The Rescue

11

Six-month-old Joe was wired with excitement there at the Excalibur K-9 Training Center with Teddy and Dad and an old man they called Wade. Joe had never felt energy like this. He was forty pounds of energy and happiness, with a seriously wagging saber tail.

Dogs everywhere! Some in cages with people ordering them to do things — almost all fun things that he could do very well, thanks to Teddy. Other dogs were running free in a big field of grass, playing with toys, barking. Some of them leaped through the air and bit people with pillows on their arms and legs! Whistles blew and clickers clicked and guns popped and the people voices were loud and clear. Then their voices become higher-pitched and full of kindness: Good girl Susie. Attaboy, Dismas. You’re the best, Doll!

Joe saw that these dogs were all bigger than he was, some of them by a lot. No matter. He knew he could do anything better than them and with his long thin legs he was faster for sure, and Teddy and Dad were here to rescue him if something bad happened. He had never felt this much desire to run fast and jump high and bite hard, then play and wrestle with other dogs in grass alive with scent. He hoped he’d never have to leave this place, except to eat at home and to sleep in the Team Bed.

On leash, Joe followed Teddy, who followed Wade and Dad into a big gray building. Wade was higher than Dad and wider too. Joe saw that Dad and Wade knew each other but they were not a Team. Wade had deep lines on his face. His face had the hard thing that men got when they gave a command. Not meanness but not happiness. Joe knew no word for it but he knew what the lines on Wade’s face meant.

They went into a place that looked to Joe like his garage at home but bigger and less crowded: a concrete floor, two shelves of boxes, a tool bench, bikes along one wall, a weight-lifting machine, bags of golf clubs propped up in one corner, a small desk. There were pasteboard boxes here and there, some closed and others overflowing with rags, wadded newspaper, human toys, and food containers.

Joe sensed that Teddy’s excitement was almost as great as his own. His Boy asked questions and Wade answered them with strong, mysterious words, a few of which Joe understood. He still listened intently because he knew from their tone that these words were important:

“Just to introduce us, Teddy, we’re Excalibur K-9, and though we train obedience to pet owners, the primary focus here is law enforcement and private protection dogs. We train the handler, too, if need be. We’ve been around for thirty years, so we know what we’re doing. We’re one of only two private canine academies contracted to train for the police and sheriffs of San Diego. The dogs we train for agencies are handpicked by me. We have four base models: detection, security, patrol, and protection. We train every dog as an individual. One approach won’t work on all of them. Some dogs nothing works on, so they flunk out fast. We’re all about obedience and control. Perfect obedience and perfect control. We won’t place a dog that has anything less.”

“That’s really impressive, sir. Do you love dogs?”

“I love a tool that works, and dogs are the best tools man has ever made.”

Joe registered uncertainty on Teddy’s face. But he’d understood two words of Wade’s last sentence: Dogs and Man.

“Teddy,” said Wade. “Your dad tells me that Joe here has some pretty special talents.”

“Only one, sir — he has a really, really good nose for whatever you want him to find.”

“Is that so? Do you think Joe would find those things for me?”

“He’s pretty wound up right now, but I’m pretty sure he would.”

“What’s your prompt?”

“I let him smell what I want him to find. Then I say, find this!”

“Ah, simple and clear. I hid some things around this room a couple of hours ago. Let me give Joe a try.”

Teddy walked Joe over to Wade and gave him the leash. Joe registered the change through the light, strong nylon: Teddy gone, Wade now.

Joe sat and stayed at Wade’s command and watched the man take something off a shelf. He brought a folded napkin back to Joe, opened and held it just outside Joe’s extended nose. Joe knew the smell immediately. Teddy used it. It was a very strong one and very good to eat.

“This morning’s bacon,” said Wade, unleashing the dog. “Joe — find this!”

Joe lowered his nose and sniffed the floor with his instinctive inhale that divided the air into his lungs and his sensors.

No, he thought. Then lifted his nose into the air.

Yes, but far. Yes, but small.

He eased into this lake of smells, nose still up, quartering the room and stopping to test its objects, the scent subtly strengthening, weakening, strengthening.

He weaved and sidled, sidled and weaved. Teddy used to laugh at this but Joe wasn’t thinking of Teddy now.

The box of newspapers, no.

The bicycles, no.

He stopped, raised his nose and waited, his breaths short and fast, his black nose twitching, snorting softly through his girthy Labrador’s muzzle, drawing the smells in.

The box of human toys, no.

The far side of the desk, no.

Tools, no. Shelves no.

Stop then. Air smell, yes.

Air, yes, bigger.

Go.

Air big.

Joe followed the narrowing, strengthening scent cone to the tall bag of sticks propped in the corner. Touched a small zippered pouch with his nose. Looked at Teddy then Wade then whined piteously and touched the pouch with one paw. Joe had no word for bacon, but he had cataloged the smell of it when he was two months old.

“One minute and forty-eight seconds,” says Wade, but Joe barely heard him. His full attention was on the pouch of this golf bag. Joe knew not what golf was, only that this pouch contained his purpose and his desire. It was the treasure that he has been asked to find.

It will make Teddy happy. They are a Team.

“Is that a respectable time?” asked Dad.

“Very,” said Wade.

Joe needed only fifty seconds to find the toothpaste; forty-six seconds for the brick-thick bundle of dirty dollar bills; twenty-four to locate the unopened packet of sunflower seeds; and he trotted a straight, eight-second line to the pinch of dried oregano in a sealed plastic bag stuffed into an athletic sock in the bottom of a box on a shelf.

