Good Dog McTavish Page 2

  “I wasn’t,” said Alice, and handed Betty an information folder with a list of everything they would need for the safety and happiness of their new dog. “Now, where are you planning to put his bed?” she asked.

  “He will sleep with me,” Betty said.

  “No, he will not,” Alice said in a very stern voice. “A dog needs his own bed in a warm and quiet place.” She looked around and settled on a snug corner under the stairs. “This corner will do perfectly. McTavish will have privacy and as much peace and quiet as he needs. He will be able to keep an eye on the comings and goings of every person in this somewhat peculiar household.”

  And that was that.

  Alice approved the Peacheys’ application to re-home McTavish and arranged to return the following morning with McTavish himself. She said she would also bring a collar and leash and a week’s worth of food.

  Just then, Pa Peachey emerged from his study and snatched the information folder from Betty’s hand.

  “A shopping list?” he exclaimed. “A shopping list for a dog? Whatever next? Ballet lessons? Summer camp?”

  Betty opened her mouth to explain, but Pa Peachey waved for silence.

  “A bed,” he exclaimed. “A bed for a dog? What nonsense. Why not a dog automobile? Or a dog airplane? Any animal worth his salt would make his own bed. He’d burrow down under the house, carry in straw and moss, and live there in a nest. That’s what dogs did in my day.”

  The three children stared at him blankly.

  “In your day,” Ollie said, “dinosaurs roamed the earth.”

  Pa Peachey ignored him. “And what’s this? Dog food? He’s a predator, for Pete’s sake. Send the lazy so-and-so out to hunt for his own food.”

  Betty stepped forward. “Pa,” she said, “McTavish is not a predator. He is a house dog, a companion and friend. A domestic animal. He would require years of training to learn to fend for himself. He might even take to preying upon cats or small children. Which would soon present other problems.”

  Betty had a good way of dealing with Pa Peachey that the two older children admired greatly.

  “Pfft,” Pa Peachey said, which was his way of backing down. “What else am I being fleeced for?” He scanned the list and handed it back to Betty. “This whole dog nonsense is nothing but a, a, a . . .” Unable to think of an appropriate word to end the sentence, he left the room.

  Betty disappeared into the attic and returned with a grubby flannel sleeping bag left over from Ava’s Girl Scout days and an old gray wool blanket. She stuffed the sleeping bag and the blanket into the washing machine and turned it on. When both were clean and dry, she sat down in front of the TV with a large needle and a ball of red yarn from her mother’s knitting basket. With a pair of scissors, she trimmed the blanket into one large rectangle. Then, with big red stitches, she began to sew the edges together while watching a documentary about the intelligence of starfish.

  “Hello, dear,” Ma Peachey said as she passed through the house on her way to her evening yoga class.

  “Hello, Ma,” said Betty. “We have adopted a dog. His name is McTavish, and I think you will like him.”

  “How nice,” said Ma Peachey. “But who is planning to walk and feed and care for McTavish?”

  “We are,” said Betty, and returned to her sewing.

  Ma Peachey picked up her yoga bag and smiled a small smile.

  “Excellent,” she said to no one in particular.

  Once Betty had sewn the blanket into a pocket, she stuffed the sleeping bag inside, punched it around, sewed up the open side, and settled the warm and fluffy new bed into the corner under the stairs.

  “There,” she said with satisfaction. “McTavish doggity-dog will love this.”

  And how could he not? It was cozy and squishy and clean, it was gray wool with a bold red blanket stitch around the edges, and even Ava was tempted to sneak into the corner and settle down for a little read.

  But she didn’t. Because Betty would have squawked.

  McTavish made himself at home at once.

  He discovered his new bed, stamped it down, and dug around with his paws until the sleeping bag stuffing shifted to his exact specifications. Then he turned around four times and settled with his rump toward the corner and his head pointed out at the rest of the house.

