Dog Days

(July-August 2016)

4: Leader of the Pack

On Wednesday, Dipper and Wendy ran to town and back, keeping up their normal training routine. It was a hot morning, already eighty degrees at 7:45 as they slowed to walk up the driveway to the Shack. "Whoosh!" Wendy said, mopping her face with a bandana. "Gonna hit a hundred today, I bet."

"No takers," Dipper told her. "Feels like a hundred already. So—any plans for the weekend?"

She reached to hold his hand. "Meh, Dad and the boys are gonna be off bowling, as usual—Roseburg on Friday evening and then all the way to Eugene on Saturday, another tournament. So pretty much whatever you want to do. Movie night Friday, I guess, and then we'll think of some nice way to spend Saturday evening. Hey, two weeks from Friday, Woodstick hits!"

He got a quick flash of both anticipation and a little bit of worry from her. Wendy liked Woodstick, a music festival that let her cut loose and be a little raucous in public—but ever since she'd been hit by a jealousy spell tossed out by the Love God and not meant for her, some of the charm had worn off. Dipper asked, "Robbie and Tambry playing?"

"Yeah, three sets. The Tombstones are doin' two, and then Robbie and Tambry are gonna try some duets, not metal but softer pieces. They had two on their last album, remember, kind of ballad-y, and they're getting a lot of buzz, so they're gonna try out a few at the festival—whoops!"

She had opened the gift-shop door, and the puppy darted out. "Don't let him get away!" Mabel yelled from inside.

But the dog had no intention of getting away. Dipper dropped to one knee and the pup jumped on him, practically climbing him, licking his face. "Hey, good to see you, too!" he said, laughing.

Mabel came out, still in pajamas, with his leash. She clipped it to his collar. "Thanks for catching him. I was gonna take him for his morning walk, but I guess he heard you guys and headed for the door before I could get his lead on. Come on, dog!"

"You really ought to name him, Mabes," Wendy advised. "Make him feel part of the family."

"Yeah, but inspiration hasn't struck." She tugged, but the pup, wagging everything below his neck, wanted to socialize with Dipper and Wendy. "Come on, be a good dog!"

Dipper got up from where he'd knelt to hold the dog and asked, "Want me to walk him?"

"Would you mind? Here." Mabel handed him a plastic baggie.

Dipper made a face. "Yuck."

Mabel said, "Hey, it's a natural function! And look at me, I gotta wash his bed. Doc Setter gave him a flea-medicine injection, and you wouldn't believe how many fell off him last night!"

"Poor little dog," Wendy said. "Hey, I'll walk with you, Dip."

"Wait, wait, I have to give you instructions," Mabel said.

"I think I already know how to walk," Dipper told her.

Mabel stepped off the porch and onto the lawn , right behind Dipper. "No, you don't, not with a Carolina dog."

"He's from Carolina?" Wendy asked. She drawled, "Well, shut my mouth!"

Dipper did a bad Southern accent: "Bless his little old heart! He's come a long ways from home, I reckon!" The puppy seemed to enjoy the sound of their voices. He rolled on his back and wriggled in the grass.

"Har, har, you guys are killing me," Mabel groused. "No, he's not from North or South Carolina. That's just the name of the breed. He's a primitive dog!"

"I see," Dipper said. "That must be why he's tracking a bug right now. Insectivorous." And, sure enough, the dog was on his stomach, nose to the ground, hot on the trail of a scuttling speckled beetle.

"Listen!" Mabel said. "I'm being serious! The vet sent me a .pdf of a booklet about the breed. It's very ancient, and these dogs are different from other dogs. They're real loyal, but they're also independent."

"Yeah, but he didn't so good, being independent," Wendy said, kneeling and petting the dog, who writhed in pleasure.

Mabel nodded. "That's the trouble. If they get out on their own, they're apt to take off and not come back for maybe days. And they could get hurt or worse, and anything could happen! But, and this is key, a Carolina dog wants to have his place in the pack. If his humans establish dominance, then the dog won't run off like that. Here's how you have to do it—when you walk, you always have to be in the lead. Make him follow you, not drag you."

"I'll take a stab at it," Dipper said. He stood and gently but firmly pulled the dog into place, on his left and just behind his foot. "OK, dog, heel!"

