Gaits of Heaven by Susan Conant Page A

them was available: divide and conquer. As it turned out, Eumie, however, was still in bed. “I moved to the guest room in the middle of the night,” Ted informed me. “I haven’t seen her this morning except when I let Dolfo out at seven. She was asleep then. But she’s probably getting up now. She has a pedicure appointment, and she won’t miss that. You can get started with Dolfo.”
    Embodiment of positive training that I am, I said, “No. Our agreement is that I get you started, and I can’t do that if you’re working and Eumie’s in bed, so I’d suggest that you go and get her, or we’re going to have to forget about the whole thing. Dolfo can keep soiling in the house, and you can keep losing housekeepers, and, I might add, I don’t particularly like it that both of you apparently forgot about your appointment with me but that Eumie certainly wouldn’t miss her pedicure. So please go and get her and ask her which she loves more, her dog or her feet.”
    After glancing at his watch, Ted complied to the extent of going halfway up the stairs and calling, “Eumie! Eumie, the dog maven’s here.” After waiting a moment he said to me, “Maybe she’s in the shower. Look, I can’t miss this phone call. Why don’t you go on up and find her. It’s the door straight ahead at the top of the stairs.”
    Perhaps I should explain that I had occasionally taught people to train their dogs and had coached obedience handlers to show their first dogs. On rare occasions, I had even trained people’s dogs. Never once had my duties extended to dragging lazy owners out of bed or out of the shower, and I was not about to start redefining my obligations now. I was taking time from my own work out of loyalty to the club and sympathy for Dolfo. If the Greens had been paying me, instead of speaking my mind, I’d have quit the job. I settled for using a favorite word of Rita’s to justify my refusal to barge in on someone I hardly knew: “It really wouldn’t be appropriate ,” I said, “so please just take a few seconds to go and get her.” I paused and added, “And I’m sorry I was so sharp. It’s just that Dolfo really needs help, and so do both of you.”
    This time, Ted hustled all the way up the stairs. Dolfo chose to remain with me, either because he at least recognized my potential as a Higher Power or because he smelled the roast beef and cheese in my pockets, not that there’s all that much difference from a dog’s perspective. Having nothing better to do during Ted’s absence, I whiled away the time by pursuing my mission in life, which is to say that I used a tiny piece of the roast beef to lure Dolfo into a sit, and then sounded my clicker, fed him the treat, and told him what a good dog he was, as was certainly true. The experience of replacing barbarism with one small element of civilization was so satisfying to both of us that we repeated the exercise several times and might, in fact, have kept on training for quite a while if Ted hadn’t interrupted by running down the stairs in a panic and shouting, “She won’t wake up! I shook her, and she wouldn’t wake up! Help me!”
    Ted’s show of alarm registered on me as nothing more than a manipulative ploy to get me to do exactly what I’d refused to do, namely, to act as Eumie’s maid by dragging her out of bed for the day. The thought crossed my mind that if Ted kept trying to force me into the role of lady’s maid, I’d empty a bucket of water on Eumie’s head and subsequently inform her that I’d merely been following Ted’s orders. “Should I call an ambulance?” I asked coolly.
    Taken aback, he said, “Let’s keep it quiet. Eumie uses a lot of sleeping medication. I keep warning her to watch what she’s taking when she gets up at night. She loses count of what she’s already had. Maybe she’s just sleeping it off.”
    “Ted, if she’s taken an overdose—” Breaking off, I dashed upstairs and through the open door of the room