Jane nods. “I know Yum-Yum will miss going in to see them.”
“Maybe if he does all right with the chemo, he can still go in sometimes,” I suggest. “If he’s feeling okay.”
“We’ll see,” Jane says, then adds, “I still think you should consider going through the training with Sneakers.”
I laugh. “Are you kidding? You saw what he did at the hospital the other day. Sneakers is a mess! A good dog,” I’m quick to add, “but a real mess.”
“Psh! He’s young,” Jane assures me. “He just needs lots of love and a lot more training, that’s all.”
“I don’t know, Jane,” I say as I stare out the window at the fields rushing past. “I’m just no good at training him.”
“Well, you must have done something right,” she says. “J.J. has told me how you all helped save Sneakers from that puppy mill. He had a really tough beginning—starved and mistreated. All that could have made him a mean or mistrustful dog. But he’s not. He’s very happy and loving. Part of that’s his nature, but part of it’s due to how he’s been treated. How you’ve treated him.”
I look at Jane in surprise. I hadn’t thought of that. I was beginning to think I was just a big, fat failure when it came to Sneakers. Sure, I’m probably not the best dog trainer. But maybe loving Sneakers is a good start.
“Dogs learn a lot from their owners,” Jane said. “And Sneakers is such a sweetheart. He’s learned love and trust from you. He’s learned to like and trust people instead of fearing them. Hey, that’s more than half the battle.” She reaches over and pats me on the leg. “That’s something to be proud of. Now all you’ve got to do is work on his manners a little.”
I smile at Jane. Her words mean a lot to me. “Do you really think I can do it?” I ask.
“I know you can,” she says. “Keep working with him. And if he shows he can learn, I’ll help you get him enrolled in a formal training program.”
I cuddle Yum-Yum in my arms. “What do you think?” I murmur in his ear. “Think Sneakers and I can do it?”
Yum-Yum is dozing, exhausted from his day.
But he almost looks like he’s smiling.
Chapter Ten
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Two nights later, I’m dreaming that I’m in the circus. The audience applauds as Sneakers—dressed in a ruffly collar and a sparkling hat—leaps through a ring of fire. Proudly, I bow before a standing ovation. Sneakers sits up on his hind legs and barks.
Over and over. He keeps barking, even after the audience stops clapping. Even after the audience fades away.
Suddenly I sit up. I’m not at the circus. I’m in my bed. It’s dark in my room, and Sneakers is barking wildly in his crate.
“Shhh!” I tell him. I pick up my watch from the nightstand. “Sneakers!” I whisper. “For goodness’ sake, it’s three A.M.!”
I crawl out of bed and open the crate. Sneakers darts out and runs through the open bedroom door.
“Whoa,” I say through a yawn. “He must really gotta go.”
I follow him downstairs, but he’s not standing by the back door. He’s pawing at the door leading into the clinic.
The lights are on. Gran must be in there. Emergency!
I open the door, and Sneakers scampers into the clinic. I’m right behind him. Maybe Gran will need my help.
My heart skips a beat when I see who’s there with her.
Jane and Yum-Yum!
“Gran! Jane! What’s wrong?” I ask.
Jane looks stricken. “Yum-Yum hasn’t eaten in almost two days. At first I thought the treatment might have made him lose his appetite. Then tonight, I noticed his jaw was a little funny-looking. I woke up at two A.M. to his whimpering. J.J., can you help him?”
They rush him into a treatment room. I stand near the door, but I think I’m too upset to help.
Gran gently strokes the dog, examining him everywhere. He yelps when her hands barely touch his muzzle.
Gran’s brow knots. “His teeth are loose, and he may have even fractured his jaw. The tumor is doing extensive damage now,” she says.
“Fractured!” Jane exclaims. “But how? I’ve been taking such good care of him! He’s with me night and day, J.J. He hasn’t fallen or tripped—”
“Jane…” Gran lays a hand on her friend’s arm. “That’s not it. I can’t be sure without more tests, but I’m pretty certain that the cancer has spread to his bones.”