They took a few steps, and Dipper kept the dog in position with difficulty. The pup wanted to go out in front. "Heel!" Dipper commanded several times while reining him in. They made one round of the yard, and—the dog got it. Just like that.

"Hey!" Wendy said. "He's doing it."

"You try it," Dipper said, handing the leash to Wendy.

At first the dog surged ahead, but Wendy said firmly, "Heel!"

Wonder of wonders, he did. "What a smart puppy!" Mabel gushed. "Come here and let me try it!"

Again the dog heeled perfectly. "He really is smart!" Dipper said. They walked the puppy until he did his business—Mabel told Dipper, "You got the bag, Brobro!" —and after the clean-up, he got the dog to sit after only three tries. Then to shake hands after two.

They might have experimented until tourists flooded in had Soos not looked out and warned them: "Hey, dawgs, and, um, dog! We open in twenty minutes. Better get a move on!"

They reluctantly went back inside, and Mabel fed the dog before showering and dressing. "You are such a great dog, yes, you are!" she said. Then she frowned. "I am not gonna talk baby talk to you, though. You just get yourself filled out a little and get over that limp, and you and I are going to have such a good time. And you can run with Dipper!"

Dipper and Wendy got their showers and all there of them ate a quick, simple breakfast of cereal, juice, and coffee. They barely had time to brush their teeth before taking their stations in the Shack.

As an experiment, they let the dog stay down in the gift shop, on a cushion between Mabel and Dipper and so between the cash registers.. In the guise of Mr. Mystery, Soos introduced him to tourists as "The Mystery Dawg! Where he came from is, like, a mystery! What his name is, is a mystery! But here he is, folks—get your picture taken in the Mystery Shack with the Mystery Dawg for only ten dollars!"

Later, Wendy said it wasn't fair that the dog made a hundred dollars in one day, when Soos was paying Dipper and Mabel only seventy-five a week.

That evening after dinner, and after Abuelita had tucked the kids in for the night, Mabel amazed the family by doing a dog-and-pony show, minus the pony. By then, the dog had learned to heel, sit, shake, high-five, speak, lie down, and roll over. Melody was a little worried by that. "He must have been trained to learn that fast," she said. "He must belong to someone."

"I don't think so," Dipper said. "He's just brilliant. He picks up on things quick. Just a very smart dog, that's all."

"Oh, dude!" Soos said. "That reminds me. You got a letter today, but we were busy when the mail came, and I forgot."

Wendy blinked. "Uh, Soos, how does saying he's a smart dog remind you of a letter?" she asked.

"Simple, dude," Soos said. "It's like, he's a smart dog. He makes me feel, you know, kinda dumb in a way because I Soos things up sometimes. Like one way I do that, is I forget things sometimes. Like the time I forgot my keys and drove into town without them and didn't have them in my pockets or anywhere, so I had to walk back to the Shack to find them. And, like, I couldn't! So I walked back to the car in town, and they were, like, in the ignition! Boom! So that reminded me I forgot the letter, see?"

"Um . . . yeah," Wendy said.

Soos went to the table where they usually put the mail when it came at a busy time. "Let me see, electric bill, flyer for Woodstick, insurance offer, here it is!" He passed a thick envelope to Dipper.

"From my agent," Dipper said. He opened the envelope and read the letter. And then read it again, just to make sure he hadn't misread it. "Oh, wow," he said.

The dog came to him and put its paw on his foot, whining anxiously.

Dipper reached down and scratched its ears. "It's OK," he said. "Huh. My heart's beating so fast. I wonder if he sensed that and thought I was scared—"

"Broseph!" Mabel said. "What is it?"

"There's going to be a TV show," Dipper said. "Of my book. The first one. A cartoon series, it says. And I get half the TV movie and the publisher gets half. This is—it's thousands of—it's a whole lot of money!"

"Wow!" Mabel said. "Who's gonna play me?"

"Wait, wait—probably it'll take two years of production before it debuts. Details to come, it says."

"They have to get a better artist than they use for your covers!" Mabel insisted. "The illustrations on the covers don't even look like us!"

