Pictures for Dogs

          Tony watched the dog slink toward him through the sagebrush until he saw her eyes plead with him for help.
          “Dad, Dad, Dad, come here. Oh you poor girl, don’t move, don’t move. Dad, hurry!”
          “O.K. son, I’m right here.”
          The boxer rushed to the voice, her head lowered, and she nestled herself against the man’s leg. The quills were sticking mostly in her jowls, with a few in her nose and some in her left cheek.
          “You stupid girl. Twice in two weeks. Really.”
          Wind stirred in the basin, blending the odors from a receding pond with the scent of sage. The man placed his camera on the ground and set his tripod and camera bag next to it. From a Velcro pouch he took a Leatherman, his final gift as a husband, and readied the pliers to begin the operation. Kneeling in the rock bits and dust, surrounded by the silvery-green brush, the man spoke in hushing sounds until the boxer grew somewhat soothed. Tony sang his concern like a bird, chattering without waiting for reply.
          “Dad, Dad, it’s going to hurt her. It’s O.K., it’s O.K. Was she this bad last week? Careful Dad, seriously. It’s going to hurt.”
          “It probably hurts already. Dumb dog.”
          “If Mom was around she’d know what to do. Shouldn’t we take her to the vet? Dad she doesn’t like your hands there. You poor, poor girl. You’re the best dog ever. You’ll be O.K.”
          With each maneuver of the pliers, her large eyes filled with panic but her body stayed in trust. A gust shook the sagebrush, waving the grass and blowing a bit of earth into the man’s eye, stopping his work. He stood and retreived a water bottle he kept in a pouch of his camera bag. Like a child in a dentist’s chair, the boxer shifted and gave him a forlorn look.
          “It’s good that she’s not trying to run off,” he said, setting the bottle down.
          “She was more jittery last week. I guess she learned.”
          “Why didn’t she learn not to mess with a porcupine then?”
          Tony examined a quill sticking from her nose and compared the fresh scars from the last encounter to the new wounds. He picked up a quill from the ground and poked his palm, then his wrist, then his nose. His dad told him to quit when he touched it on his tongue. He went to hug the dog but stood too close, hitting a quill with his knee. The boxer turned frantic with a yelp, pawing her face while trying to run. She knocked over the camera bag and spun around abruptly, tipping the water bottle onto the camera and ramming into the man. He subdued her with a shout and commanded Tony to wait by the pond.
          Several drops of water fell to the ground as the man picked up the camera, drying it quickly with his shirt. A packet of photos from the camera bag lay scattered. Mumbling, he set things in order and returned to his tail-wagging patient. The boy stood peering over his shoulder.
          “Dad, if dogs were like humans, we could just show her a picture of a porcupine and tell her how bad they are. Then she’d know, and she never would have messed with it. We might be able to show her a picture and just say ‘no’.”
          “That’s all I have to do? Show you pictures, and you’ll do what you’re told? I’ve been taking the wrong pictures.”
          “Dad, seriously. At school, they showed us these pictures. These pictures of people who were old. Well, I don’t know how old they were, but there were these pictures. And they had lungs of people who smoked. And they were so gross. Dad, I’m not joking, seriously, it was like a barbecue. I’m not going to smoke, ever. No one who saw those pictures would smoke.”
          Flies and cattail pollen peppered the air. The man smiled and shook his head. He pulled the last quill out, examined the dog’s mouth, and rubbed the her belly until Tony began kissing the wounds. She slobbered licks across his face.
          Standing with a groan, the man rubbed his knees and put the Leatherman back in its pouch. Quail in their covey began to sound. Quietly, he joined in.
          “Re-BEC-a. Re-BEC-a.”
          He laughed in a whisper, but sorrow crept upon his face. From the photos, he drew out an edge-worn picture of a woman with Mt. Rainer in the distance. The picture held his gaze as the wind bent it in his hand. Over a hundred times he’d looked at that photo. Tony lectured the boxer on skunks, describing what they looked like, but she didn’t get it either.

Orin Melvin is a full time student at WVC after being a partner for a tourism business in Morocco since 1994. His wife Lisa is from Australia and both his kids, Luke and Lydia, were born in Morocco. He hopes to pursue writing, but his wife would be happy if he picked up his dirty clothes.