Not Marley

Fia, five months

photo by Sam

"Elle est vraiment très bien comportée," said my husband, looking down at Fia, who had come up to gaze into his face while he finished his dinner the other night, avec l'aire de concéder quelque chose. I felt a surge of pride in my training skills.

"Elle ne fait aucune bêtise. Aucune," I confirmed, avec l'aire de ne pas trop vouloir réjouir sans pouvoir m'en empêcher complètement.

I was merely stating the obvious: Fia is not Marley. On the flip side, she would make the subject of a very boring book, of which no one in his right mind would say, "Hey! That dog would make a great movie!" I am not sure I ever completely believed in Marley, though. I mean, how bad could Marley's dad be, and if not that bad, how bad, really, could his master be? And, if his master really were that bad, how come his wife didn't throw him out with the dog? I mean, what Labrador Retriever can't pass Obedience 101 if I can get mine to do it? I didn't even mess up that badly with my first one, Baccarat, and I never saw the sire go streaking by, or even know more than his name.

Baccarat, on the other hand, was no Fia, either, but I think I can take responsibility for that. Still, by comparison with Marley, it was mild. The worst, I believe, was the morning we came downstairs to find the nose of the last tread chewed to bits. It looked like the results of a beginner's level leather working class in belt making (I know, I have done one.). Teeth marks festooned the edge of the tread, from where Baccarat gazed at me, taking a break in her decorative teething work. I had hoped my husband would somehow fail to notice. He never does.

"Tu as vu ce que cette chienne a fait?" he demanded of me, once he came down a little later.

The light was at the perfect angle to show off the depth of the imprint her incisors, canines and pointy molars had achieved, chewing, chewing, chewing her way around the step. I had seen. This was the one time I wondered if Marley's master couldn't be for real the worst with me just behind him. I nodded.

"Je vais prendre de la pâte à bois. Tu verras,"I promised him, hoping I sounded convincing, "ça ne se verra plus."

What do you do? Do you acknowledge how ineffective you might be? How awful your dog might just actually be? That the future, indeed, is terribly unknowable? No, you don't. Not if you want your dog and to remain, both of you, in your home. You acknowledge the misdeed, the poor behavior, you express regret and solidarity with your spouse, you read up more on dog training, and you buy wood paste and tint and get on the repair fast. Out of sight, out of mind.

Really. It works. Not only did Baccarat never chew that tread again, my husband was actually relieved and impressed with the results. I wondered if she didn't like the smell of the wood paste and tint, or, was it more like what the librarians always told us about damage in schools: if you let it go, the students will keep at it until the destruction is total, but if you repair it -- however many times you have to do it --, the damage is never serious. Or, maintain something, and it stays nice.

But, here was Fia, five months old and perfectly house and hotel broken, delighted with her toys and to leave our belongings alone. I was prepared to acknowledge the wealth of knowledge I had accumulated asking questions from those I knew knew more than I, from the Internet and from my earlier suspected mistakes with Baccarat, but maybe, just maybe I had to give Fia and her sire a little credit where credit was due. After all, I couldn't be that wonderful, could I?

That is a rhetorical question.

Before leaving for Argentière, midway up the valley of Chamonix-Mont Blanc, I hemmed and hawed over the purchase of a portable, folding soft-shelled travel kennel for Fia. After all, she was fully two months younger than Baccarat was when I took her for the first time four years ago. I knew before I left that Baccarat could hold it, but when I got to the hotel, I discovered that she was already widdling by the time we got to the top of the staircase, and we were on the third floor (fourth for the States).

"Non, Baccarat! Non pipi ici!" I'd correct her in an hissing undertone, so as not to announce her misdeed, and start the race to the bottom of the stairs, where we had to confront the electronic sliding door at the entry of the hotel, which always took a couple of seconds to register your presence, and then a couple more to grant you access to the outdoors, where Baccarat would squat promptly, right on the granite stoop, in full view of passersby, the hotel patrons and the diners at The Office across the street. I'd already be praying that the drops of urine just inside the door would pass for snow, melting off the skis of everyone else returning from the slopes. I don't know how many were fooled.

