Chapter 13
Kelsey was out back watching Lucky and Pepper enjoy some time in separate runs when Patrick stepped out of the house onto the back porch.
“Hey, when did you get here?” she called as she headed over.
Patrick glanced at his watch. “Three minutes ago. Kurt said that if you’re able to help, I can go ahead and get the big shepherd mix out of his kennel. Kurt will join us when he’s finished. He’s on the front porch talking to an older man with a similar face shape. I think they’re related.”
Kelsey swallowed a giggle. “That’s his grandfather, but sure, I can help. These two guys are fine out here for a bit. What are you going to do with the shepherd mix today?”
She’d been only slightly surprised to find that Kurt had named the big shepherd Devil.
The dog knew all the basics like sit and stay, and he seemed to respect people, even if he held no obvious regard for them.
On the other hand, he’d already eaten through one kennel and had destroyed every chew toy he’d been given, even the most indestructible ones.
And whether he was in his crate or out, he passed most of the day anxious and unsettled.
He had zero tolerance for other dogs. All of that paled in comparison to how difficult it was to keep him on track during training sessions.
When he was out of his crate, he always seemed to be searching for something that was just out of sight.
Treats and affection were wasted on him.
His only interests during his training sessions were in scent marking, snarling in the direction of other dogs, and searching the road for signs of who knew what.
“He doesn’t want to be here,” Patrick said as they headed inside. “Maybe none of them do, but none of them seem to feel as displaced as he does.”
“The poor guy has probably had it really rough.”
“Maybe.” But the way Patrick said the word, it seemed to imply maybe not more than maybe. “Appropriate name,” he added when he spied Kurt’s addition to the tape on Devil’s kennel designating him as red alpha seven.
Although the giant had given no indication that he would ever snap at a human, he was the only dog here being treated as a high-risk possibility.
This meant rather than simply hooking a clip leash to his collar after his kennel door was opened, Kurt or Patrick needed to get the generally uncooperative dog to step into a slip—or noose—leash first. Once it was on and the dog proved to be calm, a regular clip leash was hooked to his collar and the self-tightening slip leash was removed.
From there, it was pretty much business as usual. Except that Devil had no interest in receiving their praise or in any of the reward toys the dogs were offered when they were well behaved, and only a mild interest in even the best of treats.
“What’s on the agenda for him today?” Kelsey asked a second time.
“Music.”
Kelsey pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She’d hoped for a better explanation but suspected she wouldn’t get it.
Rather than allowing Devil to drag him toward the front door, Patrick coaxed him out the back and down the rear porch steps to the grass farthest from the newly installed runs.
Across the yard, Lucky barked several times, causing the long, fuzzy hair on Devil’s back and neck to spike high as he sniffed the air.
He urinated a long, unending stream on the closest tree while staring the dogs down.
Afterward, the massive dog seemed to dismiss both Lucky and Pepper as he turned his attention to the side of the house that had a rickety gate in the privacy fence.
Patrick asked him to sit, though he had to step between Devil and the gate to get his attention.
On his third repeated command, Devil tucked in his massive haunches and sank into a sitting position, eyeing Patrick for a split second before stretching his head at an awkward angle to refocus on the gate.
“He has a very determined focus.”
Kelsey was considering whether she should comment on Patrick and Devil’s shared similarity when Patrick took out his phone, pulled up a playlist, and handed the phone to her. Kelsey frowned as Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” burst from the speakers.
Sometimes back at the shelter, they played music for the dogs, but making music a part of one of these training sessions seemed too peculiar even for Patrick.
“I believe twenty seconds should be enough to get a reaction, assuming we’re going to get one, so I made a playlist with twenty-second recordings of a variety of songs. We’ll see if he reacts to any, or if he treats them all like white noise.”
After the “Sweet Caroline” snippet ended, a song Kelsey didn’t know but that would qualify as hard rock played, then a popular country song, then a piece of classical music, followed by a song by Kygo.
In Kelsey’s opinion, Devil seemed to ignore each of them equally.
His interest was in the gate, though he was distracted for a few seconds by a small flock of birds taking off from a nearby tree.
