AP02 - Chasing Chance Read online

  Chasing Chance

  “Chance! Chance!” Julia raced down the front steps and across the lawn, heart pounding in her throat, hardly able to breathe. “Chance, come!”

  A red sedan whipped around the corner just as Chance reached the yellow center line.

  “No!” Julia screamed, running into the street, waving her arms.

  Brakes shrieked. Chance looked around. The car slid on wet pavement—and stopped.

  Julia pressed a hand to her mouth, a sob catching in her throat as she whispered, “Thank you.”

  The driver threw open his door, engine and radio still running.

  Chance, the big, grinning Golden Retriever, bounded up to the young man as if he’d been waiting for him all his life. Wagging his tail, licking hands, then jumping up and knocking the driver back to his seat as he started to climb from the car.

  “Chance,” Julia groaned. She seized the dog’s collar. “I’m so sorry—he got out the door. Thank you for stopping.”

  “Glad I saw you. No harm done.” Though he brushed dog hair and drool from his sport coat.

  “Thank you. It won’t happen again.”

  Chance, as if just noticing he was being dragged away, twisted to look up at Julia. Clearly delighted to find her there, he jumped at her, big paws and long tongue flapping, strands of saliva splattering her blouse.

  Julia pulled him, half on his back legs, to the sidewalk as the red sedan pulled away.

  “No,” she snapped, shaking his collar. “You are a bad dog. That was bad.”

  Chance wagged and licked, rubbing his face across her pants, looking up adoringly with huge, soft eyes and a wide-open, panting mouth. He nearly always looked like that. A cartoonish doggie grin plastered across his face with pink tongue hanging out.

  Julia tugged him to the house. Her throat burned. Why couldn’t he understand? It was okay to burst out the front door and run away and bound down the road and chase anything that moved and never come when called. It was all okay to him because it was all so much fun. As if everyone was in on the joke.

  She shoved Chance in the house and slammed the door, letting him go.

  “Bad,” she said, shaking her finger, leaning over him, making her voice deep and mean. “You’re a bad dog.”

  Chance wriggled and rubbed himself against her legs, then flopped onto his back, waving all four paws, lashing his plumy tail across the foyer rug. Not a cowering dog on his back, afraid, respectful. But a silly, happy, Let’s roll on the grass dog.

  Julia stepped back, leaning into the door, clenching her fists. She closed her eyes.

  “What do I do?” she whispered.

  Did one hit the dog? Scream at him? Tie him in the yard to get him to take one seriously?

  Chance was almost two years old. Two years of this. They said he would “grow out of it.” The vet, the dog people she knew: “He’s full of energy right now, but he’s still a puppy. Wait until he gets to three. He’ll settle right down.”

  But Julia couldn’t wait until three. She couldn’t live like this for another day, much less another year.

  She had taken the dog to obedience classes at ten months and, even by then, Ashley—Julia’s then eleven-year-old daughter—could not control him and Julia had managed little better.

  She couldn’t ask Ben to take the dog for more classes. He was already working 50-hour weeks after the promotion, and besides, that wasn’t the deal. They’d gotten the puppy for Ashley, an only child, and Julia had agreed on shared responsibility. This was a mother/daughter dog. Ben was happy to throw a ball for Chance in the park on weekends, or help Ashley give him a bath now and then. But Julia could never ask him to take on the responsibility of making the silly thing behave himself.

  A long, slobbery tongue swiped across Julia’s hand.

  She jerked it away. “Stop it!”

  Chance watched her, head tilted, silky ears pricked. His light gold coat glowed in afternoon sun through the living room windows. The long, smooth fur swished around his body as the force of his wagging tail fanned it. He really was a beautiful dog. If only he had a brain to match.

  “What are we going to do with you?”

  He cocked his head the other way.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ashley went to Grace’s house for dinner that night and didn’t get home until her father was already there. She would have been glad to see him—it seemed he was around so little these days—but she could tell the moment she walked in and saw the two of them in the living room that something was wrong. The living room was for company and Christmas trees. Not for Mom and Dad to sit in, waiting for her. Unless something very serious had happened.

