Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into a Family by Glenn Plaskin

door. She’d pull
     the leash off the knob, sit down waiting to be hitched up, then race down the hallway to the elevator and patiently wait for
     it to open.
    Smart and agile as she was, her physical abilities couldn’t always keep up with her determined spirit. Most frustrating to
     her was her inability to leap onto the bed without my help, though she’d try. She’d make a running start but repeatedly fall
     short of the bed, falling back down onto the carpet like afailed gymnast, toppling over on her back, looking startled and confused.
    But we worked it out. I’d say “go,” she’d take a leap, and then from behind, I’d give her a big boost with my palms, lifting
     her onto the bed. Within eight months, she’d mastered the move. In fact, she was well on her way to running my entire household
     single-pawedly.
    Now it was time to put her to work.

C HAPTER S IX
News Hound
    I n the fall of 1988, as Katie was practicing her sitting, coming, and staying, and racing up and down the hall with her favorite
     blue rubber ball, I was busily looking for a full-time job as an entertainment reporter—hoping to end the isolation of working
     at home.
    One wintry day in mid-November, I had a job interview set up at CNN and impulsively decided to take Katie along with me, as
     Pearl was away that day and I didn’t want to leave her alone. Besides, I thought having a puppy present might break the ice.
    “Wow,” said the producer, Scott Leon, marveling at Katie’s long ears. “She looks like Lady from
Lady and the Tramp.
” I’d never thought of that, but she really did. “I bet she’s photogenic.” Katie shook her ears and went obediently “down”
     for a nap, snoozing under Scott’s desk as we talked.
    We had an enjoyable interview, but Scott must have ultimately thought the dog was better on-camera than me, because I didn’t
     get the job. But it gave me a good idea.
    From then on, I’d take Katie to
all
my interviews. It couldn’t hurt. And with the weather getting colder, why not increase the entertainment value by dressing
     her up, usually military-style,in a navy-blue knit coat with brass buttons on it (sometimes complemented by a red knitted hat that tied under her chin in
     a bow).
    Every time we went out on such appointments, Katie jumped into the back seat of the taxi and sat up with her paws on the door
     and her nose pressed up against the window, studying the view. She soon learned how to negotiate escalators, elevators, revolving
     doors, and subway steps, all while practicing her new manners.
    One day later that month, I had an interview with Gil Spencer, the charismatic editor in chief of the
New York Daily News
. He had a great sarcastic wit and the ability to tease out someone’s true personality. I instantly clicked with him. And
     he liked dogs too.
    “Where did Katie go to journalism school?” he inquired, looking over my interview clips.
    “Well, she took her undergrad degree from Columbia, her master’s from NYU, and now she’s ready to work,” I joked. (Neither
     of those schools were in my résumé, as my degrees were in classical music, not journalism.)
    I had three more follow-up interviews at the
Daily News
’s classic Art Deco headquarters on 42nd Street, an impressive structure that inspired the design of the
Daily Planet
building for all the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s.
    I’d found after my first visit that dogs weren’t allowed in the building—much less in the newsroom. But defying this rule,
     I snuck Katie in anyway, each time hiding her in a large shopping bag as we passed by the giant globe of the world slowly
     rotating in the lobby.
    Only Katie’s black nose stuck out from the bag as I passed by security guards at the elevator. When she started squirming
     a bit, I headed her off, “Shhhhhh!”
    When we reached the newsroom floor, she’d leap out of the bag and trot through the bustling newsroom and into Gil’s spacious
     office again.
    She’d