The Nose Knows (7 page)

But both the humans and the dogs came with a story that had taken time to develop. With the dogs, Mom could write her own version of the story based on what their behaviors and their scars told her. With the humans, she only got to know those chapters of their lives that they let her see. Martha (married to Stanley) and Joyce (who had lost her children) were willing participants. Melanie, on the other hand, was not. We had to trick her into participating.

She was referred by a social worker who worked with troubled kids. Melanie refused to go to school and had a long record of juvenile offenses. She had recently been arrested for shoplifting. The judge was fed up and was ready to send her to jail until the social worker intervened. She got the judge to agree to probation with mandated therapy hours instead of jail time. The social worker also got a charitable foundation to pay Mom’s bill. Of course, Melanie agreed to attend since it kept her out of jail. She was only fifteen.

Why I ever decided to help this one is still beyond me. She was just plain ornery. She was repeatedly late. Not late enough to lose the appointment, but late enough to be annoying. It was as if she knew exactly where the boundary was and how to manipulate it. She was a lot like Bobby in that way. Mom tried to set limits but Melanie out-maneuvered her every time. She’d be on time for one appointment and then late for the next. Then she’d arrive early for the third and not at all for the fourth. On it went. She refused to be dependable.

As if that weren’t bad enough, when she did arrive she might not say a single word.

Today had already been a hard day for Mom. Two people hadn’t showed up for their appointments. One of them was at a crucial place in his therapy and Mom was fretting about him.

Then in came Melanie. Yup, Melanie, the ugly.

Usually, I just lie on my bed, beside Mom, and no longer look at faces. To this day, I cannot tell you what Martha looks like, but I could easily pick her out of a crowd if she began to speak. I’d never seen Melanie either, but I still thought of her as ugly. Everything about her was ugly. From her voice, she sounded like she’d be slumped in the chair, avoiding eye contact, smoking, and looking like she needed to see the groomer. Sure enough, her first words set the tone.

“So bite me, I’m late. Just throw me out, why don’t you? I don’t care what you do.”

Mom said, “Yes, you’re late. But I’m not going to make it easy for you to quit. I’m not going to be your excuse, at least not today. Now, what would you like to talk about?”

Silence was her answer. Apparently today was another no-talk day. Mom tried several different approaches. None worked; Miss Stone Wall was not about to talk. In the past, Mom might have folded her own arms and sat in silence right along with her. But today, I think she had enough. She did something I’d never seen her do before—she got up and walked out! Maybe she was going to get a glass of water. Maybe she just needed to take a break.

Melanie could try her patience more than most. Mom had told us she was grateful she was not in the same room with her. Her exact words had been, “If I actually had to be in the same room with her I’d constantly be battling my intense desire to walk over and smack her one. Maybe I’d control the urge to whack her, but I’d be hard pressed to not dump a glass of water over her head!”

Teenage kids weren’t Mom’s strong suit.

But no matter how difficult a patient might be, I’d never seen Mom get up and leave. This could be serious. I felt compelled to help. I jumped into her empty chair. I got my first look at Melanie the ugly. Sure enough, there she sat, slumped in the chair, sucking in on a cigarette, her hair hiding her eyes. Ugly Melanie. Not ugly in the face—actually, she had a pretty face—but ugly all the same. She was acting plain ugly. I had a few things I wanted to say to this one.

I stared at her. Staring another dog in the eye is a direct challenge. I meant business.

As pups, we learn to avert our eyes to avoid a fight with a bully. Dog trainers teach you humans the “stare down technique” so you can establish yourself as the “alpha.” Mom learned it. She tried it first on Moxie, and sure enough in a short time Moxie looked away—heck, she was a Golden Retriever, for heaven sake. They aren’t known for their toughness.

Then Mom tried it on me. The instructor said the first one to blink becomes the lower ranked in the pack. Since I’d already challenged Mom far more than Moxie ever had, the instructor said a stare-down might get me straightened out. Mom initiated “the stare.” I stared right back. I liked this new game. She stared. I stared. Before long, Mom was struggling not to blink. Me? Heck, I could do this all day. Mom had come to the event ill prepared. She blinked. Then she laughed. “Hey, remind me to never do this again unless I’m ready to go the distance.”

I now had undeniable proof, I was the true alpha. Of course, I was wise and never let on that I knew. I’m telling you this so you’ll now have a better grasp of what it means to attempt a stare-down contest with a true terrier mutt.

Right now, my initial problem was that Melanie wasn’t looking at the screen. I considered my options. A bark would startle her and make her jump but Mom would hear it and might quickly return. I choose “the snort.” A dog snorting into a microphone might sound loud at the other end. I snorted as loud as I could.

Melanie’s head came up. “What the . . . hey, who are you?”

I said nothing. I stared her right in the eye. I saw a slight smile forming on the left side of her mouth. I lowered my head a tad and cocked it slightly to the right. I raised my eyes upward. This meant a small portion of the whites of my eyes was showing. I resembled a stern teacher looking over her glasses with the look that asks, “Why are you acting like this?”

Melanie must have seen that look too many times. It didn’t faze her. She said, “So who are you, the new doc? Come on, let’s see what you’re made of.”

I maintained the stare. I was now solidly in the zone. It was then I realized I’d seen a face like hers before. I’d just seen it last week on Calvin the Chihuahua! Yup, same nasty, snarly face with the same yippy attitude. Calvin was always trying to convince the world he was one tough guy. Even though we let Calvin keep believing he was tough, we all knew the truth—he was one scared little weenie. Heck, anything that small had a lot of reasons to be afraid.

