Cora was shocked that Maggie hadn’t thought of it. Her friend wasreallyoff her game.
“Don’t let it throw you, we’ll make it work,” Mia said, reading Cora’s worried expression.
The door on the opposite side of the room opened and Honey the Doberman walked in, trailed by a skinny knit-capped hipster guy Cora assumed was Ryan the intern. He dropped the leash, and Honey made a dash for her.
“Are you my student?” Cora asked the dog as she danced at her feet. “You areverybeautiful. Yes you are!” She leaned down to pet her and looked up at Vaughn. “Is she yours?”
“I wish! Do you know Gwen Almquist? The local NBC meteorologist?” Cora nodded. “Honey is her dog. Gwen and I go way back, so she’s doing me a favor by letting us borrow her.”
Cora knelt next to Honey. “So you’re a weather dog! What’s the forecast for tonight?” The dog was surprisingly calm, and she leaned her body against Cora companionably as she stroked her sleek fur.
“Why don’t we get started? Cora, can you test the mic? Just say ‘one two three’ a few times.”
“One-two-three-one-two-three,” Cora intoned seriously. Vaughn looked back at Ryan, who had slipped on a pair of headphones. He gave a silent thumbs-up.
“Good! Off we go! Cora, could you sit in that chair right there?” He pointed to a lone chair in the center of the room. Mia wordlessly walked over, grabbed Honey’s leash, and led her back behind where Vaughn was sitting with his camera. He adjusted a few buttons on the camera and looked up. “We’re just going to start off with a couple of quick questions before you work with Honey. Cool?”
“Cool,” Cora replied, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans and taking a deep breath. She knew that after facing down the Boozehounds’ barrage of questions she could take anything. She was amazed at how calm she suddenly felt.
“So please state your name and your dog’s name, if you currently have a dog.”
Cora smiled. “My name is Cora Bellamy and my dog’s name is Fritz.”
“What do you like best about Fritz?” Vaughn was looking at the small monitor on the back of the camera, so Cora had no choice but to look directly into its unblinking eye.
“Whatdon’tI like?” She laughed. “Seriously, I’m in love with my dog. It’s sick.” She felt herself lapsing into French but corrected herself before the words came out. “I kiss him on the mouth, like, all the time. But if I had to pick one thing I’d say it was ... his sensitivity. I pity the next man I date, because no one gets me like Fritz!” Cora knew she was rambling and thought of Maggie yelling at her to be pithy.
Both Vaughn and Mia were smiling.
“What kind of dog is he?”
“He’s a pit bull.”
Vaughn’s eyebrows went up. “Okay, you’re our first pit person. Lots of drama with them these days, right?”
Cora knew what he was implying but didn’t touch on the Ershovich controversy. She willed herself to deliver a calm soundbite. “Everyone has opinions about pits. The sad fact is that most are based on misinformation. My Fritz is a mythbuster and an ambassador. He’s helping to spread the word about how special these dogs are.”
“Way to be, Fritz. Can you tell us about your favorite client?”
“Ooh, that’s a tough one.” Cora paused and looked down. She was drawing a blank, not because she didn’t have any favorites, but because she had so many. “Ummm...” She felt her cheeks turning pink. “Uh.” She squirmed in her seat and smiled nervously.
“Okay, how about someone—”
“Wait, I just thought of who it is!” Cora interrupted him. “Sorry! I do have an ultimate favorite!” Vaughn nodded and Cora continued. “His name was Orville and his dog’s name was Skye. He was older than my usual client, by a lot. I think he was in his early seventies. I was worried that he wouldn’t like the way I train, because I’m force-free, and most of my older clients are used to the traditional choke chain kind of stuff that people did a long time ago. Well, not only did he like my training technique but he also amazed me with the stuff he taught Skye on his own. Every week he surprised me with a new trick. Helovedtraining her with positive methods, and I loved watching them.”
“That’s pretty amazing. You love your job, huh?”
“I do. I’m lucky.” Cora shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
“How do you feel about Boris Ershovich?”
She couldn’t dodge the question this time. Cora paused to gather her thoughts. She knew she should start by mentioning the few good things Ershovich taught people, like the need to exercise their dogs more and brush up on their dogs’ manners, then gently move on to the things that troubled her, and outline, scientifically, why they were unsound and dangerous practices. Reason and rationality would be her allies as she listed her problems with his philosophy.
But instead...
“I hate him. I absolutely hate him. He’s a menace. He is single-handedly sending dog training back to the dark ages. He’s a monster that abuses dogs in the name of training, and I wish he would fall off a cliff and disappear forever.”
“Whoa, there. Tell us how you really feel!” Vaughn said, raising an eyebrow.
