Training
With Wolfie
By Karen Singer
Chapter 7
– Part 2 of 2
Brian
was getting awfully hungry. He was even
starting to think about some of the dog treats she constantly gave him. He figured he had to be desperate indeed if
that’s what his mind was focusing on.
The oddest part was though, that she had left him and Wolf alone all
morning…well, at least since she had come out that one time. He had seen no other sign of her since. She had reduced him to the status of…a dog,
and now she was ignoring him…like a dog.
Out of sight, out of mind. It was
particularly noticeable because she had always been so attentive in the
past.
He
watched as Wolf sniffed carefully around the base of one of the nearby
trees. Then he lifted his leg and peed
against it. Then of course he had to
sniff at what he had just done again.
Ugh! The few times Brian had
needed to pee, he had simply crawled to a spot where he didn’t think he’d be
crawling through anytime soon and squatted his body down a bit and let loose on
the grass. Forget lifting his leg like
he was supposed to. As long as nobody
yelled at him for it, it was a lot easier.
Wolf
suddenly lifted his head and looked toward the house again. Brian looked too. Was she coming out? But he didn’t see her yet. Wolf suddenly started barking and running
toward the gate on the driveway side.
Brian just figured it was someone else wanting to pay rent, or perhaps
one of her workers. But as he watched
Wolf, he realized that Wolf was acting different, he seemed excited…happy! It had to be someone he knew!
Brian
tried to figure out what he should do so it would be less likely for him to be
spotted. But before he could move, he
saw the back door open and Mrs. Murphy finally came outside. Knowing she would call right away, he started
crawling for the porch before she bothered.
Wolf, however, nearly knocked Rosa down
as he excitedly jumped all over her.
“Down
Wolf! Down!” she yelled at her big
dog. Wolf stopped jumping on her, but he
was still looking for her attention and ran around in a circle until she bent
down and rubbed the thick fur around his head and neck. “Did you boys miss me?” she asked as soon as
Brian was fairly close. “I wasn’t gone
all that long.”
Brian
stopped in his tracks. She had been
gone? He should have realized it
before.
Rosa
walked up to him. She bent down and
rubbed the top of his head too. “And how
about you? Were you a good boy while I
was gone too?”
Unable
to answer her in any meaningful way, Brian simply sat…like a dog.
As
usual, Rosa put the two of them through their old exercises, but this time she
wondered if Brian was more focused than usual on the little liver treats she
handed out. When she was done, she let
the two of them into the house.
Brian
expected her to feed him something for lunch, but once in the house, she walked
right through the kitchen as if lunch was the furthest thing from her
mind. He followed her into the living
room where she pulled something out of a bag from a store. From his position on the floor, he couldn’t
tell what it was as she pulled it out of the packaging.
Rosa
turned and saw Brian…now Bobo, watching her.
Wolf was over in the other side of the room laying on the floor chewing
on one of his stuffed toys. “Just stay
there,” she said to Bobo. “I’ll be right
back.” She left him and went to her
bedroom where she found what she needed, then headed right back to the living
room again where she picked up the items she had just purchased. She turned to Bobo. “Stay!” she commanded. Then she bent down to go to work.
Frightened
by whatever she might have in mind, Brian dared not move as she came around
behind him. He felt her picking up his
left foot and pull something over it, then up his leg. Then she picked up his entire leg and began
pulling whatever it was up even higher.
It was fairly tight, whatever it was.
As soon as she had it where it was covering his entire knee, she dropped
his leg. Brian expected a nasty bump as
his knee hit the floor, but instead, he was surprised by no pain at all. Padding!
She had pulled some kind of knee pad up his leg! If he had a way to talk, he would have
thanked her. A minute later, the second
pad was on his other knee. Delightedly,
he crawled around in a circle. Much
better!
Rosa
watched Brian’s movements. She could
tell he liked the pads she had bought him.
She had only gotten them because of some of the things she and Mr.
