We learn from history that changes in the fate of kings were thought in times gone by to be reflected by changes in the heavens, extending to the Polynesian legend that the midday sky turned dark when King Kamehameha died. So too my ears were the bellwethers, or outstanding signs of my progress towards greater maturity. My ears, ironically, were undistinguished at first, and flopped like any Tom, Dick, or Jack Russell terrier’s. Within months, however, what flopped rose high, so too, my chest broadened, my bark deepened, nor were these the final sum of what was adding up. Not all the fluctuations in my nature were welcomed by The Object of My Devotion, who preferred I remain a limp-eared puppy, the better to lord it over me.

His pretense to rank higher than my own propped up what self-esteem he had left to him after the visit to his elders. He sought some compensation by continuing to go off at night and returning at dawn. I liked this no better than I had at first, but put aside my immediate fears. When he went so far as to delay my morning walk by falling asleep, however, I insisted we maintain basic civilities by nudging him awake with my paw. I inadvertently scratched his cheek. As he fingered the red mark his spine stiffened, in a way I knew indicated decision. Soon after we left for a walk.

When my business on the street was done, we should have returned home where he might mind his own business and scribble. Instead, The Object of My Devotion proceeded uptown and entered into what seemed to be a sympathetic storefront, judging from the young pups lolling in its window.

The place was a cruel deception, an enticing façade to a sordid sinkhole. Upon first entrance there were bags of chow, though none were to eat. There were walls of toys, though none were to play with. We had arrived at the Groomerama. The proprietor was a curly-haired scoundrel stuffed into a polyester bowling shirt. The rascal smiled and spouted oily compliments regarding my appearance. Gullible as always, The Object of My Devotion left me there and in the care of this heartless hypocrite. I wagged my tail morosely, and cast my gaze about me with repugnance.

The place stank of fear and unnatural practices. The walls were lined with wire cages in which terriers lay languishing. Some whined to warn me, others lay morosely and watched with resignation born of sad experience. As soon as The Object of My Devotion had left the place the artful owner took me up ungently and examined my four dainty paws. I knew from the cries of the imprisoned witnesses that he was up to not good. I curled my upper lip to warn him I meant to make use of my teeth should he attempt to proceed further.

CHAPTER 10

With a laugh and an evil sounding word in his foreign tongue the pitiless proprietor of the accursed Groomerama grabbed my head between his implacable hands. I resisted as best I could by wrenching backwards and opening my jaws in a threatening manner, when one of his henchmen, hitherto unnoticed, ignominiously tied my muzzle tight with strips of dead cowhide, kept especially for that purpose. My pleas, my whimpers, my appeals to their better nature and a higher power went unnoticed. Without delay the Groomerama villains swung at my toes with their sharpened blades.

I wiggled, I turned. They drew blood, mine, and their own. The other terriers cheered me on with calls hurled from behind their bars. Over-powered by superior numbers I was defeated in my resistance. Nail after nail on paw after paw after paw after paw each was clipped summarily short. My mouth was unbound, and I was thrust into a pen in a line with the others. There was a shallow shabby pan of water, and not a treat in sight.

The information passed to me from the prisoners to my left and right shocked me greatly. These terriers in their cages were the unloved results of sordid matings, undergone for commerce. The tender infants, torn from their mothers by the exigencies of trade. Sold! And if too old, reduced! Forced to lie in a hot window and lure customers inside. Does the system of accumulating wealth among humans demand such a sacrifice as this to keep it going?

Forty minutes passed, the worst in my life. Laugh if you will. Mock a terrier’s terror at the fear of the unknown. My own misfortunes may seem of little consequence compared to the misery of others – mange, for example – still, I doubt if your wet nose was licked by an open flame you would keep it in the fire for forty seconds. My fear, quite justified under the circumstances, that I’d been kidnapped by these gypsies, burned my heart as much as any of their campfires would have roasted your snout. Now, amplify your seconds by the minutes of my tender heart. Forty minutes of such torment is more than sufficient for a lifetime. Around me the desperate cries of the others reached up to a drop ceiling of dingy Styrofoam. Not the least of the horrors of the Groomerama was its bad taste.