  As Alice had predicted, it was a good spot. It allowed McTavish to monitor who was upstairs and who was down, who was coming in the front door and who was going out the back. He could see who was skulking in the kitchen looking for leftovers — and who was prowling aimlessly, seeking a fight.

  That person was nearly always Pa Peachey.

  Pa Peachey had not been happy of late.

  Although not a cheerful baby and quite a pessimistic child, Pa Peachey’s bad temper took a serious turn when Ma Peachey announced her latest plan.

  “I am going to India to explore my spiritual self. With my new yoga teacher, Wyatt,” she said.

  Pa Peachey frowned. Wyatt was a very handsome young man, with flexible shoulders, firm thighs, and a serene expression.

  Ollie, Ava, and Betty thought Wyatt looked very calm and could understand why Ma Peachey found him restful after so many years with Pa Peachey.

  Pa Peachey may have been gloomy, but he was a passionate man. He felt passionate about most subjects, including family, the history of the lawn mower, and whether or not to get a dog. So when Ma Peachey said she was going away with Wyatt, the serene and handsome yoga teacher, he went a bit — well, there’s no other word for it: he went a bit loopy.

  He shouted. He stomped around. He criticized the children and tried to kick the dog.

  While Pa Peachey went loopy, Ma Peachey practiced yoga. Ollie, Ava, and Betty tried to stay out of sight. Chaos reigned in the Peachey household. Chaos, that is, in the form of arguments, bad temper, and a general mood of gloom.

  This was how McTavish found things when he first arrived at his new home. He observed the Peacheys in silence, needing to know what sort of family he had chosen, and what his role in that family would be.

  In case you are still not certain, McTavish was not one of those ball-chasing, hole-digging dogs you meet so often in books. McTavish was more of a psychological mastermind. He liked to organize people, to fix situations that were not to his liking. And to arrange the world in a way that made it most comfortable for himself.

  McTavish felt a strong bond with the younger Peacheys (particularly, of course, with Betty), but he had some very definite concerns about the older Peacheys.

  All that first day, he lay on his bed, not barking to go out, not begging for food or asking to play ball. Instead, he observed.

  Here is what he observed.

  He observed that Pa Peachey was not a bad person, but that he had a cranky, resentful side.

  He observed that Ma Peachey had turned to yoga to escape from her family, and that she would almost certainly return someday. But perhaps one reason she needed to escape was that she had become fed up with Pa Peachey’s cranky, resentful side.

  McTavish also observed that despite the Peachey children’s niceness, intelligence, and good manners, they had many failings. For instance, they failed to pick up after themselves, and they failed to take much notice of anyone else in the family.

  McTavish observed that the one member of the family without any great failings was Betty. He observed Betty with a strange sort of pride. Betty was, after all, his main person in the family. And a most superior sort of person she was, for a human.

  However, even an ordinary, run-of-the-mill dog (and McTavish was no ordinary dog) could see that the Peachey family had a problem. And it was clear that the family problem needed to be solved if McTavish was to get any peace and quiet.

  So he set to work.

  “Where are the keys?” Pa Peachey thundered.

  “Who’s stolen my homework?” Ava Peachey shouted.

  “We’re out of milk,” Ollie Peachey moaned.

  It was nine a.m., and nearly every member of the Peachey family was late. Late for breakfast, late for school, just plain late.

  In addition, the Peachey kitchen was so cluttered with papers and books and discarded items of clothing that it was impossible to navigate from table to fridge, much less to prepare meals there. Breakfast was a disaster, lunch was impossible, and dinner barely deserved a mention.

  Pa Peachey had taken to buying microwave meals that required no pans and almost no cleaning up. Which was a success. Except that none of the Peacheys actually liked microwave meals.

  Ma Peachey was too busy meditating to care what the family ate for dinner. She lived on brown rice and clean thoughts.

  “These meals are really very convenient,” Pa Peachey said. He did not dwell on the fact that they tasted horrible. They were full of sugar and salt and chemicals that made your head feel bad and your wallet feel empty. Not to mention all the plastic, foil, and guilt about destruction of the rain forest.