  Only Chance greeted her like normal: throwing himself at her, climbing all over her, knocking her against the door, licking her face, scratching her arms, whimpering like he hadn’t seen her in months.

  “Stop it, Chance.” She held him down by the collar to keep all four paws on the rug.

  He stuck his bear-like head in her backpack, searching for leftovers.

  “No!” Ashley jerked the bag away. “I don’t have anything for you.”

  He licked her face. She pushed him back. When she looked up, both Mom and Dad were watching from the living room. Her on the cream-colored couch, him on one of the upholstered chairs that Mom kept covered since they got Chance.

  “What’s wrong?” Ashley asked, standing up, gripping Chance’s collar to keep him still.

  “How was dinner?” her mom asked.

  Ashley frowned. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  Her dad gestured toward the couch. “Have a seat.”

  Ashley did not move.

  Mom sighed. “We’ve been talking about Chance, sweetheart.”

  Ashley felt tension tighten all through her legs and back. She wanted to run, but her feet seemed glued down. She couldn’t get her breath.

  “He’s still young,” Ashley said, hearing her own voice tight and high in her ears. “He’ll grow out of it. He’ll settle down.”

  “Grow out of what?” her dad asked. “Being disobedient?”

  “I’ll work with him.”

  “Ashley.” Mom rubbed her temples. “We’ve tried. You know that. All those classes. You keep saying you’ll get him to obey and stop jumping on everyone. He’s just as out of control now as he was a year ago. He got away from me this afternoon and was almost hit by a car. Again. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  “We’re just not sure we’re the best family for Chance,” Dad said.

  “No.” Ashley felt her throat closing, eyes hot. “You can’t just send him away like he’s nothing.”

  Now Dad sighed. “He’s into everything, he terrifies your little cousins, he runs away, he chases cars, he’s disobedient. We can’t even invite people to our home anymore, Ashley. I know you care about Chance. So do we. But he’s turning our lives upside down. Can you honestly say you feel this is best for him? One more slip out the door and he could be killed.”

  “Don’t you think Chance would be happiest in a home out of the suburbs?” Mom asked. “A rural place where he can run?”

  “I think Chance would be happiest with me,” Ashley said, her voice strained like a stretched rubber band. “If I started failing school and wrecked the yard, would you get rid of me also?”

  “Ashley—”

  “He’s family! You don’t just dump him!”

  “He’s a dog, Ashley,” her dad started.

  “He’s my dog. I’ll find a trainer. I’ll pay with my allowance. I’ll babysit. You can’t take him away.” She was breathing hard through clenched teeth, fighting to keep the tears away.

  “And what if you can’t change him?” Dad asked.

  “You’ve got to let me try, Dad.”
She swallowed. “Please.”

  Dad looked at Mom.

  She nodded.

  “It’s April.” He looked at Ashley. “You’ll be out of school soon. We want to see a different dog by August.”

  Ashley closed her eyes, bit her lip, nodded. “You will.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The following Tuesday afternoon, Julia and Ashley sat down with a private trainer whom Chance’s vet had recommended. Chance, after an enthusiastic greeting for Robin, was shoved into the backyard by Ashley so they could talk. The yard was only a tiny square of fenced grass and garden, all of which Chance had destroyed, though Julia once grew her own cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, and zucchini out there.

  Robin asked about Chance, his personality, what were the challenges with him, and how long they’d had him. Julia was embarrassed to admit he’d been with them since nine weeks old when the trainer apparently thought he was a neglected shelter dog they rescued. She asked about his daily routine, what he ate, how much he got out. She listened to their explanations of his wild behavior—jumping, digging, chewing, pulling on the leash, running away.

  “What does he like?” Robin asked, watching Ashley while Chance scrabbled at the back door. He’d trashed it with his claws.