Then I saw her. They led her in, their prize, eight shapely pounds, black and white, with sensational ears. She was bug-eyed with fear at the low estate into which she had fallen.

CHAPTER 11

I was in a cage above and opposite; she was imprisoned on the rack of the other wall. A sound issued from my throat I never knew I had within me: the croon of the Rat Terriers, male calling to female. I warbled. She squealed.

My fears for myself were put aside. The Groomerama honcho ordered “Vamos! Teeny Maria!” My Spanish lessons from the radio paid off. I had learned her name, Teeny Maria, even as I bristled at his effrontery speaking to her in such familiar voice. He had so far reduced her to his slave that she did his bidding and accepted a treat from out of his palm before walking with dainty steps into quarters unfit to hold a cat. I snarled. The Groomerama goons laughed at me then, but what did I care? I had gained my desire: Teeny Maria looked up at me. She knew now who it was, in the storefront of her debasement, had taken notice of her plight. From the angle at which I viewed her I could see little more than her black and white snout. I longed to nuzzle her muzzle, to coax a smile from those sweet black lips. I vowed, should I ever have the chance, to free Teeny Maria from the unwanted intimacies of the Groomerama.

The Object of My Devotion returned to the scene. While I had been in torment he had been shopping. The evidence hung from his arm: travel books. In exchange for a few dirty dollars, a Groomerama goon with a dissembling smile handed me back to The Object of My Devotion. Restored to safety, I glanced towards Teeny Maria in hopes that she might be ransomed.

The Object of My Devotion ran his eyes over her with an uncomprehending gaze and moved on to admire a gouache, and I must add gauche, painting of a gypsy girl with some red and white polka dot textile wrapped firmly around her head and loosely across her chest. It was at this moment I realized not only had I grown, but I had grown so far beyond his capabilities he was incapable of recognizing what to me was now black and white: the mate fate cast down before me.

Despite my disgust at the tacky décor I tried to linger but I was hurried out the door and back onto the street. Through the plate glass window we could see the Groomerama honcho flaunting his powers, holding up poor Teeny Maria and forcing her paw to wave bye-bye. The Object of My Devotion had to drag me away down Sixth Avenue.

We had come to a crossroads. As a puppy I had had more in common with him. Now that I had grown into the complexity of a dog; he lagged behind. Still, if he was foolish, once we returned home I had only to compare him to the Groomerama gang to appreciate The Object of My Devotion was not mean, but limited.

He was doing what he could to survive, scribbling through the night to meet the deadline for the Giant Summer issue of History’s Mysteries Magazine. It had long since been made clear to me that his writing in some slow slow way translated into food. Lately, it had been slower than usual, but still he was tapping out rhythms with his pen on the surface of his desk, mumbling to himself, waiting for royalties, which once I cleared up my confusion and understood we weren’t expecting the King and Queen of Spain at our doorstep, I further understood that the royalties we were expecting were just as unlikely to make an appearance as Ferdinand and Isabella or the long deceased King Kamehameha.

The illogic of his hopes moved me to encourage his scribbling. From my position curled in his lap I tucked my head into the crook of his right arm which rose and fell in his efforts to better himself.

There is a haiku, one of the oldest in history, that applies here:

I have always thought the significant words here are as we may. The Japanese terrier who wrote the simple verse above understood that, huddling beneath a pile of straw, or lounging on a satin pillow beneath the gilded eaves of a pagoda, when storms blow up we find the havens our wits discover for us. Mine was the crook of an elbow. If The Object of My Devotion was scribbling, I would learn to ride on his arm, no matter where it might take me.

Yet while I might conquer my conscious fears with a spirit of adventure, knowledge of the Groomerama dwelt in my mind in ways beyond my control. My sleep was troubled. I whimpered during my post breakfast nap. I twitched during the nap I take before lunch. I mewed like a kitten during my nap after lunch. My nap before dinner was punctuated by shivery nightmares in which my fears for Teeny Maria mixed with strange longings to see the unapproachable baby Lilly once more, and without the supervision of her grandparents.

This was eminent. Just as I had forgiven him his limitations, so too, it seemed had his Begetters. We were invited back to the house in the country-side for a holiday: the so-called Fourth of July.