A Hell of a Dog Read Online Free PDF

Dashiell’s tail was moving. I could hear it slapping against the bench. I turned in the direction he was staring and saw a large, tweedy older woman heading our way with a small border terrier bitch trotting along at her side. It was the bitch, of course, who’d caught Dashiell’s fancy, and he immediately left my side to get acquainted.
    Some people would be terrified to see a wet pit bull speeding their way. Not this lady. Despite the fact that Dashiell could have inhaled her little dog through one nostril, she was all smiles.
    I knew that smile, didn’t I?
    â€œOh, isn’t he a handsome chap,” she said.
    As soon as I heard that voice, I knew who she was. Of course, in the tapes I had, made from her British TV series on dog training, the most popular show on the air at the time, she was twenty years younger. She’d had no jowls, no Crosshatch of wrinkles on her upper lip, and her hair had been flaming red. But even if my eyes had been closed, there was no way I could have missed that voice, as strong as ever, her speech dotted with her own quirky inflections. How cagey of Sam not to mention this coup—unless, like me, she’d been a last-minute addition.
    â€œMrs. Potter?”
    â€œOh, forgive my rude ness. Have we met?”
    â€œNo, but I’m a dog trainer, so of course I know who you are.”
    â€œHow nice. But you must call me Beryl,” she said, turning her attention back to Dashiell. “He’s a lovely boy, isn’t he, dear? How old is he, about three or four?”
    â€œHe’s three,” I said. “And your girl?”
    â€œStill a pup. Only eight months old. But such a cheerful girl, and so clever.” She looked down proudly at the little dog.
    Dashiell had lain down on his back, paws in the air, in the dead cockroach position, and the little border terrier was running in circles around him, barking all the while, stopping every now and then to tug vigorously on his ears or tail.
    â€œGently, Cecilia,” Beryl said. “We don’t want to harm that nice boy now, do we, pet?” We sat on a bench and let the dogs race around behind us in the grass, enjoying their play and the lovely weather. “I used to bring my little girl here,” she said. “Oh, we’d come every day, rain or shine, for our walk in the park.”
    Her eyes seemed to tear up at the memory, which must have been as ancient as the brown leather purse she wore crosswise over her bosom. It might have been thirty-five years or more since she brought her little girl to the park. She was probably fifty when she did the TV series, and that was two decades ago.
    â€œWas it different then?” I asked.
    â€œWas what different, dear?”
    â€œThe park. When your daughter was little. Was it safer then?”
    â€œYes and no,” she said. “You know how it is, dear. We tend to romanticize the past, but even then, there was always the possibility of someone unsavory lurking behind a bush ready to pop out and do you in if you took the wrong path or strayed from where there were other people.”
    A nanny with two young charges, a boy and a girl, stopped to let the children watch the dogs play. The dogs stopped to watch a skater glide by. And two young lovers, both female, kept stopping to kiss as they headed out of the park, hand in hand.
    â€œI guess human nature never changes.”
    She frowned. “Unfortunately not. But still,” she said, looking down the path after the nanny, “the little ones keep us going, don’t they?”
    I looked at my watch, still reluctant to go.
    â€œYou and Cecilia are lucky to live so near the park,” I said, thinking of how much fun Dashiell had had in the lake.
    â€œOh, I don’t live here now ,” she said. “When I lost my husband, the baby and I went home, to England.”
    I looked at the little terrier, then back at her doting owner, the way Dashiell looks at