  McTavish began to wonder if anyone in the Peachey family even knew how to cook. It wasn’t so much that he hated the dry food Alice had brought from the shelter, but he would have much preferred a nice lamb bone now and again with some leftover vegetables and bacon rind.

  Or at the very least, a tasty spinach-and-goat-cheese omelet.

  “Where are my keys?” Pa Peachey shouted for the twelfth time that morning. “No one will get to school if I can’t find my keys.”

  “I don’t care about your keys,” Ava wailed. “Why is there no clean underwear? I’m going to be late again.”

  “Ohmmmmm,” Ma Peachey chanted, on her way to inner peace.

  It was obvious why no one could find anything.

  The clean and dirty laundry sat together in a tangled mess on a large armchair formerly used for sitting. Shoes (never in pairs) seemed to stray around the house at random, turning up in the most unexpected places — the back seat of the car, the bottom drawer of Pa Peachey’s desk, the broom closet. Keys wandered out of pockets and disappeared forever.

  The Peachey household was a mess.

  McTavish laid his head on his front paws and gazed at the ceiling. He knew that humans were an inferior race, but their foolishness never ceased to amaze him.

  Why? he thought. Why can’t they think for themselves?

  Any dog worth his salt could organize his way into a family. The key was to arrange regular meals and walks and concentrate on snoozing most of the day while the humans did all the work and earned the money to pay for all of it. Really clever dogs also sometimes got pigs’ ears and trips to the country, and no one made them pay for gas or the B&B.

  In contrast, moderately clever humans worked at jobs they hated with bosses they couldn’t stand, slaving long hours and becoming more and more unhappy. Once or twice a year, they went away for a week to the beach, where it always rained.

  Sometimes McTavish felt a little sorry for humans. There was no question at all that even a run-of-the-mill dog had a better life than a moderately clever human, though every human McTavish had ever met considered himself vastly superior to all other members of the animal kingdom.

  Humans were puzzlingly dim.

  McTavish sighed. There was so much work to do.

  Betty was at the end of her rope.

  She hated seeing her father unhappy. She hated microwave dinners. She hated all the mess in the house. She hated the fact that everyone overslept and was late for school. And she hated the fact that her mother had changed — from a fairly ordinary mother with a proper job, who cooked and cleaned and got everyone out of bed and to school at the right time, to the opposite of all that.

  Betty’s mother had quite an important job as an accountant. These days, she still went to work, but she spent all her spare time meditating, perfecting the lotus in tripod position or her handstand scorpion. And planning her trip to India.

  A mother might want to abandon her family to seek inner peace, Betty thought, but it’s not very nice for the family.

  Mothers were meant to dedicate themselves to keeping order and good cheer, while having their own careers and reminding the father of the house which child’s birthday was next week and when the dishwasher needed unloading.

  Weren’t they?

  Betty thought a great deal about this subject.

  What is the purpose of a mother? she wondered.

  The fact that family life was going downhill since Ma Peachey had stopped making it her first priority suggested that mothers held some sort of key to family happiness. Yes, fathers were important, but mothers were fundamental.

  Now, Betty may have been not quite nine years old, but she considered herself a feminist. She did not like the idea that the Peacheys were incapable of preparing decent meals and keeping the house clean while Ma Peachey sought inner peace.

  Surely they could exist in the absence of a full-time mother?

  Betty discussed the situation with McTavish. She and McTavish went on long walks together. They sat on McTavish’s bed and talked — or at least Betty talked, while McTavish listened. Betty and McTavish had remarkably similar temperaments given that they came from completely different species. They both required harmony and order. And so, they became allies.

  Now, if you think that dogs mostly dream of juicy bones and comfy beds, I can tell you that this is not true. McTavish spent a great deal of his time coming up with plans. After only a few days with the Peacheys, and after consulting with Betty, a really excellent plan began to form in his head.

  He called it Plan A.