"Well, to be fair, they're not really us—they're Alexa and Tripper Palms," Dipper said.

"That's it!" Mabel yelled, jumping up and waving her arms in triumph. "We got it!"

"Got . . . uh, what?" Wendy asked.

"The name! It's perfect!" She scooped the puppy up in her arms. "From this day forth, you shall be known as Tripper!"

"Hey," Dipper said. "Don't you think that'll confuse him? When he hears my name, he'll think you're calling him!"

Mabel sat with the dog on her lap. She held his cheeks and stared into his eyes, and he seemed to stare back with great solemnity. "Listen, dog. You are Tripper! Tripper, get it?" She pointed. "He's Dipper. But you are Tripper! Tripper! You like that? Hah! He loves it! Look at how his tail's wagging! Tripper Pines, meet Wendy—that's Wendy—and you know Dipper—and me, I'm Mabel, and this is Soos, and Melody, and Abuelita—"

"Hola, Treeper," Abuelita said with her sleepy smile.

Mabel set the dog down. "Wendy, call him by his new name. See if he'll come to you."

Dipper said, "First, just say 'dog. Kind of a control for the experiment.'"

So they tried it. Wendy said "Here, dog." The puppy's tail thumped the floor, but he made no move.

"OK," Wendy said. Keeping her tone and inflexion the same, she said, "Here, Tripper."

And the dog went straight to her, limping only a little, and looked up in her face expectantly.

"Tripper?" Dipper said.

The puppy first looked his way, then came to him.

"This is like super exciting and a little scary, too," Soos said. "Oh, hey, that's great news, by the way, Dipper! A TV cartoon show! Can we let people know that you wrote the books now?"

"Not . . . just yet, please," Dipper said. "The letter says there are details to be worked out and contracts to sign, and even then it wouldn't come out before maybe 2018, and, uh—it, uh, you know, the deal may still fall through or something—"

"Dipper!" Mabel scolded. "Don't be so gloomy! Hey, you gotta go tell our grunkles! Ooh, and I'll take Tripper down to introduce them, too! Let's go!"

Later on, Dipper found it difficult to remember anything much of that evening. Oh, sure, the notion of a TV show, even an animated cartoon, based on his books was terrifically exciting, but it was scary, too. And while the prospect of enough money to, well, buy a house was also exciting, it seemed somehow—somehow like—well, he'd once criticized Paz to Mabel: "Pacifica's rich, Mabel! She's cheating at life!"

It seemed unreal to him. Stan advised him to get an entertainment attorney right away. Stanford congratulated him but warned, "Don't let this sway you from your goals in life! You have so much to offer the world."

Still—scary. Yes, that was it. Wendy cheered him on, but even so—wow. What if everyone hated it? What if it flopped?

That night he tossed and turned until past midnight. And then the door opened. "Dipper?" Mabel, whispering.

"I'm awake," he said. "Can't sleep."

"Tripper wouldn't quiet down. I thought he wanted to go out, but he wanted to come up here instead. OK if he sleeps over with you?"

"I guess," Dipper said.

He heard the dog whimper a little, and then Mabel grunted. "Now stay down here on the foot of the bed!" she said.

"I didn't say he could sleep in my bed!" Dipper objected.

"Come on, Brobro! He's de-fleaed! And I think he knows you're all whoa, I'm Dipper, I gotta look for the crappy lining to my silver cloud!"

"It's not that—oh, just leave him. You got the leash?"

"I'll drape it over the foot of your bed." Mabel paused for a long time. "Um—OK if I sleep in my old bed tonight? I hate to be away from him."

"Help yourself," Dipper said.

He heard floofing sounds and realized that Mabel had come up with pillow and bedding under her arm. He herd her bedsprings creak. "Goodnight, Dipper."

"Goodnight, Mabel."

The puppy came up to his chest and curled up against him, warm and furry. He yawned once, wriggled, and then settled in.

Despite himself, Dipper smiled and put his hand on the puppy's neck. The dog grunted in a contented way. "Goodnight, Tripper," Dipper said.

And he felt more relaxed and realized he was sleepy and could get to sleep. He took a deep breath. In a vague kind of way, the thought drifted into his mind: I think I've just been elected leader of the pack. . . .