Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
her into an off-kilter wobble, like a toddler whose attention is diverted. Sometimes she just
fell over.
My orthodoxies about dogs and old age softened and shifted with Megan's increasing
weakness. We popped mild opiates into her mouth to keep her, and us, happy. We helped
her up and down the stairs each night and morning with an elaborate harness that had a rub-
ber handle on top—something I had sworn we wouldn't resort to. We bought her a Martha
Stewart quilted dog jacket to keep her warm. She occasionally deigned to gaze on me with
approval when I tucked a blanket over her at night. We had Dad's cherry rocker, his good
binoculars—and Megan.
Nancy was right: I needed to start another cadaver dog. David and I also wanted to time
the puppy's entrance with Megan's departure. We have a small house. Adding another dog in
the bedroom at night would assure that it smelled like a bunkhouse. It already sounded like
one: Three of us snored. Not Megan, of course. Except for her slovenly drinking habits, she
remained a lady, even in decline.
“Why don't you just shoot her?” asked a practically minded K9 officer one night as I ex-
plained the Megan dilemma. I stared at him blankly. Dispatching her that way might betray
my father's memory, I explained gently. Also, I didn't own a gun. Another K9 officer, Moses
Irving, nodded in approval at my answer and glared at his (probably) joking friend. Moses
was the minister of a basement congregation in his spare time. “Your father is looking down
right now,” he said. “You're doing the right thing.”
Megan got extra food that night, although she always got extra food if she wanted it. She
retained a wasp waist no matter what she ate. David promised me that as long as the three-
dog days and nights didn't stretch out for years, he could put up with the unknown chaos of
three generations of dogs.
That promise gave me permission to indulge in what I called puppy porn, scanning dozens
of websites and hundreds of photos, raising my endorphins and hopes with two-dimensional
images of baby-faced German shepherd puppies. When they are four to six weeks old, shep-
herd puppies have a flop-eared cuteness that makes everyone go soft and gooey inside. By
nine weeks old, they start looking and acting like clumsy tiger sharks. To each her own.
We couldn't get another Solo. I might have been tempted, but Joan Andreasen-Webb was
no longer breeding dogs. If I wanted to continue doing cadaver-dog work, my best chances
lay with an entirely working-line shepherd. And I wanted to keep going. This time, I wanted
to add disaster training to the mix. My former fantasies of a large, calm, red-and-black prince
had been replaced with an entirely new fantasy: a sable or black shepherd with a flat back,
“environmental hardness,” nerve, and drive. I knew exactly what I wanted: one of Kathy Hol-
bert's German shepherd puppies from the mountains of West Virginia, raised with Kathy's
mellow laughter and low-key working-dog knowledge, with the gentle hands of her husband,