I turn away. How awful! How will he be able to eat now? Yum-Yum’s body is breaking down. And all our love can’t stop it. “I’ll be out in the waiting room if you need me, Gran.”
Gran is kind enough not to ask me to stay.
I sit at the receptionist’s desk and sort through piles of paperwork and files, trying to be useful, trying to keep my mind busy. But the words written on them blur as my eyes fill with tears. I push them to the side, afraid I’ll just mess them up.
I marvel at how quiet the world seems at three A.M. People sleeping, dreaming their dreams—even as an emergency takes place down the hall.
• • • • • • •
At some point I feel someone shaking me. I realize I’ve fallen asleep on my folded arms, drooling into the corner of my elbow, I get up and shake the sleep from my eyes.
“How is he?” I blurt out.
“Yum-Yum is resting comfortably,” Gran tells me. “I gave him something for the pain.”
Jane is sitting across from me on one of the waiting-room couches. She looks as if she’s in a daze.
I don’t know what to say or do. And I’m afraid to ask questions. “I’ll go make some tea,” I say, and hurry into the kitchen.
The water seems as if it will never boil, but at last it does, and I hurry back to the clinic with three mugs of tea.
I find Sneakers sitting on the couch next to Jane. She laughs softly through her tears. “That’s perfect therapy-dog behavior,” she says, rubbing the little dog’s head. “Sneakers can sense who needs some comfort.”
I’m surprised. “You mean, he can really tell what you’re thinking?”
“Sure,” Jane says. “Sometimes I could swear Yum-Yum is reading my mind.”
I think of my mom’s latest craze. “You mean, like ESP and all that?”
Gran smiles. “Well, I don’t know about that. But dogs are very tuned in to people. They can pick up on all kinds of little signals—expressions, body language, mood. That’s why it’s so easy to send the wrong signals to dogs when we train them. They just want to please humans. They need consistent, steady training. And lots of love.”
Jane sits there a moment, stroking Sneakers’ back. Of course, Sneakers loves it. But I realize that the action seems to help Jane even more than it does Sneakers. A calmness comes over her.
“J.J.,” she says at last.
“Yes, Jane?”
Jane looks at Gran without speaking.
Gran looks back.
And I think, Wow. Amazing. Neither woman says a word, and yet a whole conversation passes between them. Even watching from the outside, I know what they’re saying. So their next words don’t really surprise me—even though it hurts to hear them spoken aloud.
“I think if Yum-Yum could talk,” Jane almost whispers, “I think he’d say… it’s time.”
Gran nods.
“I love Yum-Yum so much—” Her voice breaks.
Tears well up in the corner of Gran’s eyes.
“Enough to let him go,” Jane finishes.
Gran hugs Jane, and the two women just hold each other for a moment.
Then Jane pulls away, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes.
“Oh, Jane…” I say. And I know. They’re going to put Yum-Yum to sleep.
“You don’t need me, do you, Gran?” I say as the tears stream down my face. I know there’s no way I can help with this.
“No, hon. We’ll be fine.”
“Can I go tell him good-bye?”
Gran nods. She and Jane
let me go in alone.
I go over to the cage where Yum-Yum is dozing. I open the door and stroke his soft fur. I scratch behind his ears, just the way he likes it, and his eyes flutter open a little.
“Good-bye, Yum-Yum,” I whisper. “I’ll never forget you.” I kiss his little head.
Then I run from the room.
Gran catches me in her arms and holds me close. It helps.
Then she releases me, and she and Jane go in together. To tell Yum-Yum good-bye. And to take away his pain.
I don’t know how Gran can do it. She really is amazing.
I run outside and sit on the back deck.
I watch the first whisper of pink tint the sky.
Sneakers climbs into my lap, and I hold him tightly as he licks my tears away.
Chapter Eleven
• • • • • • • • • • • •
By the time the rest of the world yawns awake, I’m out in the yard, hard at work. I can hardly bear to think about Yum-Yum—it’s too painful. It’s worse if I sit and do nothing. So I throw myself into a heavy training session to block the grief from my mind.
