Fur what it's worth

In the still gray light of the early morning the low hanging clouds seemed impervious to the sunlight’s attempts at penetration, delivering a brooding, ominous feel to the new day, causing a chill to run down my spine. Of course, that alone wasn’t what made me feel ill at ease, it was coupled with the fact that a mismatched pack of dogs stood in between us and the house, snarling at Ollie and I as he strained against his leash, whimpering, his ears flat against his head. Standing closest was a tan husky mix, obviously the leader, his lips curled back, teeth bared, a long rope of foamy drool dripping off his jowls. Behind him stood a ragged animal that looked to be more coyote then domestic dog, its tail missing along with several patches of fur. The fur it did have along it’s back was raised and it too was baring teeth and growling. Within my adrenaline laced fear the clarity was astounding, as if the gloomy sky somehow magnified everything, bringing out the minutest detail. The cracked and broken nails on the black lab at the rear of the pack, the large, raw looking sore on the cheek of the standard poodle, the dark red color of the gums and the singed fur on the golden retriever. I had seen all of these dogs individually over the course of the week that I had been taking care of Ollie, an eight month Airedale, all of them running through the neighborhood unattended, all of them displaying aggression, but now here they were, together, and it looked as if they meant business this time.
I looked about me but there was no one else present on the street at seven O’clock on a Sunday morning. The only reason I was up so early was because Ollie was a restless puppy; exercise was the only thing that calmed him down. We had been taking long walks all week in an attempt to keep him happy while his owners were away but they did little to curb his boundless energy.
Ollie struggled and whined as I held the leash with both hands.
“No boy, stay!” I said in a voice that betrayed my fear and panic, which was the last thing you wanted to do around canines, but I was powerless to stop myself. I was seeing my pet sitting career flash before my eyes.
“Shoo!” I yelled loudly at the dogs, employing a rich baritone voice reserved for such occasions. If anything, maybe a neighbor would hear me and would come outside to investigate. “Git! Scat!”
But the pack held their ground, in fact they began advancing, and that was when Ollie gave a determined lunge and slipped out of his collar, suddenly free, the leash at once slack in my hands as my heart jumped into my throat, building up behind it the urge to scream…
* * *
I saw the first stray dog on my second day of the job while walking Ollie in the early afternoon. We were rounding a hedge lined corner when it appeared suddenly, standing just off of the sidewalk, looking dazed and out of place. It was the sickly dog that resembled a coyote and his gait was awkward, as if it was unsure whether or not it’s legs could carry him much farther.
“Hey boy.” I said amiably, thinking he must belong to the owners of the corner house and I put my hand out to him as a friendly gesture while Ollie tried to bound over, his tail wagging good naturedly.
The dog growled, a low, raspy sound, and his lip curled upward. I quickly pulled my hand away and tightened my grip on the leash, pulling Ollie toward me.
“Okay.” I said, trying to tug Ollie along. “Just passing through.”
I looked at the yard to see if anyone was present but there was no one there, just the usual debris left behind from children: a Big Wheel laying on its side, plastic trucks and cars scattered around, a kite that had seen better days, stuffed toys with various body parts missing. I had met several people in the neighborhood but I had yet to meet these folks. By the looks of it they were probably young with a family of kids between ages two and ten.
Ollie struggled against the leash to get at the dog but I pulled him away as he leapt around in the air, wanting to play. The other dog stood it’s ground, a perpetual snarl in place, and we watched it as we made our way down the block to the house.
In the driveway next to the house where I was staying a woman was outside with her infant, holding him in one arm and a garden hose in the other, lackadaisically watering some rose bushes.
“Hello.” She said pleasantly and I smiled.
“How’s it going?” I replied.
“Not too bad. Hi Ollie!”
Ollie wagged his tail and pulled me forward until his nose was at her feet. She reached down to pat his head.
“Hey, do you know anyone with a small tan dog, kinda skinny?” I asked her.
