Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into a Family Read Online Free PDF Page A

Pearl’s arm,
     gently brushing her shoulder. I liked the way they teased one another—a rib here, a jab there, all in good humor. This was
     a pleasure to see after no less than
fifty
years of marriage.
    “And we’re still talking,” laughed Pearl.
    “And she’s still cooking,” Arthur answered.
    Like Pearl herself, the apartment’s furnishings were practical and down-to-earth, anything but fancy, with heavy mahogany
     furniture, a worn brown-and-rust-flowered sectional sofa, and a small dining room table set in the middle of the combination
     living room–dining room, typical of many Manhattan apartments.
    Everything was a bit dusty and worn, but it was cozy, withbotanical prints, flowers, potted palms, and a forest of plants lining the windowsill, livening things up.
    As we sat there getting acquainted, I was struck by Pearl’s wit and quick humor.
    “So, Joe is talking you into real trouble,” she smirked.
    “Yes, I am! A dog would be good for Glenn.”
    “Good for
you
when you need a friend to keep you company outside, walking Dinah.” She leaned down to stroke Dinah’s muzzle and slip her
     another biscuit.
    Pearl told me that she preferred a female cocker to a male—“none of that lifting of the legs!”—and that they were especially
     affectionate, though more prone to accidents than the males.
    “There aren’t going to be any accidents,” protested Joe, “because crate training is almost foolproof as long as you keep taking
     the dog outside.”
    “Mmmmm. We’ll see,” sniffed Pearl slyly, assuring me that nothing was foolproof “except my cake,” putting an extra piece of
     it in tinfoil for me. She ended our first little visit by saying, “Come by anytime.”

C HAPTER T HREE
The Runt of the Litter
    N ow I was getting excited.
    It was all planned out in my mind.
    If I got a dog in late summer or early fall, I’d have enough time to easily train the puppy before the weather turned cold,
     brutally so in Battery Park City, where the wind would howl around the corner of our building.
    “Listen, friend, you don’t want to be walking a puppy trying to figure out its head from its tail in a blizzard in January,”
     lectured Joe, who now called me on a daily basis to “dee-cuss,” as he pronounced it, “the homecoming arrangements for your
     dog.”
    There would be no pet stores for me this time around. “You never do that,” he admonished. “It’s twice the money for half the
     quality, so either rescue a dog from a shelter or get a puppy from a private breeder.”
    I set to work, researched cocker breeders, and finally found a reputable one in New Jersey—though the entire idea still seemed
     pretty abstract to me. But things were about to get a lot more concrete.
    On July 15, 1988, after a nine-week pregnancy, Sweet Sue, achampion cocker spaniel who had been known on the dog show circuit for her elegant carriage, gave birth to six blond-haired
     puppies in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
    The breeders, Tom and Betty Campbell, who had earned a reputation for raising prize-winning cockers, were delighted with the
     new pups, at least most of them.
    At six weeks old, the puppies were assessed for their show prospects. The breeders kept the best two on their twelve-acre
     farm, and three more found homes almost immediately. But the last of them, the woebegone runt of the litter, was left behind,
     unwanted.
    That’s where I came in. I had been on Tom Campbell’s waiting list, hoping for the perfect dog all summer. So I was disappointed
     to know that the “best” of the puppies were already spoken for.
    “Well, we do have one left,” he told me on the phone, as if offering a consolation prize. “We’ve named her Twiggy—because
     her legs are kind of spindly and her body proportions are off. She’s a skinny little thing.”
    “Oh, great,” I thought.
    “So,” Tom continued, “she’ll never be a show dog, but I think she’s going to have an unusually beautiful face—very