Tolliver had discussed while they were looking at different leathers. Things that she should have thought about
earlier. Well, Brian, or Bobo, might
like the pads, but he certainly wasn’t going to like what came with them.
“Bobo,”
she called. “Come!” As soon as he had come back to her, she said,
“Stay!” Then she picked up the two
straps she had used on his legs once before – the day that Tolliver had first
seen Brian. Within minutes, his legs
were pulled up again, forcing him to now move only on his kneecaps. As she and Tolliver had discussed. It would probably be best if she started
getting him used to having his legs in that position, a little at first, then
in ever increasing lengths of time. So
that by the time Tolliver had all of his things ready for Brian, he would be
much more used to it.
Brian
was a bit shocked as he moved tentatively around the room trying to get used to
his legs being this way again. He was
grateful for the padding under his knees, that made things much easier, but he
still hated being bound like this. And
there was absolutely nothing he could do about it – especially since his hands
were bound up into paws too. Feeling
nothing but sorry for himself again, he found the little spot between the
chairs that he had used previously, where he felt a bit more hidden from the
world…where he would be less likely to be seen in his present state. He laid down on his stomach in the cramped
little space. From there, he worked his
way to his side. The space had just
enough room for his bound up legs so he could be comfortable. But before he could try to take a nap,
something hit his arm and head, startling him.
He looked up and saw one of Wolf’s stuffed dog toys lying next to his
head.
“Something
for you to play with,” Rosa said before she walked off.
Brian
ignored the toy completely and laid his head on his arm. He hated having his legs bound up that
way. For that matter, he hated having
his hands bound up too. Not to mention
that he hated all of this. But what
could he do? She hurt men…probably
tortured spies for the CIA…professionally!
Rosa
kept Brian’s legs bound up for most of the afternoon, even when she shooed both
her “dogs” outside to play again. But
when she finally let his legs loose, she also removed the knee pads she had put
of him.
While
Brian was glad to have his legs loose again, he would have rather kept the knee
pads. But since they were outside
anyway, it didn’t really matter that much.
What he really wanted more right now was something to eat. He was hungry! Fortunately, she called them in for dinner
not long afterwards. Once again, he ate
his dinner from a dog bowl on her kitchen floor. And fortunately, this time, Wolfie didn’t
even try to get any.
After
dinner, Rosa kept her dogs in the house for a little while before sending them
out again. But she didn’t leave them out
very long before bringing them back into the house. As the evening wore on, Brian laid on her
living room carpet and tried to watch TV with Rosa
while Wolf moved from spot to spot to take his never ending naps. At one point, Wolf jumped up onto the couch
with Rosa and laid his head in her lap. Brian watched as Rosa pet her big dog’s head
endlessly as she sat watching TV. And
Wolf obviously loved it.
Late in
the evening, Rosa sent both her dogs back out into the yard again to do their
business. Brian peed quickly, hoping
that the sooner he got it over with, the sooner she would release him and send
him home.
“You’re
supposed to lift your leg when you pee!” Rosa
yelled at him as he was “watering” the grass under him. “Like Wolfie!”
But
Brian said nothing in return, not because he couldn’t say anything, but because
this time he considered it his little way to spite her. He started crawling closer to the gate
instead where she could untape his hands so he could go home.
Rosa saw
where Brian was heading. “Sorry, Bobo,”
she said. “You’re not going home
tonight. Not until Sunday night. Since you don’t have to worry about being
called for school, then there’s no reason you can’t stay here with Wolfie and
me.”
Brian
felt both horrified and crushed. All
weekend? He would have to be a damn dog
– all weekend? That was…forever! Reluctantly, he followed Rosa and Wolf back
into the house for the night.
When
she went to bed, he started the night sleeping on the floor of her bedroom with
Wolf. But in the middle of the night,
when he had woken up and realized that she was sound asleep, he moved quietly
into the living room, where he climbed up onto her sofa and stretched out. Much better!