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”
“We just ran into him on the corner and he doesn’t look like he’s feeling so hot. In fact he growled at Ollie and I.”
“Where?”
“Right on the corner,” I said, pointing down the street. The dog was still there, standing next to the hedge, eyeing me with a steady, penetrating gaze.
The woman turned to look and at once the dog jumped behind the hedge, out of sight.
“I don’t see anything.”
“He just went behind the bush.”
She turned back to talk to me and at once the dog appeared again, licking at his side. Ollie’s ears perked up.
“There he is.” I said and again she turned to look. As she did the dog walked slowly behind the hedge again.
“Where?” She said.
“He keeps going behind the bush every time you look.” I said and laughed. “He’s messing with me.”
“I guess so.” She said, grinning.
“If you see him let me know. He wasn’t wearing a collar. I have the number for animal control programmed into my phone.”
“What, on speed dial?” She said jokingly and I laughed again.
“I’m a professional pet sitter,” I explained. “I have to be ready for anything.”
“I guess so.”
On the third day Ollie and I ran into the tan husky, about a block away from the house in the early evening, just about twilight. It appeared from behind a stand of trees and took a place on the sidewalk before us, lips instantly curling.
“Shit.” I muttered, grasping the leash firmly as Ollie began to leap and cavort wildly.
“Calm down boy, calm down!” I cried as I looked both ways down the street, preparing to cross, when suddenly the husky let out a howl and ran at us. In a split second he was inches away, his bared teeth making loud clicking noises as he worked his jaws feverishly, snapping at Ollie.
In a moment of extreme panic I reached down and swooped Ollie up in to my arms, holding him aloft as he kicked and struggled.
“Relax boy, relax!” I panted as I dashed across the street, wondering if the husky was going to follow us all the way back to the house as well as counting the seconds until I felt the teeth on the seat of my pants. Behind me I could hear him snarling and slobbering vociferously, could feel the heat of his breath on the nape of my neck. I ran with Ollie in my arms like that for about a half a block before I turned my head to see where the dog was, expecting to see him right behind me, but to my surprise he was gone.
“What the hell?” I muttered aloud. I was really beginning to dislike this neighborhood, what with all the negligent people letting their aggressive pets run around. I put Ollie in the house, grabbed a flashlight and decided to go take a look for the husky, intending to try and get a phone number off of his collar and call his errant owners. Even though I had made the remark about animal control to the woman I spoke with yesterday, I wasn’t such a dick that I wouldn’t try and speak with the owners first, to give them the benefit of the doubt.
A thirty-minute search of the neighborhood turned up nothing. The dog was either gone or back inside the house it lived. Either way I was still pretty pissed off. It was rare that I came upon loose dogs, owing in part to the fact that I worked in some pretty upscale neighborhoods; confronting two over the course of twenty-four hours was amazing. I made up my mind to be more careful and to bring treats with me on the walks, just in case it happened again and I needed to make friends fast with a strange canine.
And so the week went, everyday coming upon another stray dog as I walked Ollie. Not all of them attacked; in fact those incidents were kept to only three, the third occurring on the last night, involving the black lab with the cracked and missing nails.
This time it was after dark, about nine O’clock at night when we crossed paths with the black lab. Ollie was busy urinating on someone’s flowers when I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned, startled, and saw the dog standing a few feet away from us in the street, head lowered, ears back, tail wagging nervously back and forth. By this time I was no longer surprised, being of the opinion that everyone in the neighborhood were reckless pet owners who didn’t give a damn if they left gates, front doors or garages open so that their pets could roam freely with ill regard as to whether they were struck by cars, stung by bees or attacked by the numerous coyotes that lived in the rapidly disappearing woods that surrounded the area. I merely sighed.
“Hey boy,” I said. “Good dog.”
In the space of seconds between my salutation and the ensuing silence the dog leaped at me, his jaws locking around my forearm.