I now saw Melanie differently. Maybe Melanie was acting ugly for exactly the same reasons Calvin did. Both were doing all they could to keep anyone from getting too close. For Calvin, his attitude kept other dogs away, for Melanie it was humans. I didn’t know why Melanie wanted to keep people away, but she sure was afraid of something. If Calvin’s ugly act was a façade, maybe Melanie’s was too. Problem with a pretense—it usually has a weak spot. All I had to do was find hers.

I maintained the stare.

The longer I stared, the more often she smiled. She’d rein it in and put her angry face back on, but she just couldn’t maintain it. She tried looking away from the screen, but curiosity would get the better of her. She kept looking back just to see if I was still there staring at her—I was. She made one last-ditch effort. She turned the tables on me and started to stare me down. Now there was a real game afoot. She puffed up. She was proud of how stubborn she could be. I bet no one had ever gotten her to back down. She wasn’t about to be outdone by a dog!

Obviously, she’d never met a true terrier mutt before.

In a staring contest, even a few seconds can seem like a long time. But this girl had already passed the average mark. She had tenacity. If this was a test for who was more stubborn, she might have given me a run for my money. But when it came to who was more clever, she never had a chance. When I saw the muscle of her left eye start to twitch slightly, I knew she was beginning to tire. I shifted my bottom jaw to the right. My upper lip was now caught behind my bottom front tooth. It was the perfect move. The total cuteness of my face was too much for her. She started to laugh.

The harder she laughed, the harder I stared. After a while, I didn’t have to do anything else. Her laughter took on a life of its own, and it got louder. Mom came trotting back into the room to see what was going on. As soon as she saw me sitting in her chair with my bottom incisor sticking out, she knew what had happened. That same look had turned Mom into the laughing victim on many an occasion. She knew the look all too well. She let me stay where I was. She stood behind me and watched a pro at work.

By the time Melanie wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes, we all knew the angry face routine would never again serve as an effective disguise. Mom lifted me up and quietly sat down, putting me on her lap. With me as a go-between, they began to talk.

After that, I was on Mom’s lap for every appointment with Melanie. She said I was her co-therapist. Mom was no fool. She knew a small dog had gotten further than any human had. She chose to stack the deck in her favor. Melanie tried several times to put the façade back up, but she couldn’t stay angry when she looked into this face of mine.

At each session, Melanie focused on my face instead of Mom’s. I guess it was easier for her to tell her feelings to a dog. Slowly over time, as Melanie verbalized her anger her ugliness began to fade. She became prettier. She started acting more human. Mind you, she never progressed to the level of acting more like a dog, but she definitely made progress by human standards.

Me? I didn’t mind showing up for each of her sessions. Hey, Mom pays off big time in biscuits!

I
t only took us a few weeks for Quincy and me to accomplish our goal of having everyone on the same Puppy Park schedule. Once that happened, we relaxed and let the humans get to know each other. The fact that Mom still believed Jacob was married had turned into a benefit. She’d told Judy that since he was “off limits,” she felt more relaxed. Not only was Jacob still wearing his wedding ring, he also was acting like he was still married. He might not have a wife, but he certainly wasn’t performing any of the usual male rituals to impress a female. Quincy said he believed the ex-wife had berated Jacob so much that he might not trust another woman anytime soon. Every critter understands the negative impact of too much scolding.

We decided to just let things be for the time being. We had to first see if they could be friends before we’d invest any more time into getting them together. We opted to let them proceed at their own pace. Except for the change in their Puppy Park routine, everything else was status quo.

But everything isn’t always within our control, whether you’re a human or a critter. Take Martha Bittner, for example. Things in her life were anything but status quo.

Martha had spent weeks working with Mom, remembering all the ways she used to be fearless and how much she’d changed over the years since she’d married Stanley. This week she logged on and announced, “I’m here to tell you loud and clear I’ve had it. I refuse to put up with him anymore. He has ruined my life. I’m divorcing Stanley.”

Whoa! Martha had gone from a whining doormat to an angry pit bull.

We’d heard Mom say when people deny their feelings for a long time, they also deny their anger. Then when they start to process their feelings, it’s often the anger that shows up first. However, most people are ill equipped to know what to do when they feel angry. It makes them uncomfortable. Often they start having temper tantrums and declaring what they’ll do and will not do. No one said they knew how to make good choices.

“Martha, why don’t you first tell me what’s made you so angry.”

“Stanley, of course. I have every right to be angry. He always has to have the final say. Sure, he’s willing to let me decide what we’re having for dinner or how to arrange the closets. But when it comes to the children, our finances, or where we’re going on vacation, well believe me, he expects me to go along with whatever he says. Since he’s never going to change, I will just have to leave.”

“Martha.” Mom’s voice was gentle. “Last week you told me you accepted that you cannot change Stanley. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I learned that even though I know he should change, I can’t change him. You said that the only behavior I can change is my own.”

“But do you still think Stanley
should
change because you want him to?”

“Absolutely, he should try to change.”

“Why?”

“Because, if Stanley really loved me, he’d want me to be happy and he’d do everything he possibly could to change.”

Mom’s voice became softer. “Martha, consider this. Maybe—just maybe—it has nothing to do with Stanley loving you. Maybe, it has to do with Stanley not knowing how to change. Maybe, he’s not able to change.”

“Wrong. Anyone can change if he really wants to.”

“Martha, you’re actually proving my point. You seem to be unable to change
your
point of view. You think you have only one choice, to leave Stanley. There are other choices—”

Martha cut her off, yelling, “That’s because there’s only one way. I have to leave Stanley!” She pounded her fist on the table.

Mom rubbed her temples and ran her fingers through her hair.