While they were still on the road driving home from Nathan's two day stay in Karen's Kennels, Mary had announced, out of the blue, that she was allowing him to speak to her again. He still had to use 'woofs' for 'yes' and 'no,' she said, but otherwise, he could use actual words. Hope blossomed in Nathan's, aka Rover's, doggie heart, He was delighted. What made it all the more pleasurable was that it was totally unexpected.
But more than that, a greater significance could be attached to this development, Nathan felt. First, it was a climb down by Mary. That doesn't happen too often. And second, it clearly indicated, he felt, that he was starting on his journey back to normality. 'One small step' and all those analogies sprang to his mind. Sure, it wasn't a giant leap towards mankind, just a small, but important, step in the direction Nathan wanted his dog life to go. That is, to being human again.
The power to speak could be considered a fairly reasonable step away from being one hundred percent dog. This, he decided, was a clear sign that Mary's resolve to stick it to him on the puppy play experiment was beginning to weaken. He wasn't going to question Mary's decision or wonder why she had made this concession. It was good news. The best he could have hoped for. That was enough. Don't look as gift horse... and all that.
The good mood only lasted the length of the car journey home. When Mary led him from the car to the newly constructed dog pen in the backyard, Nathan knew immediately that he had been wildly overoptimistic. The big new dog pen marked the opposite of easing up on the puppy play experiment. This was doubling down on it.
Nathan had had the whole night in the wooden doghouse in the corner of his dog pen to think about the implications of this development, and to get over it. That's it so, he decided eventually, she is planning to keep me as a dog for some time. And he began to accommodate himself to that fact. Because he had to. Nathan was like that. He went along with stuff. Made the best of circumstances. Had a 'what happens, happens philosophy.
By morning he was ready to start building the positives. Accepting that he would still be a dog to Mary, the fact that he would be able to talk to her when she came to let him out of the dog pen was huge. It meant he could now escape the limitations of barking and whining as his only means of communication. That, he reconfirmed to himself, was mega good news. Not to be downplayed.
The second big positive he could look forward to, he reminded himself, was to be able to walk upright once he got out of the pen. At the start of his puppy play experiment, he had wanted to go on all fours like a dog, but Mary decided it was just not practical for Nathan to creep around on his hands and knees all the time. Her play pup would walk upright for the duration of the puppy play game, she said, but she would clip his fore paws to his collar to reduce his ability use them like hands. He was disappointed. He considered walking upright an unfair diminution of his puppy play experience. But his stay in the kennels, where he was kept on all fours, changed his mind on that score. And besides he was fed up of the whole puppy play thing and just wanted to get back to normal.
Walking upright like a normal person was now something Nathan so wanted. Anything that was less dog-like and more human-like was good. The modified slogan in George Orwell's book, Animal Farm, came to his mind; four legs good, two legs better. He had been surprised, when forced to walk on all fours at the kennels, to find that his outlook on the world was so effected, so diminished. The strain of pulling his head up, so that he had the same viewpoint as if upright, was tiring. He spent a lot of the time just staring at the ground in front of him, or at Millie's sneakers when she had him walk at heel behind her. When your view was limited to the ground immediately in front and to the sides, the world became a much smaller place. The world of the play puppy.
After a restless first night of broken sleep in his new doghouse, Nathan lay huddled up under the old horse blanket, looking out the small curved doorway at the dawn. The grey light of early morning had given way to a clear blue sky, and the rising sun was slowly heating the ground. Half dozing, half dreaming, he imagined what it would be like later when Mary took him for a walk. He could see himself striding along beside her, his head level with hers, chatting away about this and that. Okay, so she'd probably be holding a leash attached to his collar, and his forepaws would be clipped to the collar, but still he'd be walking and talking with her. They would probably chat about his stay in the kennels, about whether they need to get more dog food, how her job was going. Normal stuff, person to person, eye to eye. It would be so good.
As soon as he heard the back door or the house opening, Nathan struggled upright in his three foot high doghouse. He poked his two extended fore paws out into the pen, and clumsily pulled himself forward to get clear of the small doorway. He could hear Mary shout 'Come on Rover, time to get up. Wakey, wakey,' as he moved over towards the mesh door of the pen, ready to be let out into the yard. Looking up to see her striding towards him, long lead in hand, his spirits rose.
He quickly shuffled his ass back and forth to make his tail wag and barked about ten excited woof, woof, woofs. The doggie way of saying. 'How delighted I am to see my owner. How eager I am to be a good obedient puppy for her. I'm all set to get stuck into a new day.' Also wanting to make an immediate use of his permission to speak, but careful not to mention Mary by name, as his owner reached the outside of the pen, Nathan said much the same again in plain English, and a little more.
'Good morning. Good morning. I'm so delighted to see you. It's really great to be back home, and I can't wait to stand up straight again.'
To his surprise, instead of happily returning his greeting, he saw Mary frown and pause, on the point of pulling the gate latch back. Like she was composing herself ahead of undertaking a stern task. Never one to shirk from her duty, Mary bit the bullet and undertook that stern task.
'About the standing up straight thing, Rover,' she said with brutal directness. 'You can forget that. I've decided to keep you on all fours for the duration of your dog life.'
'But you are the very person who said I couldn't go on all fours last Friday night, when I had wanted to.'
Mary decided to let Rover down a little more gently.
'True enough, Rover' she acknowledged. 'But that was when I didn't think walking on all fours was going to work for you. I even told Karen's Kennels to keep you on all fours for the duration of your stay just to bring home to you that it wasn't practical.'
'I see,' said Nathan. Just for something to say. Just in case she suddenly decided that having a speaking dog wasn't practical either.
'When I arrived to collect you, I was amazed to discover that Karen's Kennels had made the impossible possible. There was Rover, totally a dog, encased in his furry dog skin, with his tail waving high over his bum, and his two dog ears sitting on top of his doggie head, trotting along comfortably on his arm stilts. That is, when you were not busy being fucked up the ass by another dog. By the way, did you enjoy that, Rover?'
'Woof, woof,' Rover quickly replied by way of saying 'no, he didn't enjoy it,' deciding that Mary was trying to change the subject now. Knew she was in the wrong. Trying to put him on the back foot by bringing up the embarrassing matter of him willingly bending over and allowing Tiger to repeatedly have his wicked way with him.