And then, there was the incident with the low, upholstered wood armchair with the lion claw feet. She must have appreciated those feet because she lovingly nibbled them about the ankles. The chairs might have been old and well-broken in, but the hotel did not fail to notice, and I felt the guilt that comes of having made a mild misrepresentation. I had expressly said in my email to the hotel that I had two, well-behaved and calm Labrador Retrievers; I had not said one of them was still teething at seven months old. They said nothing, however, and were as nice to us as ever, commenting, in fact, on how well-behaved our dogs were, but the next year, there was a new per diem charge for doggy visitors. I paid. Baccarat behaved like a princess.

Could I take the chance of ruining our reputation and having our welcome revoked this year at the cost of 70 euros for the insurance and peace of mind a portable kennel would provide? I broke down and ordered the thing, typing the hotel's address into the shipping information, but when we arrived at the hotel, expecting to receive the package, the receptionist said, "Le colis n'est pas encore arrivé."

"Non?" She shook her head. "Alors, on n'a pas la niche pour la chienne?" I had no choice but to be honest and acknowledge my concern. It seemed the responsible thing to do. She shook her head again. "Bon. On verra bien alors. Elle est propre et très sage, mais ça m'aurait rassuré. She nodded sympathetically. We were, so to speak, on our own.

Not that I knew how she would react to spending a day in a portable, folding, soft-shelled travel kennel. It could have been worse.

The next day, we left her in the late morning after a long walk in the forest, an introduction to the housekeeping staff, cleaning rooms at the far end of the hall (I knew them from previous years, happily), and a last pipi with two Kongs stuffed with banana, apple bits and peanut butter and went to ski.

"At least the lifts close an hour earlier at this time of the season," I said to Sam, closing the door behind us and sending a prayer ceilingward. He nodded.

At 4:50 pm, we stowed our skis and boots in the ski room and headed upstairs. She had been alone, apart from housekeeping's visit, for nearly 6 hours.

"Listen," said Sam. He cocked his head toward the door to see if she ran across the room, jumped down from a bed, or was sitting right behind the door. It appeared to be the latter. I slid the card key into the slot, and pushed it open. There they were, Rapide and Fia, sitting there pressed between my bed and the wall, just short of hysterical with joy to see us back. Sam and I set off on a tour of the carpet, chair and bed legs, and trash cans.

Nothing.

Not one thing out of place. Not one spot of wet. Not one tooth mark. Rien.

"Her Kongs are under my bed," said Sam, straightening, "with her Powerade bottle."

"Here's the stone she carried up from the back of the car," I said from over by their bed. I felt a little stunned by our success. Or, my luck. "She's five months old, and she hasn't done a single bad thing, alone in a new place, all day long." We looked at each other, and then at Fia, who looked back at us, Moi? Oui?

"Bon," I said, reaching for her leash, "we'll see tomorrow, I guess." There was still the matter of getting her down the flights of stairs and past the electronic glass door before I could claim success. She sat, I attached her leash, and we struggled out the door.

Between our last visit and this, they had installed a fire door just outside the door to our room and the next room's in the little corridor off the main one, leaving us a meter square in which to maneuver between the two. Rapide did not like that. I learned I had to stand outside the door, Fia's leash in my left hand, left leg fully extended to hold the fire door open, while holding our room door open with my free hand before she would come out. It was an unpleasant gymnastic that involved the expression of impatience before Rapide would finally budge. She is fearful of Fia's chastisement, which amounts to Fia waiting for her and then grabbing a chunk of neck fur, just below her ear, to drag her where Fia knows I want Rapide to go. She received the same from her daughter Baccarat.

That says something.

It wasn't long before I let Fia go. She went nowhere; she was too interested in making sure that Rapide did what I wanted, and leash back in hand, Fia trotted to the top of the steps, down the three flights and right up to the sliding electronic door, waited, trotted out and promptly squatted next to the granite stoop, before letting go a torrent of scalding pipi that cascaded down the sidewalk, steaming. I am not sure the passersby shared my pride in her.

