Patrick: Food and Fury (part 2)

Excerpt from Other People’s Pets: Critters, Careers, and Capitalism in Yellowstone Country

Patrick wears two collars when he leaves the condo. One is his normal nylon collar, from which hangs his city license tag and a metal disc with the woman’s phone number engraved on it. The other collar is a circle of metal prongs. During our first meeting, the woman showed me how to put this contraption around his neck and link it together.

“You just slip these two pointy pieces into these two end links,” she said, holding up the circle of silver metal. “Just like this.” She quickly straddled the lab’s broad brown back and clicked the pieces together. Since she’s the size of a small yoga instructor, it was easy for her to bend down and accomplish that task. Since I’m the size of a small pro basketball player, crouching over a dog is not that easy for me, especially given the amount of time it takes me to wrestle those tricky bits of metal into place. Last night, Patrick waited patiently while I struggled for several minutes to connect the two ends while the prongs pressed into his neck.

The prongs are the whole point, pardon the pun, of this collar. If he pulls against the leash, they will push into his neck, into his trachea so he can’t breathe. I’ve never used a choke collar like this, but whenever I see dogs wearing them, I wonder what they’ve done to deserve such a torture device. Patrick’s metal collar is a tight fit, and it takes me several tries to get it on him. I wish I could simply clip his leash to his nylon collar, but that’s not an option. According to my instructions, he is not allowed outside the condo unless he’s wearing the choke collar. Not even in the hallway.

The condo is on the fourth floor of a building in downtown Bozeman, one block north of Main Street. There’s no fenced yard. No yard at all. I wonder about the mental health of a Labrador retriever confined to a hotel-like building surrounded by concrete and asphalt. He’s been here for about a year. If all goes as planned with architects and contractors, however, he’ll live in a residential neighborhood within six months. A year and a half in a seven-hundred-fifty-square-foot space must seem like forever to a lab.

When I throw a toy for Patrick, he can only run about four feet before crashing into a wall or a piece of furniture. There’s a short hallway, but it’s occupied by a bench, a dresser, and a row of the woman’s footwear. The condo is tidy, but it’s full of furniture and other things. Last night, after a few throws, Patrick refused to bring his rubber bone back to me. Instead, he flopped down on the floor and began to gnaw on it. Because, really, what’s the point of trying to run in such a small space? So frustrating. But he seems resigned to his situation, accepting what is. I could learn a few things from Patrick.

I just hope he’s not depressed. His energy seems low for a retriever. Retrievers were originally bred as hunting and sporting dogs, first in the wide-open spaces of the Labrador region of Newfoundland, Canada, and later in Britain. They love to run and chase things, to be active and play with other dogs. Labs are famously friendly, a trait that, according to the American Kennel Club, makes them “America’s most popular breed.”

To get outside, we ride the elevator from the fourth floor to the ground level and then walk through a lobby and down a wide hallway toward a wall of glass that includes the back entrance door. There’s an alley at the back of the condo building. Between the building and the alley is a narrow strip of landscaping—a row of short bushes and clumps of grasses with just enough space and foliage for a dog to sniff and pee after the sun goes down. Thank goodness. Last night I wasn’t eager to walk the intermittently icy sidewalks in the dark, especially not with an unfamiliar dog who needs to wear a metal choke collar.

Patrick’s schedule includes going outside four times each day. He gets a long walk in the morning, a short one at noon, another long walk in the late afternoon, and a quick visit to the bushes in the alley just before bed.

So, after my glorious triumph of getting him to eat breakfast, I put the spikey collar around Patrick’s neck, which isn’t any easier the second time, and clip the leash to it. We ride the elevator downstairs and walk along the alley, aiming for a sidewalk on the nearest residential street. It’s cloudy, windy, and cold. I’m glad I grabbed my warmest coat and a pair of wool mittens before I left home yesterday. Patrick sniffs all the bushes along the alleyway. He marks his territory with a few quick squirts of pee, saving most of it for later. He walks slowly, examining low branches and rocks while I stand and wait for him to move forward again. Despite the cold wind, it feels good to be outside, to breathe in clean air instead of the stale stuff recirculated through vents in the condo building. I close my eyes and tilt my face toward the sun, even though it’s mostly hidden by gray clouds. My imagination fills in the warmth. Patrick moves forward. I open my eyes and follow him down the alleyway along a row of lilac bushes that end at Willson Avenue.

We’re just about to pass the last of the bushes and turn onto the sidewalk when a sweet-faced Golden Retriever suddenly appears, walking next to a tall man in a black jacket. Patrick goes from zero to ferocious in a split second. With amazing speed and force, he emits a menacing growl and leaps toward the other dog. The leash goes taut as my arm is yanked forward. Hard. It takes all my strength and body weight against the leash to keep him from lunging at the other dog’s throat. The guy with the Golden shouts at me. I shout at Patrick and yank him backward. People stare. Drivers slow their vehicles to gawk.

By the time I’ve managed to drag him away from the other dog and backward into the alley, I’m panting, and Patrick is coughing, his trachea severely compressed by the choke collar. He shakes his head, chuffing and stepping in a sideways circle. I should loosen the collar and make sure he’s okay. But right now, I don’t care about him. A bright blaze of pain runs through my right shoulder. I lean over, hands on knees, gasping.

When I can almost breathe normally again, we walk quickly back down the alley and over to the patio area behind the condo building. I sit on one of the concrete benches near the back entrance—to recover and sort through my racing thoughts.

During our interview, Patrick’s person said, “He can get a little aggressive with other dogs.”

