The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [4]
But thirteen-year-old boys and dumb people and my long-dead, never-known Uncle Willie were not what the tears were really about. As I lay there, on the new pink bedspread we bought at Kmart the weekend before, I reached over my schoolbooks for a tissue and sobbed the hardest when I thought of what my mother had said to me when I left the kitchen: “Don’t get lazy now, love. You have so much potential.”
It was all about my potential. Since I became girl genius in first grade, I seemed to signify some sort of escape for her. She was so into education and my being smart that I knew there was no way to avoid college—which I already knew would be a complete waste of my time.
For the next five years, all I would hear would be questions about it. Where would I go? What would I study? Could I earn a scholarship? But I had more important things to take care of. I had three hundred years’ worth of buried bones to dig up, a curse to break, and paradise to build with a man who would never come back from the dead.
But first I had to turn eighteen, graduate, and tell my mother that I wasn’t going to college, and I guess I was crying for the night to come when it would be me that would make her sit at the darkened kitchen table and hopelessly mutter things into her bottle. I guess I was crying for the day Saffron Adams would ultimately switch roles—from girl genius with the hopes of a desperate family riding on her brain, to the biggest disappointment who ever lived within twenty miles of Hollow Ford, Pennsylvania.
DOG FACT #1
All Puppies Are Anxious to Please
Training your new puppy will be straightforward at first. Start with toilet training on newspaper, placing the pup on it when he first wakes and after meals. Remember to praise him when he uses the paper and scold him when he does not. Toilet training should not take too long, as puppies are anxious to please.
Simple commands, to go to his bed or sit, can be taught with relative success once your puppy knows what you expect from him. Dogs who have consistent, dedicated masters will always fare better than those who don’t. A master who trains his pup for one week, then abandons training will see a significant drop in the dog’s obedience. Confusion like this in the early stages is best avoided.
Remember that too much of either scolding or praising leads to a dog who is too anxious to please. A dog that needs his master more than he obeys orders is a challenge and often a menace.
I learned this the hard way at least fifty times. I won’t bore you with the details. But I will say that you’d be surprised by how many people buy dogs for the wrong reasons. They seem to expect magic dogs, dogs that don’t pee or bark, dogs that come trained and understand English.
Humans treat us like a box of chocolates half full of nibbled sweets. They claim they don’t like the nougat, but they love the ones with the almonds; I love how pretty she is, but I can’t stand the smell; I like the idea of a mutt to fetch the papers, but I’m too lazy to scoop up the minefield of shit in the backyard.
Dog Fact #1 is the most important fact to remember throughout the training of your puppy. No matter how much they frustrate you some days—peeing in the wrong place, barking at the wrong time, or not paying attention—puppies are always anxious to please, and to hear you say, “good dog.”
The next time I sat with my mother at the darkened kitchen table was almost three years later, after my brother Pat came home from seeing his Army recruiter. Pat was my favorite brother, I guess. He was good with his hands, helpful, and never macho. His recruiter had assured him that the Armed Forces exam would be easy, so he hadn’t studied for it and, as a result, he’d failed.
I think