The next day, and each day after that, the room went unscathed, the carpet in the hallway unbaptised, and the stoop unsoiled. We paid the customary charges for our dogs, but, like I said to Sam, you pay more for two people in the room, and still more for three, so it makes sense you pay a little something for your dogs, even when they are quieter, and possibly neater, than your British neighbors.

Today, a week after our return from Argentière, the wood garden gate came down. It will be out in the garage for the next puppy, and like I did with Fia this time, I will be sure to give that puppy lots of undivided, one-on-one attention and training.

Starting again four years after Baccarat was a puppy, I suspected that having left the two dogs -- mother and daughter -- always together and always bringing them both with me made Baccarat less attentive to me as her mistress, and I believe that my hunch was correct; each dog needs to have a direct relationship with her mistress, access to her pack, lots of exercise, good food, and clear, consistent rules with all members of her family, and a structured life. I am also a firm believer in any version of crate training as a primary tool in achieving the rest to make a well-adjusted, well-behaved, trustworthy dog.

This might be the moment, however, to mention the bêtise Fia reminds me I forgot. Socks. I cannot leave a sock or a pair of socks anywhere within reach of this rapidly growing dog, which leaves fewer and fewer safe havens.

Like the ski sock she retrieved from the sofa before I had a chance to put it on. By the time I reached for it, it was in handing from her mouth, the top of the sock gnawed and damp, the elastic dangling.

....

Taking her place

Fia and Rapide

Not even three weeks have gone by since Sam and I went to get Fia from the breeder near Luigny, but it feels like she has been with us for a much longer time. She is only 12 weeks old tomorrow, and yet I can nearly let my breath out when she is not in her gated area now, not having had an accident for several days. Oh, I take her out often, sticking to the *schedule I once found on a California Italian Greyhound rescue site. They provide a wonderful explanation of crate and house training, and I swear by it. It saved me the first time with Baccarat, and it is making this second time with Fia Lux a song.

Never make the mistake of thinking that crates, or a similar arrangement like I have made, gating off a small corner of the kitchen, are mean. Crates are kind to everyone, and they really and truly help make for a well-behaved, well-adjusted dog and an excellent mistress-dog relationship. To shun crates as unkind and unfeeling would be something like leaving your baby to sleep without a bed, play without a safe area and deny her diapers. You just wouldn't do it. For you or your baby.

After just two and a half weeks, Fia can spend more time out of her gated-off area and goes to the door when I say "Fia fait pipi?", and she goes nearly right away when I take her to her toileting place. No messing around. No shenanigans.

We have also been working at basic finishing school course work. Fia goes into her gated-off area and sits when I bring her food dish. She looks at me and waits for me to say "Okay, Fia" before beginning to eat. She is learning that she must sit to have her leash removed and wait until I tell her she can leave my side. This is not quite perfected. Especially if Rapide is nearby. She walks better on leash, but she is still pig-headed and requires me to play the tree more than suits me, but she is young, and trees are nice.

The whole world is her friend, and she and Rapide are inseparable when she is not in her little area. Except for when she is being inseparable with me, like right now, under my place on the other sofa; I changed sofas to mix things up a bit, and my neighbor lent me a much better heating pad you heat in the microwave (on high, for 3 or 4 minutes). Or playing beautifully by herself. They play, they lie side by side, Fia lies across Rapide's front paws and they lick each other's faces and ears or show each other their fangs and growl, nipping. It was right to get a new puppy for us and for Rapide, who is likely to live longer for the rejuvenating effect, if she doesn't have a heart attack first. The vet said her heart is in tip-top shape, though. Happy Rapide. I bored her to tears.

She is such a beautiful, beautiful dog.

Fière de ta race, ma Rapide.
....

