inside to the bathroom, then changed into an older pair of jeans and a T-shirt
for the sloppy job ahead.
When Travis came outside again, the retriever was standing beside the steaming
washtub, the hose in its teeth. Somehow, it had managed to turn the faucet.
Water gushed out of the hose, into the tub.
For a dog, successfully manipulating a water faucet would be very difficult if
not impossible. Travis figured that an equivalent test of his own ingenuity and
dexterity would be trying to open a child-proof safety cap on an aspirin bottle
with one hand behind his back.
Astonished, he said, “Water’s too hot for you?”
The retriever dropped the hose, letting water pour across the patio, and stepped
almost daintily into the tub. It sat and looked at him, as if to say, Let’s get
on with it, you dink.
He went to the tub and squatted beside it. “Show me how you can turn off the
water.”
The dog looked at him stupidly.
“Show me,” Travis said.
The dog snorted and shifted its position in the warm water.
“If you could turn it on, you can turn it off. How did you do it? With your
teeth? Had to be with your teeth. Couldn’t do it with a paw, for God’s sake. But
that twisting motion would be tricky. You could’ve broken a tooth on the
cast-iron handle.”
The dog leaned slightly out of the tub, just far enough to bite at the neck of
the bag that held the shampoo.
“You won’t turn off the faucet?” Travis asked.
The dog just blinked at him, inscrutable.
He sighed and turned off the water. “All right. Okay. Be a wiseass.” He took the
brush and shampoo out of the bag and held them toward the retriever. “Here. You
probably don’t even need me. You can scrub yourself, I’m sure.”
The dog issued a long, drawn-out woooooof that started deep in its throat, and
Travis had the feeling it was calling him a wiseass.
Careful now, he told himself. You’re in danger of leaping off the deep end,
Travis. This is a damn smart dog you’ve got here, but he can’t really understand
what you’re saying, and he can’t talk back.
The retriever submitted to its bath without protest, enjoying itself. After
ordering the dog out of the tub and rinsing off the shampoo, Travis spent an
hour brushing its damp coat. He pulled out burrs, bits of weeds that hadn’t
flushed away, unsnarled the tangles. The dog never grew impatient, and by Six
o’clock it was transformed.
Groomed, it was a handsome animal. Its coat was predominantly medium gold with
feathering of a lighter shade on the backs of its legs, on its belly and
buttocks, and on the underside of the tail. The undercoat was thick and soft to
provide warmth and repel water. The outer coat was also soft but not as thick,
and in some places these longer hairs were wavy. The tail had a
slight upward curve, giving the retriever a happy, jaunty look, which was
emphasized by its tendency to wag continuously.
The dried blood on the ear was from a small tear already healing. The blood on
the paws resulted not from serious injury but from a lot of running over
difficult ground. Travis did nothing except pour boric-acid solution, a mild
antiseptic, on these minor wounds. He was confident that the dog would
experience only slight discomfort—or maybe none at all, for it was not
limping—and that it would be completely well in a few days.
The retriever looked splendid now, but Travis was damp, sweaty, and stank of dog
shampoo. He was eager to shower and change. He had also worked up an appetite.
The only task remaining was to collar the dog. But when he attempted to buckle
the new collar in place, the retriever growled softly and backstepped out of his
reach.
“Whoa now. It’s only a collar, boy.”
The dog stared at the loop of red leather in Travis’s hand and continued to
growl.
“You had a bad experience with a collar, huh?”
The dog stopped growling, but it did not take a step toward him.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230