He’d smelled all of them before, on his way to the bacon, separated and collated them in his perfect encyclopedia of smells. Like the bacon, he recognized the sunflower seeds and dried oregano from Home.

This room is easier than Home, Joe thought. Wade happy and Teddy happy.

“That was pretty good,” said Wade. Joe heard the joy in his voice and saw it in the lines of his old face.

“He found kibble inside an inflated bike tire,” said Teddy. “I cut a hole in the inner tube and put the kibbles in and patched it and blew it up. And put it back in the tire and the tire back on the bike. Once, he smelled a wart on my foot before I could even see it. He smelled it and licked it over and over. I didn’t know why until the wart came out. He smelled Mom’s tears once before they happened; he got up in her face and licked them when they started up.”

Joe sat and panted softly, enjoying the wonderful sound of good words that were clearly about him. Wondered if he’d get some Food.

“His mother is a papered Lab, you say?”

“Yes, Mabel,” said Dad.

“But you don’t know who sired him?”

“I think it was a street dog,” said Teddy. “A skinny one shaped like a terrier and a whippet but small, like he had Chihuahua in him. Funny ears, like Joe’s. I caught him looking at her through the fence two different times. He must have snuck across the border. I’ve seen them where we live.”

Joe lay down and set his head on his front paws, eyes alert, tracking the mostly meaningless words. He knew Street, Dog and his own name, which was coming up a lot here, and always in a good way.

Wade put the leash back on him and led Joe through a basic obedience test, prompted by voice commands or hand signals. Joe’s favorite was the roll over. He trotted beside Wade, who took bigger steps than Teddy, keeping his right shoulder even with the man’s left calf like his Boy taught him.

When they were done, Teddy gave him several kibbles from his pocket and petted his head the way Joe really liked.

Outside again, he saw the dogs running and jumping, sitting and staying; saw a big dog biting a man with his arm in a pillow; heard the commands shouted out and the sharp pop of a gun going off; watched the dogs on the grass fetching toys and throwing them in the air. Just seeing and hearing and smelling all of this, Joe became wired with excitement all over again.

They went to a shady place on the grass and Wade released him.

Joe sprinted into a boiling cauldron of dogs who immediately knocked him down and kept running, but in a blink he was after them, no way they could outrun him, not with those long legs.

Out of Joe’s earshot, the people discussed him:

“He’s got a good nose,” said Wade. “And he’s only six months, so it’s going to get stronger. If he knew his target odors and his discard odors, he’d be even better. He’s obedient and controls himself. The question is, what do you want me to do with him, Teddy?”

“Make him a detection dog and train me to handle him. He can find anything. He can help people find things they’ve lost. He can help find bad guys.”

“He’s small for K-9 work,” said Wade. “Detection, maybe. Security, patrol, or protection — no. Takes more dog than Joe to deal with a two-hundred-pound criminal high on meth.”

They watched Joe on the grass with the other dogs, all larger than him. If any of them had belligerent intent, none showed. Joe rolled and tumbled and sprinted and cut. An enormous black-faced German shepherd knocked him down, then ran off in victory, hotly pursued by Joe, shrieking, gull wing ears flapping.

Twenty minutes later, Wade called Joe in and took him to the water nozzle. When he was done drinking, Joe crashed onto his side in the shade, flank heaving rapidly, tongue on the ground.

“Tony,” said Wade. “I’m willing take on both your fine son and Joe. As a favor to you and to your father. I miss him and I know you guys do too. And to be truthful, this little dog has potential. Can you tell me, Teddy, what you’d like to see in your future with Joe? You’re eleven now. Your dad tells me you’re thinking of law enforcement.”

“I want to work with Joe someday,” he said. “Be his handler. Let him find important things. Like drugs and bombs and missing people.”

“Yes, but the soonest you could work with Joe would be seven years from now. He’ll be ready to retire by then.”

Joe saw and heard Teddy suddenly go sad.

“Yeah,” said his Boy. “I know. I wish we could do it right now. I want Joe to do what he’s so good at.”

“You don’t mean you’d give up your best friend for training, and for work, do you?”

“No, sir. Never. I can’t give up Joe.”

Joe lifted his head at the sad tone of his own name just now. Teddy almost never sounded like this. Matching that unhappy voice were the tightness of his face and the glistening of his eyes. Joe wondered what was happening, felt wrong inside. Things were suddenly so bad. And he was a bad dog.

Joe clunked one side of his head down on the grass again, still panting, still listening to the words that he understood were important.

“I have an idea, Teddy,” said Dad. “Let’s do the fun part. We can bring Joe here on the weekends for basic training, and they’ll show you how it’s done, and how to work with him. Someday you may get certified as a K-9 handler, if that’s still what you want. Joe will be your dog the whole way through training, and you’ll get another dog to work with when you’re old enough. Everyone wins.”

Joe lifted his head again when he heard Another Dog. He understood Dog, but this word, another, worried him. Teddy’s face was still not happy. So Joe was not happy. All the joy he’d brought to his Boy earlier today seemed to have changed into something else.

“Yeah, okay,” said Teddy. “Let’s do the fun part. That would be good.”

Joe heard some happiness back in his Boy’s voice. Humans could go from sad to happy very fast.

He would have said that it makes a dog tired, keeping track of mysterious emotions, but he didn’t know a single one of those words except Dog.

He felt them, though, deeply and clearly.