*EX-PEN PLAY/POTTY SCHEDULE for puppies 7 to 14-16 weeks

___ 07:00 Wake up/Go out
___ 07:15 Free period
___ 07:30 Food & Water/Confine
___ 09:00 Go out
___ 09:15 Free period
___ 09:45 Confine
___ 11:00 Go out
___ 11:15 Free period
___ 11:40 Confine
___ 12:30 Food & Water
___ 01:00 Go out
___ 01:15 Free period
___ 01:45 Confine
___ 03:00 Go out
___ 03:15 Free period
___ 03:45 Confine
___ 04:45 Water
___ 05:00 Go out
___ 05:15 Free period
___ 05:45 Confine
___ 06:45 Food & Water
___ 07:00 Go out
___ 07:15 Free period
___ 07:45 Confine
___ 08:45 Water
___ 09:00 Go out
___ 09:15 Free Period
___ 09:45 Confine
___10:45 Water
___11:00 Go out/Confine overnight

CRATE TRAINING SCHEDULE for 14-16 weeks - 6 month old pups/ 3 meals per day

____ 07:00 Wake up/Go out
____ 07:10 Free period
____ 07:30 Food & Water
____ 08:00 Go out
____ 08:15 Free period
____ 08:45 Confine
____ 12:00 Food & Water
____ 12:30 Go out
____ 12:45 Free period
____ 01:15 Confine
____ 04:30 Food & Water
____ 05:00 Go out
____ 05:15 Free period
____ 05:45 Confine
____ 08:00 Water
____ 08:15 Go out
____ 08:30 Free period
____ 09:00 Confine
____ 11:00 Go out/Confine overnight

CRATE TRAINING SCHEDULE for 6 - 18 mo. old pups or untrained adults (2 meals per day)

____ 07:00 Wake up/Go out
____ 07:15 Free period
____ 08:00 Food & Water
____ 08:30 Go out
____ 08:45 Free period
____ 09:30 Confine
____ 12:30 Water & Go out
____ 12:45 Free period
____ 01:45 Confine
____ 05:00 Food & Water
____ 05:30 Go out
____ 05:45 Free period
____ 07:30 Confine
____ 11:00 Go out/Confine overnight

SCHEDULE for HOUSE TRAINED ADULT DOGS/ 2 meals per day

____ 07:00 Wake up/Go out
____ 08:00 Food & Unlimited water
____ 08:30 Optional- if your dog didn't poop when it went out earlier in may need to go out again
____ 12:30 Go out
____ 05:30 Food
____ 06:00 Go out
____ 11:00 Go out/Bedtime/Remove water overnight.

The incredible sweetness of dogs

Growing up, growing closer

It is incredibly sweet to watch Rapide lower her head to accept the caresses and care of Fia's little tongue, cleaning Rapide's eyes, her ears, becoming playful, her very small and still pointier teeth nibbling at the loose folds of skin at Rapide's neck, and then to watch Rapide press her muzzle against that very small dog, a baby, and work if down the length of her body, sniffing, taking in Fia's scent as though to memorize her.

Fia, in this way I will know you, and I will always be able to find you when you are not near, or when you stray.

What do we know of dogs and of their hearts, I wonder. What did Rapide feel when she left Trevira with Baccarat and came here to live? Did she feel the happiness my husband imagined for her when he said "Oui, on la prendra aussi" in answer to the breeder's offer to have the mother, as well, for the price of her daughter? And when Baccarat was lost to us, did Rapide know of her death? Did she know that she must die, knowing that she was so sick? Some have said to me that dogs can smell cancer. I hope that Rapide could smell cancer, and I hope that this means that they can smell the approach of death and set themselves to the idea of loss else it is too terrible a surprise. Now, this little one has left her mother, Camée, and her brothers and her sisters, and come to live with us and this mother, Rapide, who lost her daughter.

"Elle n'a jamais été malheureuse," remarked my husband, and I wondered at him. Ought she have been unhappy in so short a life? "Je veux dire, elle n'a jamais pleuré depuis qu'elle est venue."

