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TwitThisOur First Assignment
The day of the test, I knelt on one knee and put my lips near Ella's peach-tipped ear. "Listen, this is important," I told her. "I'm begging you: Be nice to this other dog. Please, Ella. Please. Be a good girl for me."Her brown eyes met mine, and she licked my chin. Did she mean, "Okay, just this once," or was I excreting tasty nervous perspiration?
She ended up being paired with a pug named Dr. Buddha, who panted and gasped in that peculiar pug fashion, as if he had emphysema. As he stood at Daniela's heel, Ella sat at my side, feigning aloofness. I kept looking cautiously at the impending disaster beside me, but Ella looked straight ahead, still as a portrait.
"Good," Daniela said. "We'll just stand here and see what happens."
I held my breath and watched. Ella seemed convinced that I had eyes for no dog but her, and that the panting pug sitting nearby represented nothing but a potentially interesting new thing to sniff.
"Wow. She's really good," Daniela commented. "I'm impressed."
"Me too," I thought out loud.
A few moments later, we got the word. Ella had passed. We were officially an animal therapy team. I knelt down and hugged her.
The very first patient we encountered at Country Villa was parked outside his room, propped up on a gurney. His arms dangled at his side. He was bald and pale. I thought he might have suffered a stroke. He didn't look very happy.
Ella and I approached the side of his bed, and just as the training group had suggested, I cheerfully exclaimed, "Hello! I'm Michael, and this is my dog, Ella. She's very friendly and loves to meet new people. Would you like to say hello to her?" The man's eyes moved infinitesimally in my direction, but he didn't move. "Oh, Dick doesn't talk much," a uniformed nurse said, coming out of the bedroom. "Do you like the dog, Dick? She's very nice."
"This is Ella," I said.
"Can I pet her?" the nurse asked.
"Of course!"
The nurse knelt down and stroked Ella's back while I stood beside her. Ella seemed preternaturally calm.
The nurse and I exchanged the usual pleasantries about my dog -- what breed, how old, how long I'd had her. Then the nurse took Dick's left hand and rested it on top of Ella's head, slowly moving Dick's palm back and forth across Ella's brow. The man didn't move. But when the nurse removed Dick's hand from Ella's soft fur, I saw something change in his eyes, as though a flicker of recognition and light had pierced the murkiness.
"Nice dog," he said.
The nurse gasped. "Dick!" she said, adding, "He almost never talks."
I stood there, stunned. As the nurse spoke, Dick remained as still as ever. But a smile flashed in his eyes.
"You're a good girl, Ella," I told her. "A very good girl."
She looked up at me with a face that said, "I know." I found Ella's calm confidence inspiring.
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