The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [46]
She pulled a dog hair off her coat sleeve, examined it, and flicked it away. “So let’s see him,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Let’s see him heel.”
Macon slapped his hip and started off, with Edward lagging just a bit behind. When Macon stopped, Edward stopped too and sat down. Macon was pleasantly surprised, but Muriel said, “He’s not sitting.”
“What? What do you call it, then?”
“He’s keeping his rear end about two inches off the ground. Trying to see what he can get away with.”
“Oh, Edward,” Macon said sadly.
He pivoted and returned. “Well, you’ll have to work on that,” Muriel said. “But meantime, we’ll go on to the down-stay. Let’s try it in the house.”
Macon worried they’d meet up with Rose, but she was nowhere to be seen. The front hall smelled of radiator dust. The clock in the living room was striking the half hour.
“This is where we start on Edward’s real problem,” Muriel said. “Getting him to lie down and stay, so he won’t all the time be jumping at the door.”
She showed him the command: two taps of the foot. Her boot made a crisp sound. When Edward didn’t respond, she bent and pulled his forepaws out from under him. Then she let him up and went through it again, several times over. Edward made no progress. When she tapped her foot, he panted and looked elsewhere. “Stubborn,” Muriel told him. “You’re just as stubborn as they come.” She said to Macon, “A lot of dogs will act like this. They hate to lie down; I don’t know why. Now you.”
Macon tapped his foot. Edward seemed fascinated by something off to his left.
“Grab his paws,” Muriel said.
“On crutches?”
“Sure.”
Macon sighed and propped his crutches in the corner. He lowered himself to the floor with his cat in front of him, took Edward’s paws and forced him down. Edward rumbled threateningly, but in the end he submitted. To get up again, Macon had to hold onto the lamp table. “This is really very difficult,” he said, but Muriel said, “Listen, I’ve taught a man with no legs at all.”
“You have?” Macon said. He pictured a legless man dragging along the sidewalk with some vicious breed of dog, Muriel standing by unconcerned and checking her manicure. “I don’t suppose you ever broke a leg,” he accused her. “Getting around is harder than it looks.”
“I broke an arm once,” Muriel said.
“An arm is no comparison.”
“I did it training dogs, in fact. Got knocked off a porch by a Doberman pinscher.”
“A Doberman!”
“Came to to find him standing over me, showing all his teeth. Well, I thought of what they said at Doggie, Do: Only one of you can be boss. So I tell him, ‘Absolutely not.’ Those were the first words that came to me—what my mother used to say when she wasn’t going to let me get away with something. ‘Absolutely not,’ I tell him and my right arm is broken so I hold out my left, hold out my palm and stare into his eyes—they can’t stand for you to meet their eyes—and get to my feet real slow. And durned if that dog doesn’t settle right back on his haunches.”
“Good Lord,” Macon said.
“I’ve had a cocker spaniel fly directly at my throat. Meanest thing you ever saw. Had a German shepherd take my ankle in his teeth. Then he let it go.”
She lifted a foot and rotated it. Her ankle was about the thickness of a pencil.
“Have you ever met with a failure?” Macon asked her. “Some dog you just gave up on?”
“Not a one,” she said. “And Edward’s not about to be the first.”
But Edward seemed to think otherwise. Muriel worked with him another half hour, and although he would stay once he was down, he flatly refused to lie down on his own. Each time, he had to be forced. “Never mind,” Muriel said. “This is the way most of them do. I bet tomorrow he’ll be just as stubborn, so I’m going to skip a day. You keep practicing, and I’ll be back this same time Saturday.”
Then she told Edward to stay, and she accepted her money and slipped out the door. Observing Edward’s erect, resisting posture, Macon felt discouraged. Why hire a trainer at all, if she left him to do the training? “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. Edward gave a sigh