Ah. I understood. He was saying that he had expected her to feel sad to leave what she had known, the warmth, companionship and comfort of her own mother and fratrie, but she had not shown any signs of this, and it was true: she had not. She had gotten into the car on her own, like she had been doing it every day of her young life, and rode away with Sam and I, content. She sat at my feet and looked around, up out the window at the sky and the treetops, the buildings high enough for her to see when we passed through villages and skirted cities. And, she got out of the car and came straight in to meet her new companions, her new life, and settled right in as though she had fully expected it all to be just that way.

No, Fia never has felt sad, and she and Rapide have been playing at my feet the last half hour without stop, as engaged in one another as though this little dog came from Rapide and had always been hers. I have not had many dogs in my life, and so nearly everything is a discovery to me. Maybe it is always this way for a bitch who was comfortable being mounted and cared with great patience and tenderness for her puppies. This was what her breeder had told me, and I have never seen anything to indicate that this is not absolutely true. She might have lacked elsewhere, but not in this. Camée is the same. Perhaps it is not always true for such a dog, but it is so with Rapide, and Fia enjoys the full benefit of human and canine attention and care, as well as knowing already how, at just 11 weeks of age, to offer it herself.

I like to say that she is in the TAG program for crate and house training, but it is more than that. At 9 to 10 weeks, Fia would sit if I told her "assis". Granted, her hindquarters did not stay on the ground for long. That's fine. That will come. They already do a little more now. She is learning that to have her leash removed, she must sit, and that "okay" means she is free to leave my feet. Not that she is really waiting, yet, but while she is busy scratching at her collar after sitting, I say "okay" (to give her the idea of the business to come), and she scampers to race me to the door, or to catch up with Rapide, if she has come out with us.

I have learned one very important thing: the dog trainers are right when they say to work with your dog alone. Baccarat and Rapide were nearly never separated. Baccarat learned, but slowly, and she was distracted -- naturally -- by Rapide's unbridled presence. I had decided not long after her arrival that she was as thick as the French Toast made of slabs of Challah bread on the Lower East Side and didn't pursue her further development and education. Of course, I realized once Baccarat was gone that Rapide, too, was capable of learning more than anyone had ever taught her, which amounted to never enter a door before anyone else, never get in anyone's feet if you can possibly help it, and never touch anyone else's food bowl, most particularly not the cats', and always walk on the sidewalk, if there is one available.

Now, I take Fia out alone to relieve herself and to teach her the routines and basic commands. I ask for and receive her attention. I call her back to me, even when she is on leash and trying to tug to head where she wants to go, and she comes. Off leash, I call her, and she dashes to me as though Usain Bolt were about to show her up. Again. I reward her with caresses and cuddles and murmurings, and she turns those eyes up to me to look into mine.

"Elle a l'allure de Baccarat," said Audouin, looking at a picture of her one eye looking up at me through the bars of her gate. She does.

He is less prone to seeing what he wishes to, in his opinion, but who knows. Perhaps we are both seeing what every dog owner sees. I'd believe it, but that's not what they told me at the Ecole nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort when Baccarat was there and the doctors, interns and the students told me that she had a remarkable expressiveness in her eyes. A look from Baccarat spoke paragraphs, or very pregnant sentences. I wonder if it is luck that this is true of Fia, or if it is because they do share bloodlines. I know that the best breeders do not consider only beauty, they work to maintain the disposition and the character of the breed, so perhaps it is not an accident. Sam and I had met another dog at the same breeder's, and she did not speak to us. The breeder mentioned the kennels in her bloodlines and then those of the little puppy she had brought to us. I heard the same dogs as Rapide and Baccarat, and Sam got out my camera. We would take her, but was it a form of superstition, or was the reason for our preference well-founded?

Who knows the truth of all of these things, except to see that mourning has no set time period, and protracting it has no particular value. You do not replace a dog, but you do not live with a hole in your life either, when absence speaks only of the pain of loss and brings more sadness. You can bring another being into your life for which to care and to teach and to let her make you laugh with delight and smile upon one another to share it.

Regards! Rapide joue avec elle!

Regards! Elle dort avec Rapide!

Regards! Shadow l'a laissée venir dormir avec elle!