  “Running. Chasing things,” Ashley said. “Cars, cats, dogs, bikes, mostly tennis balls.”

  “It’s ironic,” Julia said, “since we spend half our time chasing Chance.”

  Robin smiled. “Has he ever had a job?”

  “Sorry?” Julia frowned, thinking of police dogs.

  “Frisbee, flyball, agility, therapy dog, nose work?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. We got him for Ashley. Just a companion.”

  Robin looked into Ashley’s eyes. “I can help you be a better handler. I can help you understand Chance better and communicate with him. But there’s something very, very important about Chance you need to understand over everything else.”

  Ashley stared back, waiting.

  “It sounds as though he’s getting maybe ten to twenty minutes of exercise most days. Sometimes none. He needs a job. Most of the difficulties you’re having with this dog will correct themselves if he is one thing: tired.”

  Tired? Julia stared. She’d never seen Chance tired. Hot, panting, winded, maybe. But really tired? That hardly seemed possible.

  Ashley nodded. She glanced toward the scrape, scrape, scrape at the door. “So, how do you find a job for a dog?”

  Two months later, watching Ashley and Chance across the big room of the agility center, Julia thought again of those words, and others: you can lead a dog to a job, but you can’t make him work.

  Chance loved agility lessons, loved practicing jumping broom handles at home, loved all the other dogs and people there, loved the teacher, Valerie Jennson, loved all the obstacles. But, sometimes, Julia wondered if Chance didn’t love everything just a little too much.

  The six weeks of introduction to agility were over. Chance was in the beginner class now, where dogs were expected to take simple obstacles, like a bar jump and a nearly flat A-frame, all off-leash. So Ashley, after casting one desperate look toward her helpless mother on the sidelines, let him go.

  Chance took the opportunity to express his feelings. He leaped up at the instructor to lick her face, dashed to a Shetland Sheepdog and dropped into a play bow, ran around another dog and handler in circles, then raced back to Ashley, who was kneeling down, calling and smiling with her arms open as Robin taught her.

  After that, Ashley, her face red and her eyes downcast, kept Chance on the leash as she sent him over jumps and the A-frame. She only dropped the leash for him to run through the tunnel, catching it again at the other side.

  He loved every moment, smiling up at her, panting, swinging his tail, but Ashley never smiled in return.

  The next Friday evening, Ashley sat on her bed with her arms around her knees. She wouldn’t look up when Julia called through the open door that it was time to get ready for agility class.

  “Ashley? Come on, get your treats and leash.” Julia watched her from the doorway, noting the stacks of unfinished homework on the floor, the piles of laundry, the disarrayed desk where Ashley usually spent hours drawing and painting, library books about dog training and agility and Golden Retrievers heaped under the bed. Some of those surely overdue.

  “I’m not going,” Ashley mumbled.

  Julia walked across the path in the floor to sit beside her daughter. Chance followed from the hall, dropping his head in Julia’s lap, then licking Ashley’s exposed arm. Ashley pulled away as if she’d been stung.

  Julia reached out to rest a hand on her back. “What’s wrong? You’re doing really well out there.”

  “Chance isn’t.” Ashley still didn’t look at her. “He’s just so … stupid.”

  “Don’t say that, sweetheart. Robin doesn’t think he’s stupid. You can’t expect him to know what you want without giving him a chance to learn.”

  “But I try and I try and he doesn’t learn. He just goes on being stupid.”

  Julia sighed. “That’s not true. Two months ago, he wouldn’t go through the tunnel. He just walked into the jump, not over it. He wouldn’t even go through the weave poles with the guides on them. He’s starting to understand. He loves being out there with you.”

  Ashley looked at her. “Not with me. He’d be just as happy working with Penny’s owner or Ms. Jennson, or any stranger off the street.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  Ashley turned away.

  “Tell you what.” Julia looked around the room. “Have you been getting your homework done?”

  “I’m too busy at the park every day.”