  The first element of Plan A required McTavish to collect all the discarded sweaters and blankets and socks and pillows in the house, and drag them into his corner under the stairs. He piled them carefully in and around his bed and stamped them down to make a sort of platform.

  The house looked instantly tidier, and McTavish was much more comfortable. So was Betty, who could now sit under the stairs with McTavish without having to push him over to make room for her on his bed. With all these nice sweaters and pillows, both Betty and McTavish could lie on their backs and stretch out their legs, a position everyone knows is excellent for thinking.

  Betty and McTavish were delighted with Plan A. But not everyone in the family agreed.

  Ava went on a rampage, claiming that her best sweaters had disappeared from under the bed, which was where she usually kept them.

  Ollie complained that there were no clean towels in the damp pile under the sink in the bathroom. Which was where he usually kept them.

  Pa Peachey could not find two socks that matched in the huge heap of dirty clothes near the laundry basket. And if he did find two that matched, they smelled like old feet. Because nobody had washed them.

  That’s Ma Peachey’s job, Pa Peachey thought, despite the fact that it no longer was.

  The laundry pile was a particular triumph for McTavish. It included many soft and comfortable things to lie on and even one very fine Scottish cashmere cardigan.

  McTavish was very fond of Scottish cashmere.

  Now that he’d implemented Plan A, McTavish waited for the result.

  He waited.

  And he waited.

  And he waited.

  But nothing happened.

  Nothing at all.

  Not a single thing.

  Not even one teensy, tiny thing.

  Nothing.

  And so he sighed and began to think again, and after some time, McTavish came up with Plan B.

  Plan B consisted of chewing. McTavish chewed papers. He chewed boxes. He chewed gloves. But best of all, he chewed shoes. He focused most of his energy on chewing shoes.

  Here’s how he decided which shoes to chew.

  He waited until everyone in the house had gone off to work or school, and then he scouted around looking for shoes that were not where they should be. Although chewing shoes is not a very nice habit for a dog, it must be said in his defense that he only chewed shoes that were out of place.

  McTavish did not enter closets to find shoes. He did not touch shoes that were carefully lined up by a Peachey bedside (though to be fair, there were no such shoes). Had anyone left a tidy line of shoes by the front door, he would not have chewed them.

  But all other shoes — or sneakers or slippers or boots — were fair game, particularly if one shoe was left lying at a great distance from its fellow shoe.

  Let us pause here. It might be that you are beginning to think of McTavish as a bad and lazy dog. But you would be entirely wrong. Because chewing shoes is no job for a lazy dog. Chewing shoes is very hard work.

  If you are not convinced that destroying an entire leather shoe with nothing but your teeth is hard work, perhaps you should try it sometime and see how it goes. Chances are you will begin to see what a difficult task McTavish had set out to accomplish.

  In short, shoe-chewing is not a job for the faint of heart.

  But McTavish was not a faint-hearted dog. He was a dog of great courage and purpose, and he was determined to make a success of Plan B.

  On the third day of McTavish’s shoe-chewing campaign, Alice called the Peachey family to see how they were doing with their new dog.

  “How is dear, sweet, adorable McTavish?” Alice asked. “I can tell you that I had a great deal of trouble giving up that dog for adoption. I was very tempted to keep him for myself.”

  “Dear McTavish?” Pa Peachey snorted. “That dog is a monster.”

  “Sweet McTavish?” Ava Peachey exclaimed. “That dog is a rampant destroyer of shoes and an incorrigible collector of clothing.”

  “Adorable McTavish?” Ollie Peachey grumbled. “He will not look adorable when I kick him all the way to Mars for eating my favorite sneakers and dragging my best clothes into his bed.”

  “Ohhhmmmm,” hummed Ma Peachey.

  Betty Peachey took the phone. “McTavish is doing very well, thank you, Alice. He is clever, affectionate, well organized, and intelligent. In addition, I have a strong feeling that McTavish is a dog with a plan.” Betty lowered her voice and crawled into the corner under the stairs for privacy. “And this family, Alice, is in desperate need of a plan.”