Regards! Elle est assez grande maintenant de boire du bassin!

Regards ce regard précieux. On dirait Baccarat.

Oui, on dirait Baccarat, but we are loving Fia, while remembering and loving Baccarat still.
....

Les mésaventures de Mlle Fia Lux de la Pellousery

Fia Lux, 9 weeks, 6 days

You might think that on puppy number two, you've got it all down. Everything is going to be just perfect, according to the books this time. Of course, you would be wrong, the books don't even agree, but you have learned and you are, most importantly, vastly more patient and serene, arguably the two most important qualities to possess when teaching a new puppy.

You discover just how lame you are when you take your little one out to relieve herself, being very certain to practice "the tree" when she tugs at her leash and twists like the Black Stallion on the other end, which she does just past the corner of the France Telecom utility building, while you bend down and use your goofiest voice to get her to take a step towards you and release the tension on the leash so you can praise her "enthusiastically" -- even, and especially, if she is in the middle of doing what you don't want her to do, but she wants to do; the smallest move in the direction of your will is to be recognized with gusto and rewarded --, when her attention is captured by an unseen object or occurrence around the corner.

"Fia, viens ici, Fia! Fia, Fia, Fia, viens! Viens, ma petite, allez, viens, Fia! Allez, allez -- Fia? Hunh?" Even more suddenly than she stopped looking at you, she is suddenly no longer on her leash, and you are staring at the clasp where your puppy was a heartbeat before. Unbelievable, you think, I attached that. I am certain I did. You spring from where you are crouched to make certain she doesn't dash off in front of the one car per hour that passes at that time of the day, and you see a man running off, holding something in his arms.

Your puppy!

I ran after him, just about to call out, and thinking he looked an awful lot like the cantonnier, or the village caretaker, when the man whirled around to face me, barely controlling his urge to laugh out loud, a smile from ear to ear.

"Mais tu m'as fait peur!" I said, stopped in my tracks and feeling like a bit of an idiot, when he should have been feeling like a much greater one, a positive lout for playing such a trick on me -- and teaching me unintentionally how easy it is to steal a valuable and beloved pet. Suddenly, I felt like one of those parents in China, who watch their little boys swept away by desperate parents, unable to produce anything but worthless girls, or the despicable people who take them to sell to those desperate parents. Fia sat cuddled in his arms, perfectly at ease. She had met him the day before, and he had been entirely charmed by her warm tummy, soft fur and puppy eyes, and there he was, laughing like he had executed the perfect plaisanterie.

"Ah, c'est trop drôle!" he crowed, "C'était tout ce que je pouvait faire de ne pas rire tellement ça a marché! Tu ne te doutais de rien!"

"Et oui, mais on a peur quand on vois quelqu'un en train de se sauver avec son chiot, tu sais. Et puis, je n'ai pas pu comprendre pourquoi sa laisse avait lâché comme ça."

I didn't have the heart to tell him how truly rotten that was of him, when Fia was well and he was having such a jolly time of my vulnerability. There was no pretending. I had been scared, and who on earth wouldn't have been, but how could I hurt him by making him know that his trick was just a little bit appalling, when he had never intended to do anything that wasn't perfectly innocent? Ah la-la la-la.

He placed the warm bundle of puppy in my arms, and crossed the street back to the old school they have converted into apartments that still haven't rented, these 3 or 4 months later, to finish repainting the wall the adjoint mayor, who showed up for job meetings in our tiny village in the middle of the countryside, with not even a street light or a boulangerie and no regular bus service, in her fur coat, made up and in heels, said was still not the right color, infuriating François, who had been assigned the job of the repaints, when the painting contractor had probably informed her that the consequences of her indécision was not included in the contract. Au revoir, et merci.

I had listened to him grumble yesterday and was up to date on relations at the mairie, and the opposition ticket forming for the 2014 elections in our village of under 400 residents. He does not appreciate this new adjoint mayor, nor the fact that under the leadership of the present maire and his équipe à la mairie, "il y a plus de bruit au cimitière que dans le village." Asked what constitutes his idea of pleasant village animation, and he answered "Plus de fêtes à la salle des fêtes."