  Each day now Ashley got Chance out for a half hour walk before school and an hour in the afternoon for ball and walking at the park. Plus working with Robin every other week and agility once a week. Besides that, Ashley had her normal school and after-school work, including gymnastics, book club, and swimming. Julia knew perfectly well she wasn’t getting her homework done.

  “I know it’s hard. I know it doesn’t seem fair. But you have seen the difference in him already, haven’t you? I have.”

  “Some. But he’s not exactly going to be a different dog by August, is he?” Ashley looked at Chance, standing by the bed, panting, with nothing but misery in her eyes.

  “Ms. Jennson is going to an agility trial at the end of August. She thought some of the dogs might be ready for the beginner level by then and she would be there to help if we wanted to sign up.”

  “Yeah.” Ashley snorted. “But she wasn’t talking about Chance. She was talking about Penny and Sundance, that red Border Collie.”

  “Well, think about it. You’ve still got four months to get him ready.”

  “I’ll be lucky if Chance has learned to stay for three seconds at the start line in four months.”

  Julia glanced at her watch. “You’re going to be late.”

  “I told you, I’m not going.”

  “You can’t—” Julia stopped. Again, she looked around the room. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll take him tonight if you promise me to clean up your room and at least get a start on your homework. You’re letting everything else go.”

  Ashley looked morosely around her room.

  “Do your laundry, sort out the library books, clean up your desk. You’ll feel a lot better.”

  Ashley nodded.

  Julia hugged her. “Don’t give up on him, Ashley. He’s counting on you.”

  Ashley sniffed and nodded again against Julia’s shoulder.

  At class, Julia didn’t even try letting Chance off the lead while the other dogs worked around them.

  When she threw her arm out to show him the tire, he jumped up on her. When she ran for the tunnel, he dashed around it. When she tried to lead him up the A-frame, he went around that also. At the weave poles with the guides attached to teach beginner dogs, he jumped over the guides between the poles.

  All the way home, Ju
lia thought about what Ashley said. He’d be just as happy working with Penny’s owner or Ms. Jennson, or any stranger off the street.

  That night, in her prayers, Julia added a postscript: “Please help her see that’s not true. He really is her dog.”

  On Saturday, Julia fixed the three of them homemade blueberry waffles and bacon as a backdrop to break the news:

  “Ashley, you’re right. Chance can’t be expected to learn everything he needs to know to compete within four months when he’s only getting one lesson a week. But I’ve signed him up online for the trial in August.”

  “What?!” Ashley nearly jumped out of her seat.

  “So,” Julia went on. “We’re just going to have to work harder at his education.”

  “Mom! There’s no way!”

  Julia ignored her. “Ben, I hate to ask you this on your day off, but we need to build Chance an agility course at home. What do you think?”

  Ashley cast a panicked look from her parents to her dog, standing beside her with his drooling head in her lap—waiting for a waffle to leap off the table and into his mouth.

  “We can work something out,” Ben said. “Let’s see if we can find ideas online and take a trip to the hardware store.”

  They built Chance jumps and weave poles with PVC pipe, a tire jump with pipe and a bicycle tire, an A-frame with two old doors they found in the local thrift store, and a tunnel from a kid’s play tunnel in a toy store.

  The tiny backyard meant everything very close together and tight turns for the big dog, but, by dinner time, even Ashley was beginning to smile. She hugged her father as he set the last pole into the weave base. “Thank you.”

  Ben kissed the top of her head. “You’re doing a good job, Ashley. We’re proud of you.”

  “Keep it up,” Julia said, smiling beside them as she rubbed Chance’s head. “You’ve got less than four months until his first trial.”

  Ashley took a deep breath, looking from her dog to the miniature agility field. “There’s no way.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Ashley was up at 5:30, out the door with Chance, jogging around the neighborhood, out to the park and back until she was sweaty and gasping. Chance bounced beside her like a puppy, grabbing his own leash in his mouth, waving his tail.