A little aggressive? Like he growls a little, or like he attacks other dogs a little? I should have asked her for details. Sometimes, in the moment, questions that should be asked don’t occur to me. I was busy making friends with Patrick while I admired the beautiful green and gold quilt draped across one end of her couch. Creating a connection with pets is what I focus most on during interviews. Because, when people see that connection, they hire me. I can always ask questions later, but—to loosely paraphrase Will Rogers—I only have one chance to make a good first impression. People are impressed when their pets like me. In this case, however, I regret my lack of curiosity about the need for a metal collar.

The concrete bench is cold. The air is cold. I pull the hood of my gray puffer jacket over my head and look down at the paving stones, waiting for my heart to stop thudding against my ribs. Oh my god, I think, if I have a heart attack right now, no one will know who to call when they find me dead on this bench! I don’t have any identification with me—only my double-password-face-recognition-protected phone. My daughter doesn’t know where I am. I need to send her the address and Patrick’s person’s phone number right away. But wait. What if I have the heart attack later when I’m inside the condo? I should have bought a smart watch in the Verizon store last week.

But my daughter won’t be able get into the building even if she knows where I am, because only residents have a key card for the elevator, and there’s no attendant in the lobby. And how would emergency responders get to the fourth floor? I haven’t seen a phone number posted anywhere on the ground floor that a non-resident could call. There are two restaurants and a coffee shop there, but no server in any of those places would know who to call about getting access to residential floors. I could die up there! Patrick will eat my body and shit all over the floor before his person returns from her trip and finds the mess. Or would he bark constantly until another resident contacted the building manager? Is there a building manager?

Without a command or invitation, Patrick sits next to me, oozing an unfamiliar friendly charm. He is now an exemplary Labrador Retriever—a shining example of the labs described on the American Kennel Club and breeder websites: friendly and affectionate. He licks my hand, leans against my leg, and lays his head on my knee. I can’t tell if he’s acting like nothing happened or apologizing. Whatever. He soon gets distracted by birds flitting from branch to branch on the leafless trees in the back yard across the alley and stands up to sniff the air. Within three minutes, he’s gone from calm to ferocious to (possibly) contrite and back to calm—as if nothing happened between calm and calm. Once again, I think about life lessons I could learn from Patrick.

When my heart rate finally slows, we set off in the opposite direction from where we encountered the Golden. At the other end of the alley, there’s nothing to block my view of the sidewalk running along North Tracy Avenue and into the residential neighborhood. I visually scan the area, searching for dogs. As we walk, I continue scanning and move to the other side of the street every time I see another dog. We make it to the neighborhood park, several blocks away, without an encounter.

While Patrick carefully smells each piece of playground equipment, I constantly check the area, monitoring our proximity to other dogs. If they get too close, I pull him away. We leave the park when a black lab arrives to chase after a lime-green ball thrown by a young man wearing a Montana State University hoodie. The ball sails through the air and lands a few yards away from where we’re standing. The dog sprints toward it, and us. Patrick growls. I yank him out into the street. He coughs as the metal prongs press into his neck, but I don’t stop to let him recover until we’re across the street and halfway down the block.

We walk back to the condo building on a zigzag-y route as I maneuver us as far away from all dogs and people as possible. If a sweet, middle-aged Golden Retriever provokes such fury in Patrick, I don’t want to risk any other encounters.

Scanning, maneuvering, zigzagging, and avoiding becomes my strategy. Patrick, of course, enjoys our walks immensely. The more zig-zag-y the better, in fact. But for me, each outing is filled with tension and anxiety. Even getting out of the building is difficult.

The next morning, as we stand in the hallway waiting for the elevator, the door slides open to reveal a woman and a small white poodle. Patrick instantly morphs into killer dog, lunging and growling and barking. The woman shrieks. The poodle yips and cowers behind her leg. I drag Patrick across the wide hallway and over to the door that opens into the stairway, dropping “sorry, sorry, sorry” behind me as we go. I shove him onto the landing and close the heavy metal door behind us. Again, I lean over, hands on knees, gasping. He stands, looking down the stairs, patient and calm, waiting, unremorseful.

We hike down four flights of stairs to get to the ground floor, where I push the door open just a few inches to check for dogs in the hallway before we step out. After our walk through the neighborhood, we climb the stairs to get back to the fourth-floor. Again, I check before we step out into the hallway. And then we run to the condo’s door.

From then on, we take the stairs. I’m anxious and tensed for conflict during each moment we’re in the hallways, on the stairs, and during each moment we’re outside. But inside the condo, Patrick is easy to be with. He eats, sleeps, and chases his rubber bone exactly three times across the small living room before flopping onto the floor for a long session of enthusiastic chewing. Inside the condo, he seems perfectly content. Nothing about his behavior indicates that he misses his person or is unhappy with anything—once we got the food situation sorted, anyway. He accepts the difference between her and me with good cheer. This lab is not needy, but he enjoys affection—as long as it’s his idea. Once or twice a day, he comes over, sits next to me, and leans in.

“Why are you such a weirdo?” I ask now, raking my fingers across his favorite neck and chest areas. Patrick heaves a blissful sigh and relaxes against my thigh.

I sort through my knowledge base about canine aggression. Most is territorial, related to dominance of property, people, or possessions: yard and home, child, food, toys, etcetera. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on with Patrick. I believe his behavior might be triggered by fear. Perhaps there’s an issue with his eyesight. Maybe the Golden retriever startled him when it appeared from behind the bush. I decide to keep that idea in mind during the next few days. Although I’m not about to let him get close to the dogs we meet in the neighborhood, I love a good puzzle and the Golden encounter might hold a clue.

I’ll have plenty of opportunities to test my theory because Patrick’s person has given me deposits to hold several more dates, including Thanksgiving week, which is nearly nine months away.