Sigh. And here I was, thinking there were more than enough fêtes at the village salle des fêtes. And that is what passes for important political decision-making in this village, where gay rights have already been established as a matter of course by the government's provision since years gone by for gay couples to "se déclarer en couple reconnu à la mairie" and receive the benefits married couples do, while leaving the matter of gay marriage as hotly debated here as in, oh, say, Western Texas, and the general knowledge that our cantonnier does not live with his nephew, the ghost of which pretext he has finally given up understanding that no one whatsoever has the least problem with this.

Now, my husband and I, at least, thought that the 1 am rollerblading in his ex-wife's collants and débardeur -- sans pantalons -- engaged in by our neighbor further up the street, the one who befriended Baccarat in the early days of her life here and prepared a pheasant a hunter had presented to my husband and I for being nice people one Sunday when we were out walking the dogs (Stéphane said he had been a chef and restaurant owner, in addition to an accomplished golfer, an expert in detecting counterfeit bills for the Bank of France -- sort of a money spy, he liked to imply --, so who better to prepare the pheasant? He insisted I join him for lunch the mets fins he prepared of it, and where I learned he was also an aspiring composer with a Mylène Farmer fétiche and his own boots to complete the image.), was bizarre, and I am nearly certain there was peau léopard involved in his outfit as my husband described it when he came back inside from whatever he had been doing outside on the sidewalk at 1 am, arriving just in time to see Stéphane sail up the street and fall flat on his face in his remarkable get-up. Acting for all the world as though this was perfectly ordinary in the life of a minuscule village, pommé dans la campagne, he stood up to chat
with my husband, checking his collants for damage, blithely unaware that his credibility had taken a sharp downward turn.

I wondered at the cantonnier's want of greater animation in the village, except it was true that Stéphane was finally gone, and no one was mourning his ignominious departure. This was, after all, the same Stéphane my husband chided me for no longer stopping by to visit with the dogs and failing to return his hospitality by inviting him to dinner. Stéphane had also distinguished himself in the first weeks he lived in the house he rented by serving free cocktails from his kitchen window, complete with hors d'oeuvres, or amuses bouches, if you like, and music. Often enough, l'heure d'apéro coincided with the hour of walking the dogs, and since Baccarat and he were such great friends, I had to stop by. I am not sure this did my image with my husband's colleagues next door to Stéphane any good, but I hoped my dignity and status held me in good (enough) stead and listened to Stéphane's stories, while Robert and another neighbor, sometimes the cantonnier or his "copain" joined the little group at the window.

It was rather sympathique in its intimacy, a candle burning on the counter behind him and music wafting out into the dark fall evening air, and his amuse bouches were phénoménales.

One evening, I had gone to fetch mon mari and bring him for a finger of Scotch. I was feeling guilty, knowing that he was sitting in front of the TV, while I was having a drink up the street with my dogs, Robert and l'homme aux collants. God only knows why, but he joined us, and in a moment when the conversation was at its merriest, Stéphane leaned toward me over Baccarat and said, "Tu sais, j'aimerais coucher avec toi si jamais tu veux."

And then, he smiled and winked at me, like we were in on something together (as if!), his round belly protruding over his jeans (I had checked his attire before going to get my husband; it could have been his hot pants and bare hairy legs).

I am sure I involuntarily tightened my L.L. Bean anorak around me and looked terribly confuse, while trying to maintain my polite social smile.

I did not hear you, I did not hear you, I DID NOT HEAR YOU.

Of course, it is perfectly clear now that I should have said, "Chéri, tu sais ce que Stéphane vient de me proposer?"

"Non? Encore un délicieux plat au faisan, ma chérie?"

"Mais non! Il vient de me faire une proposition indécente! Ce n'est pas gentil?"

