocking me on my butt.  She looked down at me while cocking her head.  With time and patience, Puppet tolerated my training and I learned her lessons.

I may have rescued her from life in a cage but soon realized that Puppet had adopted me.  She couldn’t talk but her teaching never suffered for the absence of words.

                                                                                                                                    --td

Chapter 2 - coming soon