Whippoorwill by Joseph Monninger Read Free Book Online Page B

dog. That’s what Father Jasper says.
    Â 
    I felt a little sick walking over to Wally, and excited, too. With my luck I knew Dad would return right when I was over with Danny, and then we would all undergo an awkward, crazy moment or two while Danny and Dad tried to figure each other out. Dad would have to see Danny
that
way, as a suitor, or at least as a boy marginally interested in his daughter, and Danny would have to see Dad as
Dad,
an old bearded Harley guy, who maybe wanted to stick up for his daughter.
    All of that was possible. And it was also possible Danny simply wanted to go for a hamburger and I was around so he asked me.
    I couldn’t think it through too much. I saw Danny playing with Wally when I came around the stockade fence that separated our two yards. He had Wally dancing around off the post. I heard the Daily Growler squeaking, and Danny’s voice was high and happy, saying things like “thataboy,” “thereyougo,” “thatsit.” He was probably doing what Father Jasper wouldn’t want him to do, getting Wally crazy and associating human companionship only with play, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Danny looked kind of good in the late-evening light, kind of young and happy, and the same way I had seen the puppy in Wally, I now saw the puppy in Danny. He looked like he did before the sideburns, before the jacked-up car and bluesmen, looked like the kid I had occasionally glimpsed in our neighborhood. Cute, sort of.
    â€œHey,” I said, coming around, letting him know I was there.
    â€œLook at this good boy,” Danny said, dancing around with Wally.
    â€œHe’s a nice dog.”
    â€œHe’s a great dog,” Danny said, bouncing around with him.
    I crossed my arms. It was cold now. All the shadows were long and tired. The sun had gone behind the mountains in Vermont, and one big shadow spread slowly across New Hampshire.
    â€œI should do some homework,” I said.
    â€œWait, tell me what this priest guy says. How do you train him?”
    â€œI’m no expert. I just read the book. It’s pretty good. It gives you a lot of common-sense tips, but it also talks about what a dog’s spirit needs.”
    â€œI’d like to read that book. Could I borrow it?”
    Part of me wanted to say,
You know how to read?
But I nodded.
    â€œFirst of all,” I said, coming forward and petting Wally, “when a dog’s on a leash, he has to mean business. You can’t let him pull and jump and go nutty while he’s on a leash.”
    â€œHow do you play with him then?”
    â€œWell, you can play with him, but only after you’ve released him. In other words, he has to know when he’s supposed to be serious and when he’s supposed to play. The whole thing about dogs, Father Jasper says, is giving a dog something to do. Dogs want direction, they want a pack leader. If you leave a dog to its own devices, then it doesn’t know what to do so it spazzes.”
    â€œOkay,” Danny said, “so what do we do?”
    I didn’t really know. But I took the leash and put Wally in front of me. He jumped and I kneed him off. I spotted a glimmer, just a glimmer, of a small change in his eyes. He understood we wanted to help him, to be with him, and so he didn’t act quite as frantic as he had the other times I’d been around him.
    â€œSit, Wally,” I said, and raised the leash.
    He didn’t sit.
    â€œYou only give a command once,” I told Danny. “Father Jasper insists on that. If you say things more than once, then the command becomes sit, sit, sit, sit, and the dog doesn’t take it seriously.”
    I put my hand on Wally’s rear end, lifted the leash higher, and seesawed him into a sit. Wally popped right out, but I made him sit again three times. He got better each time.
    â€œWe need to give him biscuits when he does it right,” I said. “Positive