And, then, my husband would have knocked him out, just as he has longed to all these months since I finally caved to his chiding that I had been unkind to Stéphane and really ought to invite him for dinner, the fateful evening we proposed that he buy our old Volvo, the cadeau empoisonné given to us along with a 1991 Chrysler Voyager by one of the midwives at the hospital when her father died, as a gesture of her gratitude for his medical services that resulted in her children, because he had no car to get to the train to get to work, and he accepted. We even lent him our other car until the Volvo underwent a few necessary repairs and agreed that he could pay us at the end of March. It was early December.

Had it ended there, my husband would have felt no real urge to violence, but there was the day long after late March, when we still had not received un centime for the car, when I ran into Stéphane outside the bar across the street from the house, where he was accustomed to run up the bill that prevented him, apparently, from paying for the car, and he told me that he had accumulated 94 parking tickets since he had been driving our cars, but don't worry, he said, brandishing a photocopy of an article from Le Journal des Yvelines that reported that the Tribunal de Versailles had decided in favor of a plaintiff who argued that the law does not actually require one to put the proof of payment for parking on the dashboard, and so you don't have to pay for parking after all, we'd never have to pay!

I had turned as white as the Volvo and felt like decking him on the spot, but I got back in the Fiat, rolled up to my parking spot and showed my husband the copy of the article Stéphane had provided me. He had many ready, one for each batch of tickets he returned unpaid to the Trésor Publique. His argument was made of concrete.

Since then, there was the speeding ticket, the chickens he kept dying of starvation in the entry to his house behind the closed gate when he failed to ever return again, he had another gullible woman to take him in, while he emptied her bank account, and drover her daughter's car, while she was away in South America, or somewhere, the rooster that finally flew out over the gate in his search for food and landed at our neighbor's feet while he washed his car, giving him a fright, and the dog, the poor Brittany Spaniel Nuts, who he had left for months already and then all the following winter alone in a cave behind his house with nothing but a bit of straw on which to sleep and someone to come and fill his food bowl. He barked long into the frigid nights, and we cursed Stéphane out loud.

Eventually, Nuts found a way to escape, like the rooster before him, and the cantonnier took him to the animal refuge. I called the woman there to tell her what I knew. She asked if we knew how to reach the owner, and I gave her the number we had for him. She thanked me, furious with Stéphane for his neglect and abuse of this poor dog. I thought a moment after I set the phone down and called her right back.

"Madame, quoi que vous faites, il ne faut surtout pas lui rendre son chien. Il va l'abondonner à nouveau. C'est un homme sans scrupules qui ne vie que pour lui."

"Le chien a déjà 16 ans," she told me. I knew what that meant. A 16-year-old dog is impossible to adopt out.

"Il vaut mieux le faire piquer," I told her. Putting him to sleep would be a mercy next to what he had lived through.

And so, the police canceled the parking tickets and fined him. The owner of the house he rented, and for which he never paid, involved the authorities, and his belongings were seized and taken away in two trucks a month ago. We had already, with the permission of the police, entered his property and removed our poor car, its front seat broken, the battery dead, and had it taken to the dump. As for Stéphane, he'll be lucky if he only spends 3 months in jail when they get their hands on him, and he is even more fortunate still that the police will and my husband didn't.

This is not enough animation for one small village?

But, I began with Fia's misadventures, which might be better called my own.

This morning, I had taken her out to relieve herself and all was well when I heard noises in the kitchen behind me. I went to look and find her dragging her soaking wet nylon rope -- she learned to ignore the string yesterday, and has progressed to trailing a 1/4" rope from her collar as part of her leash training -- away from a large puddle of pipi. From the pattern on the floor, it was clear the rope was sodden from pipi.

"Fia! Mauvais pipi!" I said in my sternest, most displeased voice, grasping her and showing her the puddle before carrying her out to where she may relieve herself, which she did, just a little bit, before trotting over to the bit of gravel and dirt at the hedge along the sidewalk to do a popo, and stepped directly into the one she had left an hour before.

And Stéphane will never be Mylène Farmer, no matter how hard he tries.

"J'aimerais le voir essayer ça en prison," chuckles my husband.


....