“Ahhh!” I screamed, trying to pull my arm away, hearing the tearing of fabric as my shirt ripped, feeling the smooth veneers of the teeth puncture my skin and an immediate warmth that could only be my blood, trickling down my arm. Ollie began barking loudly, and when he pulled I almost dropped the leash, the loop at the end catching on the heel of my hand, jerking me along with it. I kicked out blindly, hoping to loosen the dogs grip, feeling the fiery burn of pain surge through my arm, up to my shoulder. I could swear that the dog was right in front of me when I brought my foot forward but it connected with nothing but air and I lost my balance, falling on my back onto the hard sidewalk. My head hit the ground but fortunately it met the grass instead of the concrete, and I lay there for a moment with the wind knocked out of me, Ollie standing over me, licking my face.
“Hey, are you alright?” Someone asked and at once I saw a hand extended toward me and I reached up and took it, getting back to my feet.
“A dog attacked me,” I said, my voice numb with shock, head foggy from my fall. “A black lab. Did you see it?”
The old man shook his head, his clear blue eyes watching me carefully, as if he thought I might be in need of a psychiatric evaluation.
“No I didn’t, and I’ve been standing here since you two walked up. These are my flowers you let your dog piss on.” His voice was calm, his gaze steady, but there was something behind his eyes that unnerved me, that made me feel as if I’d just stepped into an elaborate, surrealistic dream.
“Look at my arm.” I said, holding it up, and he swung a flashlight on it and kept it there while we both looked, myself with more fascination than he.
My shirt wasn’t torn and there was no blood, only a dull, receding memory of pain.
I couldn’t find any words to describe what I was feeling, well, any intelligent words anyway.
“That…uh…can’t be…he was right here and he bit me!”
“Have you been drinking tonight?” He asked and at once my cheeks felt inflamed as embarrassment came over me. I knew what I saw and felt was real, had to be, knew that I wasn’t imagining things.
“A couple of beers but I’m not drunk…”
“I know the Wallace family, they’ve been through quite a few pet sitters.” The old man said, his tone solemn. “I don’t want to have to tell them that I saw you wandering around at night yelling at invisible dogs.”
“No sir.” I said quietly, not knowing what else to say.
“Why don’t you go back to the house and make yourself some coffee and reconsider having anything to drink while you are on the job, huh? Might be best for everybody involved.”
“Yeah, um, right…” I said, turning away, feeling as if everything around me was spinning, the world I once knew falling slowly away from me. As I walked Ollie back to the house I looked at my untouched shirtsleeve, could still feel the iron grip of the jaws clamped on my arm. What had happened back there? Was I just tired? I had a lot to think about and all I wanted now was another drink. Against the old man’s advice I shied away from coffee and drank six more beers until I was tired enough to slip into a dreamless slumber.
* * *
And now here we were, the next morning, the last day of the job, my head fuzzy, my mouth tasting like something took a shit and then died in it, surrounded by all of the dogs that had plagued Ollie and I all week. The street was empty save for them and us. One thing was for sure; I wasn’t the only one that could see them. Ollie could as well.
And then he slipped out of his collar and the leash hung slack in my hands. “No!” I bawled as he ran for the pack and they surrounded him, their teeth and tails working feverishly, the sounds of their panting, growling and biting echoing sickly in my booze addled brain. At once Ollie’s friendly whimpering turned to terror, then pain, and against every rational thought in my head I dove into the pack, reaching out blindly, trying to separate them, trying to extract Ollie from their numbers. My hands clutched uselessly at fur and limbs, yielding nothing each time. It was as if they were made of smoke or mist vapors, and my hands simply passed through their seemingly solid bodies. As the sun slowly began to poke its head out from between the clouds the dogs began to vanish, one by one, and by the time I felt the first rays warm my tear dampened cheeks I saw that I was alone in the street, the only remnant of Ollie the leash that I clutched in my closed fist…