Buster by Caleb Huett (ebook reader library txt) 📕

think about my team, sometimes. Do they miss me? I guess they probably think I ran away. Just like Tonio will always wonder what happened, if I don’t—

Never mind.

I was supposed to get adopted as a house pet. I was warned to stay out of sight, out of trouble, and make sure no one recognized me … but it sounded so boring. I looked for another chance to do a job, any job, and realized that humans selected service dogs from a shelter in town. Being a psychiatric service dog isn’t exactly big news, so the judge let me try, as long as I promised I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

I was sure that I wouldn’t. I really tried.

And then I met Tonio.

“What kind of dog is he?” An adult human with a dripping-wet black jacket, long curly wet hair, and tough-looking boots knelt down and inspected me. (This was Tonio’s mom.) I stood stiff and straight to look capable and serious.

My trainer, Jocelyn, shrugged. “He’s not any one thing. He’s got the ears and color of a vizsla, but there’s something smaller in him, too. Maybe a couple somethings.”

A man who was wearing a green uniform with a spaceship logo on it nodded while he folded his umbrella. “Some boxer, I bet.” (This was Tonio’s dad.)

“Sure, maybe.” Jocelyn shrugged again.

“Maybe poodle?”

“Mm, I don’t know about that.” Tonio’s mom tapped the toe of her boot absently on the mat to knock some mud off. “I could see some kind of terrier in there, but poodle?”

“I think definitely there’s some poodle.”

Booooooooriiiiiiing! Humans love to talk about us like we’re not there. Not that I had much to add—I never knew my parents.

“What do you think, Tonio?”

I tilted my head to watch the boy. He was about eleven human years old, with curly brown hair that normally hangs just above his eyes, but since it was wet and sagging from the rain, he was constantly pushing it out of the way. He said, “Can my parents get their money back if this doesn’t work out?”

“Oh, Tonio.” Mrs. Pulaski gave my trainer an apologetic look. “Don’t worry about that.”

“What if he doesn’t like me?” The boy stared at me with wide eyes, like I was absolutely terrifying. “Or what if I can’t take care of him the way you’re supposed to?”

Before the trainer could answer, Tonio’s mom spoke again. “That’s not anything you need to worry about, Tonio. We’ll figure that out if it happens.”

“But I—”

Mr. Pulaski cut in and started talking to my trainer. I watched Tonio tug at one of his dripping curls, and had an idea: an old trick I learned as a fire dog. Whenever a kid was scared of dogs, or nervous around me, I’d do something totally goofy and cute to help them calm down. I was sure the same thing would work here, so I jingled my collar for his attention.

He looked up right away. I did a big, exaggerated shake of my whole body, like I was the one who was wet.

Tonio didn’t get it. It’s easy, I thought. Just shake off the water. I took a deep breath and shook even harder, like a ghost had just passed through me and I had a chill all the way down in my bones. It’s the fastest way to get dry, see?

I saw it dawn on his face. His head tilted like a puppy’s, and after a second, he shook his head, just slightly, and flung little droplets around. I wagged my tail and wiggled my body again. He shook his hair out harder and laughed.

“Did you hear that, Tonio?” His mom grabbed his attention, and my trainer began to explain the different ways I had been trained to help with his anxiety. I performed the ones she asked me to demonstrate and tried to look as professional as possible, but I spent the rest of the training session thinking about the rain-shaking moment we’d shared.

Most humans don’t know how to talk. They can speak, sure, but any puppy with a few treats in front of them can speak. I could already tell that Tonio knew the most important part of really talking: paying attention. Every time he looked at anyone—the trainer, his parents, even me—he was watching them with so much focus. He didn’t make as much noise as the other humans, but he listened, and he watched. I felt lucky to get paired with him.

“So try this,” my trainer said to Tonio, who was paying close attention. “Let’s say you’re about to have a panic attack and you want to get out of a room full of people. Just tap on your leg like this.” She tapped on her leg and I broke my stance, whining and pawing at her ankle. “Buster will start pretending he needs to use the restroom. Then it’s easy for you to say, ‘Oh, just a minute, I need to go take my dog out.’ Now you try.”

My trainer handed Tonio the leash. He put his hand on his leg and repeated the tapping. “Like th—achoo!” He sneezed, but since he’d done the hand signal right, I whined again and pawed at his leg. He sniffled and didn’t even seem to notice I’d done anything—he was totally frozen.

“That’s great!” Jocelyn continued. “You can give him one of those treats as a reward.”

I perked up. As you know, it’s essential that, in front of humans, we pretend that food is the most important thing in the world, so I had to look excited at the word treat. Tonio nodded but didn’t move for the bag. Instead, he rubbed at his nose and stared off into the distance. He was starting to sweat, just a little, and I could hear that his breath was changing.

“Tonio?” His mom’s wet boots squeaked on the floor. “Are you all right?”

“I, uh, I don’t—I’ll be right back.” He made a straight line to the door with a very fast and serious