Mom put her hands on her hips. “I’ve seen other dogs here.”
“Right. You can have a dog visit, but I guess somebody told them Bella’s been barking a lot for a couple of weeks.”
“Who?”
“They didn’t say.”
“I don’t know why, if we’re all trying to be good neighbors, they didn’t just come to talk to us.”
“Well, you can be a little intimidating sometimes, Mom.”
They were silent for a moment. I nuzzled her hand when it stopped stroking me. “We can’t move, Lucas,” Mom said softly.
“I know.”
“It’s perfect that you can walk to work here. And to switch my housing benefit, that’s not something we can do in just a few days. Plus this was the only place we found that we could remotely afford. Where would we even get the money for a security deposit?”
“That was before I got a job, though. Maybe we could afford to pay a higher rent.”
“I want you saving that money for college,” she replied.
“I am. I am saving. But this is what savings are for—emergencies.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
They were quiet again. I went over to Lucas—I could sense that he was troubled, though I did not know why since we were all home together at last. I curled up at his feet.
“What are we going to do, Lucas?”
“I’ll think of something,” Lucas said.
*
The day after Mom came home, she pressed the phone to her cheek while Lucas watched and I chewed a rubber stick called a “bone.” There were other things called bones that I liked a lot better.
“That’s what I am trying to tell you. This notice is a mistake. I do not have a dog,” she said.
I looked up at the word “dog.” What was she trying to tell me? I looked to Lucas, but he was still focused on Mom.
“I had a puppy visiting but I do not personally own a dog.” I looked back at Mom at the word “dog.” “That’s correct. Yes. Thanks very much. No, I appreciate it.” She put the phone down. “I didn’t lie. I don’t personally own a dog. Bella is your dog.”
I brought the bone to Mom, thinking she was saying she wanted to throw it down the stairs for me to do Good Exercise.
Lucas grinned. “It’s an excellent legal argument.”
Mom made no move to take the bone.
“But that’s not going to make our problem go away. Sooner or later they’re going to catch us.”
“Maybe not. I’ll take Bella out only before dawn or after sunset. There’s no staff working at those hours. I’m sure the neighbors don’t care as long as she’s quiet. And once we hit the street, who is to say I live in the complex? I could just as easily be walking my dog past the building as coming from it.”
I did not know what they were saying, but I liked the repetition of my name and the word “dog.”
“But what if I have to go in to the clinic? You can’t take off work every time that happens. I can do my meetings at night, but that’s it.”
“Maybe we could send Bella with a dog sitter.”
“And give up what, food?”
“Mom.”
“I’m just saying we can’t afford that.”
“Okay.”
I sighed with contentment.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t know how this is going to work. One of these days, probably pretty soon, she’s going to have to be left alone, and when she is, she’ll bark.”
Six
Over the next several days, we played two new games. One was “no barks.” My job had always been to alert everyone whenever I detected there was a person at the door. Under the right circumstances, I would hear or smell someone even before the bell rang, and would bark out my knowledge to the benefit of everyone who was home. Sometimes Lucas or Mom would join their voices with mine, shouting their own warnings. “Stop it!” they would yell. “Quiet!” But with No Barks, Lucas would stand in the open doorway and reach outside and the bell would ring and then he would sternly say “No Barks” and hold my snout. I did not like this game, but we played it over and over again. Then Mom went outside and Lucas sat in the living room and Mom rapped her knuckles on the door, which was outside the pattern but Lucas still said No Barks. It was as if they didn’t want me to do my job!
No Barks was a lot like Stay, another game I did not like. When Lucas said “Stay,” I was to sit and not move until he came back and said “okay!” Sometimes he gave me a treat and said “good Stay,” and I liked that part, but otherwise Stay took concentration and was fatiguing and boring. Humans seem to have no sense of the passage of time, of how much fun they are missing when a dog is doing Stay and has to sit and sit and not play. The same thing was true of No Barks: Lucas expected that once he told me No Barks, I was only a good dog if I remembered it as something like a permanent state of being. When someone rang the bell and I did No Barks Lucas might give me a treat, or he might not. It was exhausting. I kept hoping he would forget all about No Barks, but he repeated it constantly, and so did Mom.
Much, much more fun was “Go Home.” Go Home meant Lucas would unsnap my leash and I was to run back to our house and curl up by the front door. Lucas was very particular about where I was supposed to lie down. “No, you have to be here, Bella. Here, where no one from the street can see you. Okay?” He patted on the cement until I lay down and then he gave me a treat. When we did Go Home, I was a good dog who was given food. When we did No Barks, I did not feel like a good dog, even if he gave me a treat.
“She picked right up on it. If I ever need her to, she will just come right home and lie by the wall under the hedge, completely hidden from view,” Lucas told Mom.
Mom petted my head. “She’s a good dog.”
I wagged.
“Still having trouble with No Barks, though,” Lucas said.
I groaned.
I craved nothing more than having Lucas tell me I was a good dog—that, and “Tiny Piece of Cheese,” which meant Lucas loved me and gave me a wonderful treat.
Several times Lucas put me in my crate and set his phone down in front of it. I had no interest in the phone. “No Barks,” he said crossly. Then he and Mom went out the door. I got lonely and barked and Lucas came running in the house, which was what I had wanted! But he was angry at me and told me “No Barks” several times without letting me out or even petting me, despite how overjoyed I was to see him.
I decided No Barks was even less fun when it involved the crate.
“I don’t think she’s getting it,” Lucas told Mom one night. We had gone to the park and played ball and I was deliciously drowsy.
“She doesn’t bark at the doorbell anymore,” Mom replied.
“No, that’s true. Bella’s a good dog for the doorbell now.”
I sleepily thumped my tail. Yes, I was a good dog.
“I have my appointment with the neurologist tomorrow,” Mom said.
“Maybe I’ll call in sick. We can’t risk leaving her here.”
“No. You can’t do that, Lucas.”