“Sit, Sneakers. Sit.”
When he doesn’t sit at first, I press down gently on his rump and pull up on the leash. Sneakers instantly sits.
“Good dog!” I praise him, rubbing his ears. Sneakers barks happily.
With Sneakers’ help, I’ve dried all my tears. And I’ve decided there’s only one way to really deal with my sadness over Yum-Yum. That’s for me and Sneakers to continue Yum-Yum’s work at the hospital. It will be like a tribute to his memory. Maybe that will help.
We do “sit” a couple more times. Sneakers gets better, and each time, I reward him for doing it right.
Then I switch to “stay.” I stretch out my right hand, palm forward. I move my hand right in front of his face and say firmly, “Stay. Stay!” Slowly I take one step away.
Sneakers barks happily and lunges after me.
“No, no, no!” I say, pulling up on the leash. He looks so cute that I want to reach down and hug him.
But I don’t. I make myself resist the urge. I must be careful not to send him mixed signals and confuse him. And I must give him praise only when he does something right. “Let’s start again with ‘sit’ and then ‘stay.”’
I smile. It’s finally sinking into my thick head that part of training a dog is training yourself. “We’ll keep working on it, over and over, till we get it right—you and me, Sneakers. I promise.”
We begin again.
The sun is still low in the sky when I hear the screen door screech open.
Gran has taken Jane home, so I know it’s Maggie before I even turn around. I hear her bare feet on the deck.
“Whatcha doing?” she asks as she sits down on the top step. Her hair is still rumpled from sleep.
“What does it look like?”
“Kind of early.”
I shake my head. “Actually… it’s kind of late.”
“Huh?”
The sadness wells up in my throat again, but I try to keep it from spilling over. I don’t want to look like a wimp in front of Maggie. “Jane Young brought Yum-Yum in last night, around three o’clock—”
“Oh, no—”
“Yeah.” I sit down on the step beside my cousin to tell her what happened. “Gran had to—” My voice chokes. “You know…”
Incredibly, Maggie reads my mind. She’s silent, clears her throat… and the next thing I know, she’s giving me a hard hug.
Maybe my stubborn cousin and I do have something in common.
After a few seconds, we pull apart. I wipe my face with my sleeve.
“So how’s Jane?” Maggie asks.
“Not too well. Gran’s over there with her now.”
“How’re you doing?”
“I’m okay.”
Maggie stares out across the yard. “That’s part of being a vet volunteer. But you never get used to it. At least, I never do. Even though I know it stops the suffering.”
“Gran’s amazing,” I say.
Maggie nods. That’s one thing she agrees with me about. “She loves animals. And that’s why she’s strong enough to be there for them even during the hard parts.”
Sneakers trots up with a stick in his mouth.
“Oh, you want to play, huh?” I say. I pull on the stick, trying to take it away so that we can play fetch.
Sneakers won’t let go.
“Hey! I can’t throw it if you won’t let go!” I say, tugging on the stick.
Maggie clears her throat. “Do you mind if I make a suggestion?”
She says it so nicely—so unlike the way we’ve talked to each other in the past week—that I have to laugh. “Please,” I say.
Maggie grins and stands up. “Okay. Let go of the stick.”
I let go.
“Now stand up,” she orders me, and we walk down into the grass. “Think firm. Let him know you’re the boss and that you expect him to mind.”
“I’ll try,” I say. “But what exactly do I do?”
“Hold out your hand and say, ‘Give.”
I actually laugh out loud. “Yeah, right. No way that’ll work!”
“It’ll work,” Maggie insists. “If you say it the same way each time—and keep saying it till he understands what you mean. And praise him even if he just thinks about giving the stick up.”
“Okay.” I turn toward Sneakers. I think about a teacher I had in third grade, Mrs. Myerson. I hold out my hand the way she did when she knew a kid had gum in his mouth. “Give,” I say firmly.