He paid little attention to Patrick or Kelsey, sinking back into a seated position only on repeated requests from Patrick, who rewarded him with a few nibbles of a savory treat.
It was on the tip of Kelsey’s tongue to ask what Patrick was hoping to get out of the song playing when a bluegrass song came on, and Devil looked pointedly at Patrick’s phone, his ears pricked forward.
“Bluegrass,” Patrick said aloud, shifting Devil’s leash to one hand and reaching for his phone. When it was over, he typed in “most popular bluegrass songs.”
When he began “Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies,” Devil cocked his head at the first plucks of the banjo. After a few seconds, he whined, then his gaze flicked from the phone to the gate and back again.
“It could be that his only interest in it is that it’s unusual,” Patrick said, letting the song play for a full minute before passing the phone back to her and letting it play out.
“Or?” Kelsey asked. Patrick clearly had a point to this. He just wasn’t making it clear to her.
“It seems to me there’s a reason he has no interest in connecting with us.
Or any interest in teaming up with any of the other dogs.
He doesn’t show it often, but he’s well trained.
He’s unhappy and unsettled. And he lets that be known.
Affection and praise are lost on him, but that doesn’t mean he’s never received it. ”
Kelsey watched as Patrick sank to a squat, balancing on the balls of his feet. Although she wasn’t afraid of the cantankerous, massive animal, she felt enough caution around him that her back muscles tensed. With Patrick in a squat, it was obvious that Devil nearly matched him pound for pound.
Patrick extended his right hand. “Shake.” When Devil made no movement to acknowledge him, Patrick slipped a single, moist treat from his pocket and held it in his left hand. Devil took a whiff but ignored Patrick otherwise. “Shake, boy,” he repeated.
Almost absentmindedly, with his sharp brown eyes still fixed on the gate, Devil lifted his giant paw and dropped it into Patrick’s hand.
Patrick shook the paw, then lifted the treat within swiping distance of Devil’s quick tongue.
“Good boy. Good, good boy.” Then, standing and directing his next words to Kelsey, Patrick said, “I don’t have the answer, but nothing about him fits.
The music. The tricks. His discontent. He’s waiting for someone, and I want to find out who. ”
“Someone who likes bluegrass?”
“Possibly.”
Devil’s microchip had never been registered and the vet who inserted it didn’t have his owner’s new contact information.
Finding out who had owned this guy felt like an impossibility, but Kelsey did her best to never say never.
In her seven years at the shelter, she’d seen the impossible happen more than once.
* * *
Thanks to the wind picking up and carrying the smell of rain, as soon as Kurt’s grandfather left, he and Kelsey dove into the evening feeding routine.
If she’d been put out that he’d named the cranky giant Devil, she hadn’t commented.
The tenacious dog was promising to give Kurt a run for his money when it came to retraining him.
Thankfully, it looked like Patrick was going to be a huge help in figuring out the complicated animal.
Unlike the relaxed conversation he’d enjoyed with Kelsey this afternoon, tonight they worked in silence.
Yesterday, she’d commented playfully that Kurt’s vocabulary all but eluded him while he was intently focused on the dogs.
“I swear I can almost see the right side of your brain taking over,” she’d joked.
He hoped she attributed his quiet to that this afternoon.
He tried to hone his usual focus, but it evaded him.
He kept replaying his grandfather’s words, rehashing what he hadn’t been prepared to hear.
Thankfully, he and Kelsey had worked out a seamless routine over the last several days, and she always seemed on top of her game.
They had finished feeding and giving each dog a short walk around the side of the house when the first crack of thunder rumbled across the sky.
Zeus, the newly named Argentine mastiff, and Pepper were still in the runs, having a turn to stretch their legs.
Zeus was barking and chasing every leaf that blew inside his fence.
The Argentine mastiff’s all-white coat looked especially bright under the darkening skies.
Pepper was standing at the gate of her run.
She wanted to roam the yard, and probably to hang near Kurt and Kelsey, but Kurt wasn’t in the space today to introduce two dogs, even through a fence.
And when he did, he wouldn’t start with a pregnant Rottweiler.
He was positive by now that she was. Just a few days of good meals, and her belly was visibly rounding out.