Page 12 of Scout Takes the Lead
“Don’t start that,” Becca said.
“What?”
“Changing him. Maybe working online is exactly the right thing for him. You don’t know enough about him to start shaping him to what you want him to be.”
Maybe Becca was right. I remembered how twitchy Alex had been when I had to drag him into the training session. There was probably something wrong with him. After all, I liked him. And with my track record, that wasn’t a good thing.
I felt the need to change the subject. “How are Henry and Navajo?”
Becca had a pair of rescue dogs. Henry was a take-charge Yorkie mix, and Navajo a submissive dachshund. Both were reasonably well-trained, but I had worked with them to get over their anxieties and help them live together.
“Yesterday I took them with me to visit my parents, and Henry wanted to drive,” Becca said. “He was so adorable, climbing into my lap and leaning on the steering wheel. “Navajo was happy to stay in his carrier on the back seat.”
“They’re good boys,” I said. We settled up the bill and said goodbye, and I left Becca wondering why I was the only person I knew who didn’t have a dog.
My week ran by fast. I had a couple of emergency sessions with a client who was about to go out of town and wanted me to work with his dog and the woman who would be pet-sitting in his house, and I was called in to work a couple of extra shifts at the pet store. That’s when I ran into Alex again.
7: Small Steps: Alex
The dollhouse was quickly taking shape. I had the floors, walls and ceilings in place. I ordered tiny light fixtures on Amazon, and I installed them over the bedroom and the living room and the kitchen, and ran wires to a battery pack attached to the rear wall. It was so satisfying to see the rooms light up.
I spent most of rest of the week working and training Scout. He was such a fast learner that I was tempted to move quickly, but everything I read online said that the key to training was repetition and taking things slowly.
Wednesday I took Scout to the pet store to pick up some more food, now that I knew what he liked. I spotted a vest that said, “Service Dog in Training,” and I thought that was true enough that I could get it for him.
I took it off the rack and knelt down beside him to try it on. I fiddled with the clasps for a minute, but my hands were too big and clumsy and they started to shake.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
I looked up to see Grace smiling at me. “Is this your natural habitat? You hang around here looking for clueless guys?”
“Actually I work here,” she said. “Part time, in addition to doing the training sessions. It pays the rent.” She looked down at the vest in my hands. “You buying that for Scout?”
I nodded.
“You know it’s a bad idea to pretend your pet it a service dog, just to take him into the grocery with you.”
“He’s going to be a service dog, when I get him trained,” I protested. I could tell that wasn’t enough for her. Time to man up. “I had some bad experiences in the military,” I said. “I still get jittery around loud noises and I have trouble sleeping. I’m hoping Scout can calm me down.”
“Why don’t you get a service dog who’s already trained?”
“Do you know how expensive they are?” I asked. “Or if you get one from an organization, how long the wait is? I couldn’t wait any longer.”
She looked at me as if she was seeing me for the first time. “Let me show you how this works.” She knelt down beside me, with Scout between us. “This piece goes under his belly, and snaps up here,” she said, lining up a latch by the side of his neck. “And this other one goes around his chest.”
“You make it look so easy,” I grumbled, as she slid the latch in over his soft, golden fur.
“You’ll get used to it. Fortunately Scout seems very patient.”
“He is. You know he and Cheyenne were littermates?”
“Cheyenne the wild dog? With the equally wild dad?”
“That’s the one. Kenny’s afraid you’ll kick him out of the class if he can’t get Cheyenne to behave better, so I’ve been helping him.”
“That’s good,” she said. She stood up. “I see you got more food. He likes that one?”
I stood too. “Yeah, he does.” We looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. I had the urge to ask her out on a real date, but I knew I was still too messed up to drag someone else into my problems.