Sneakers promptly runs off across the yard.
I glare at my cousin. “See? I told you.”
“Give the dog a break,” Maggie says. “It’s the first time you did it.”
I start to chase after Sneakers. “Come back here! Give me that—”
“Don’t,” Maggie says, grabbing my sleeve.
“But…”
Maggie grins and shakes her head. “Plant your feet. Make him come to you. Make him sit. Use your leash to keep him from running off. Insist—through your body language, the look in your eye. He’ll come around.”
“But—”
“Trust me,” Maggie says, laughing. “The most important thing to remember is this: Dogs want to please you. Got that?” She turns back toward the deck. “Keep trying while I go make us breakfast.”
“Uh, Maggie?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we maybe have something besides that fake food you call cereal?”
“Sure,” Maggie says with a grin. “How about some microwave French toast?”
I roll my eyes, but this morning I can’t argue.
My dog and I have work to do.
After breakfast, I decide to make a big chart to track my training time with Sneakers. Brenna gave me copies of the pictures she took the other day, and I pick out my favorite—the one of Sneakers licking my face—to tape to the chart. Then I write “Zoe and Sneakers’ Training Chart” across the top. After all, we’re both learning what to do.
I’ve noticed that when I work with Sneakers, he does pretty well for a while, but then he gets distracted. So I plan to work in short sessions, a couple of times a day. Every day.
I use a magnet to stick my chart to the refrigerator so that I won’t forget about it. I don’t know if it will work.
But I’m going to try.
• • • • • • •
Five days later, I’m stunned. Sneakers is doing better. Even Maggie is impressed.
“See?” Maggie says. “I knew you could do it.”
I smile at her praise.
“All you needed to do,” Maggie adds, “was do exactly what I told you!”
I pretend to growl. Then I grin. “Thanks so much, Margaret!”
“Don’t call me Margaret!” Maggie screeches. She hates that name.
Gran steps out on the deck, shaking her head. “Girls, girls. Not again. How many times—”
S
he stops when she sees Maggie and me laughing and throwing leaves at each other, and she smiles. “Never mind,” she says, and heads back inside.
So the training is going well. Getting Sneakers to stay in his crate at night is a bit harder. The first night, I gave up and let him sleep in the bed with me, but I closed my door so that he wouldn’t wander around the house. When I woke up in the morning, Sneakers was quiet—too quiet! I jumped out of bed and found him chewing on one of my shoes.
That definitely motivated me to work harder!
So that night, I put him in his crate. But the only way I could get him to stop whimpering and crying was to sleep right next to his crate with my hand where he could lick it.
I was pretty sore the next morning from sleeping on the floor.
The next night, I moved a little farther away. The following night, I put a T-shirt I’d worn that day into Sneakers’ crate with him. I guess it smelled enough like me to make him happy. He was pretty quiet most of the night.
By the next night we both slept peacefully in our beds.
The one command that still doesn’t work with Sneakers is “roll over.” He just doesn’t seem to understand what I mean. I even act it out for him. I get grass stains all over my clothes, but he still doesn’t get it. I’ll keep trying, though, because the kids really like it.
• • • • • • •
Two days later, I’m walking Sneakers around the neighborhood. He’s doing pretty well with “heel.”
Then I realize we’re near the beauty salon.
Jane hasn’t come by Dr. Mac’s Place since the night they put Yum-Yum to sleep. And I haven’t gone to see her, either. I guess I stayed away because I don’t know what to say.
I look through the plate-glass window and see Jane blow-drying a customer’s short red hair. She’ll be finished soon.
“Maybe we should stop in and say hi, huh, Sneakers?”
Sneakers barks, so I lead him up the steps. A bell over the door tinkles as we enter the salon.
Still brushing and blowing, Jane looks over her shoulder. “Zoe!” she exclaims. “And Sneakers! How’re you doing!”
“Hi, Jane,” I say. “Are you busy?”
“Mrs. Martin here is my last customer till this evening Can you wait?”