Chapter 10 #2
Jolly was at the fence. Same spot, same locked-in posture, head low, ears forward.
I set down my fork. “He’s never done this before. Seven years, and Jolly has never fixated on a fence or a section of yard or anything that wasn’t part of the work. His attention has always been directed, purposeful. This is…” I shook my head.
“You’re worried about him.”
I shrugged. “He’s almost nine. That’s old for a working dog.
Belgian Malinois, German shepherds—they start to slow down.
And sometimes, before the physical stuff shows up, you see behavioral changes.
Fixation on objects. Delayed responses to commands.
Repetitive patterns that don’t have a clear trigger. ”
“You think something’s wrong with him,” Kayla said quietly.
“I think it’s possible. And the not knowing is the worst part.”
She was watching me, and the expression on her face had shifted. The concern was still there, but layered under it was something else. A nervousness, a hesitation, like someone standing at the edge of a pool trying to decide whether to jump.
“Ben.” She uncrossed her arms. “I don’t think anything is wrong with Jolly.”
My jaw tightened. I glanced at the window, at Jolly still planted at that fence, every muscle locked on whatever invisible thing held him there, and looked back at her. “Him standing there, staring? I promise you, that’s not normal.”
She read my face. Whatever she saw there made her straighten slightly.
“Just wait. Watch him.”
I turned to the window. Jolly hadn’t moved. I was about to say as much when a pinecone sailed over the top of the fence from the other side and landed in my yard.
Before I could react, Jolly exploded.
He went from stillness to full sprint in a single stride, every trace of the rigid, locked-in dog replaced by something I hadn’t seen from him in weeks—pure, uncomplicated joy.
He snatched the pinecone off the ground, spun with it in his mouth, and tore across the yard to the base of the fence where the slats met the ground.
He dropped low, nosed it under one of the slats, right next to the one I’d replaced, and pushed it through to the other side.
He backed up. Dropped into a play bow, his whole body vibrating, eyes locked on the gap. Waiting.
A few seconds passed. Then the pinecone came flying back over the fence. Higher this time, with more arc.
Jolly snagged it before it bounced, spun, raced back to the gap, shoved it through. Dropped into the bow again. Waited.
Another pinecone. Over the fence. Then another.
And over the fence, faint but unmistakable, I heard a child laughing.
I turned to Kayla.
She was standing at the window, arms wrapped around herself, watching my face with the kind of careful attention that told me she’d been dreading this moment.
“William and Jolly have been playing together, mostly on days when you’ve had to leave Jolly here for a few hours,” she said.
“Through the fence. Pinecones, sticks, whatever they can push through the gaps. It’s been going on since you moved in, I think.
” She paused. “William calls him his best friend.”
I looked back at the yard. Jolly was in full play mode now, spinning and crouching and shoving pinecones through the gap with the manic energy of a dog who had forgotten he was a professional.
His mouth was open in that wide, panting grin.
The same one he wore after a successful send, after a clean find, in every moment when the work lit him up from the inside out.
But this wasn’t work. This was something else. Something he’d chosen for himself.
Not neurological issues. Not age. Not cognitive decline or behavioral deterioration or any of the dozen clinical possibilities I’d been cataloging in the dark hours of too many nights.
Jolly had found a friend. And he’d rather play with a six-year-old through a fence than do anything else in the world.
Something released in my chest. A tightness I’d been carrying so long I’d stopped noticing it, like a fist I’d forgotten I was making. I exhaled and relaxed my shoulders, and for a second, I just stood there and let the relief settle through me.
“I was afraid to tell you about the playing,” Kayla said.
I could see the tension in her shoulders.
“I didn’t know if you’d stop it. Jolly’s a working dog.
I know he has a job, and I didn’t know if playing like this would interfere with that or if you’d be upset, and William…
” She stopped. Took a breath. “If you took this away from him, it would break his heart. He doesn’t have a lot of people in his life. Having Jolly has been—”
“Good.”
She went still.
“It’s good,” I said. “For both of them.”
Her shoulders dropped. She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath since she knocked on my door.
“Really?”
“Kayla, I’ve spent more than a week convinced my dog was deteriorating.
Watching him fixate on that fence every day, ignoring commands, staring at nothing.
I had him halfway to a neurologist.” I shook my head.
“He doesn’t need a neurologist. He needs a six-year-old with an arm and a pile of pinecones. ”
We stood there, me in the kitchen doorway, her on the deck, and watched Jolly and William play. Another pinecone sailed over. Jolly intercepted it mid-bounce. William’s laughter carried clear over the fence, bright and unguarded, the sound of a kid who’d forgotten to be careful with his happiness.
“He’s been telling Jolly about school,” Kayla said, quieter now. “About his friend Theo. About the snake guy who is coming for an assembly.” She shook her head. “I think he tells that dog everything.”
“Dogs are good listeners.”
“Better than most people.” She watched the fence for a moment. “He doesn’t open up easily. Not with adults, not with other kids. Jolly’s the first one he’s really let in since we moved here.”
“What about his dad?” The question was out before I’d fully decided to ask it. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“No, it’s okay.” Her voice didn’t tighten like I’d expected. Just went quiet. “My husband Ryan died in a car accident. William was a baby. He never knew him.”
I nodded. Didn’t offer condolences. Didn’t say I was sorry. People who’d carried that kind of loss didn’t need another stranger handing them the same words they’d heard a thousand times.
“So it’s just the two of you.”
“Just the two of us.” She said it simply, without weight, the way someone stated a fact they’d long since made peace with.
We watched for another minute. Jolly was crouching and launching and shoving pinecones through the gap, and William’s laughter kept coming over the fence in waves—each one a little louder, a little freer.
“Working dogs need play,” I told her. “They need to be dogs sometimes, not just operators. Jolly doesn’t get enough of that.
I try, but it’s different coming from me.
He knows I’m his handler. With William, he’s just…
” I watched Jolly wiggle his whole body and pounce on an incoming pinecone like it was the first one he’d ever seen. “He’s just a dog having a good time.”
Kayla was looking at me. I could feel it without turning—the same focused attention I’d watched her bring to her sketchbook at the coffee shop, pencil hovering, her whole mind aimed at getting one detail exactly right before she’d realized I was there.
Then she looked away. Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I should get back over there.” She headed toward the door.
“Kayla.” She stopped. “Thank you. For the food, for telling me about this. All of it.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled, not the careful, measured ones from before. Something softer. Shyer. “Goodnight, Ben.”
“Goodnight.”
She crossed back through the yard toward her house, and I stood in the doorway and watched her go. Then I went back to the kitchen and the fence.
Jolly was still at it. Still crouching, still spinning, still working the gap with his nose while William’s laughter floated over from the other side. The light was fading, the yard going dim around the edges, but neither of them showed any sign of stopping.
I leaned against the counter and let myself just watch.
A sharp crack split the air. Wood splintering. Another fence slat gave way at the base, pushed out by Jolly’s nose as he shoved a pinecone through a gap that was now slightly wider than it had been a minute ago.
I looked at the broken slat. Looked at my dog, who didn’t even notice the destruction, already dropped back into position, body coiled, waiting for the next round.
So that was what had happened to the first one. Not escape attempts. Not confusion. Just a game that was a little too big for old cedar.
I’d fix the slat tomorrow. Hell, maybe I’d leave it and widen the gap at the bottom while I was at it. Give them a proper playing field.
Jolly and William deserved it.