ANIMAL TRAINER
Disclaimer: Though I know animals pretty well, I am not a dog trainer, and this is both un-beta'd and sorely under-researched. I think I kept it general enough, but if there are glaring inaccuracies, feel free to (kindly) leave feedback, and I may edit to give more accuracy!
"Axel! No! Don't chew on that!"
Jamie's voice was going beyond yelling and was approaching a desperate plea. Jack had just landed on the roof and was about to slip through the window, as was customary, when he heard an excited, high-pitched barking that didn't sound like Abby. Furrowing his eyebrows, he swung himself upside down to peer through the window.
Inside the dim room, Jamie was desperately trying to tug a rumpled shirt out of the mouth of a fluffy black, curly-furred poodle that Jack was pretty certain was only a puppy even though it was already the size of many smaller dogs. Jamie looked frustrated to near tears, so Jack pushed the window open and swung in without waiting to knock, giving a sharp whistle that stopped both of the room's inhabitants in their tracks. Jack strode lightly over before they recovered again to gently but firmly open the puppy's mouth and detach its teeth from the now slightly abused shirt.
The black puppy whined a little and wiggled, trying to climb Jack's leg as Jamie stumbled backwards a little at the sudden release. "Off," Jack said sternly. His tone only had a little effect on the (clearly untrained) puppy, making him pause and whine again. "Off," Jack repeated more sharply, snapping his fingers to point at the ground, and the puppy reluctantly slid down from standing on his back legs. Jack waited only a second, then crooned "Good boy" and ruffled the puppy's floppy black ears. He dodged a happily attempted nip with practiced foresight (nippiness was always the worst part about untrained puppies) and smiled at Jamie, whose face was a flushed mixture of tearful frustration and shining gratitude.
Jack smiled at him, firmly tapping the puppy's nose in remonstrance for another attempted bite at the winter spirit's sleeve. "Axel, did you say?" he confirmed. "He's a cutie– when did you guys get another dog?"
Jamie sniffed a bit and swiped at his nose with his long sleeve. "We got him a couple days ago– a boy at school had a dog with puppies and they all needed new homes, so I asked Mom. Mom thought for days and said yes, but she said that if we were gonna get another dog, he'd be mostly my job to take care of since she works and I'm older, which I thought was gonna be cool, but he tries to chew on everything and doesn't wait to go outside and is just naughty almost all the time!" Jamie said in a frustrated torrent, breaking off to sniff again. "Ugh, I just can't get him to listen," he said tearfully.
Jack made a sympathetic face and stood up to pat Jamie on the shoulder. (He still had limited experience with comforting others, but despite their awkward stiltedness, shoulder pats from Bunny always seemed to make him feel better when he was down. He didn't figure they could hurt, at least.) "Yeah, untrained puppies are quite a handful to teach how to behave."
Jamie huffed. "Even Abby doesn't like him, and she loves everyone! But he always tries to bite her tail and eat her food and barks at everything! Mom doesn't know what to do either– we got Abby from a shelter when she was already grown up, and she was never this naughty!"
Jack looked down at the curly black bundle of fur that had wrapped itself around his foot. "It's a lot of work, that's for sure. But if you want to train him, I could give you some lessons– to teach him and Abby both," he offered.
Jamie's face lit up, and he smeared the last of his tears away. "Really? You know how to train dogs?"
Jack grinned, doing his best to keep his expression reflective of happy memories without the sad eventuality of loss that had always ended them. "I know a good bit, yeah. Most animals can see me, so I had some pretty fun friends over the years, and taught them a lot of different tricks. I didn't really know what I was doing at first, but I've both learned and taught a lot of stuff to a lot of animals in my life," he said, his smile growing truer as he remembered an entire parade of creatures who had made his life so much less lonely throughout his centuries. A family of penguins who he had gone sledding with. A mostly wild mare who had come to love him, who he had only managed to ride because the Wind caught him whenever the spunky girl bucked him off. A scruffy stray cat with torn ears and a disease that made him grow too much fur, meaning he never minded the chill of Jack's laugh. A loving sheepdog, a playful but deadly snow cat mother, sassy chickadees, an unamused capybara at the zoo- too many incredible friends to list. He missed all of them– one always does, no matter how many pets one loses– but he still loved them, and would never regret trade the memories of the times they'd spent together. Honestly, their companionship was the only thing that had kept him going some seasons, and he wouldn't trade it for the world.
Pulling himself out of the past, he refocused on Jamie, who was looking more like his eager and wide eyed self again than a minute ago. "You'll need to do a lot of the teaching, since you're the one who's here to watch him every day, but I can teach you how to train him better. If you want," he added, his grin going lopsided at the unnecessary caveat, based on the younger boys excited expression.
"Yeah, that would be awesome!" Jamie exclaimed. "Mom will be so relieved– she wasn't sure if we could keep him if he didn't start behaving more!"
Jack smiled. "Well, then it's perfect that I'm here to help! We can start right now, if you want?"
At Jamie's enthusiastic nod, Jack grinned wider and didn't waste any more time. "All right them, first rule to remember: You have to be consistent and firm, even if it feels mean. Then after he obeys, you can give him plenty of praises and rewards to teach him that that's good…"
**0**
Alison Bennett rinsed off a sunflower-painted plate and added it to the half-full drying rack. She gave a cursory glance out the window to check on her children in the backyard, and smiled when she saw that they had both of the dogs with them, too.
Since she had been considering rehoming Axel just a week and a half ago, Jamie had managed to make enormous tracks in training the curly-furred black puppy. Honestly, she was somewhat at a loss as to her son's success, though she couldn't deny his discipline in working for it. Every day he would drag Axel and an accompanying Sophie and Abby outside for training. From what Mrs. Bennett saw, Sophie spent most of the time pretending to be a puppy herself, but Jamie had been so stern and mature in his training that even Abby– a full-grown, sweet, and generally well-behaved dog– had exhibited noticeably better behavior in the just past week.
Today looked the same as Mrs. Bennett's other glimpses of the week's daily training sessions. Abby was loping about and wagging her tail, avoiding getting too close to Axel in wariness of the tendency to bite that he was starting to grow out of. Sophie was excitedly bouncing around on all fours, making shrill noises that her mother assumed were supposed to be barks as she got too close to Axel and was repaid by a sloppy lick to the face. Mrs. Bennett chuckled to herself, musing (not for the first time) that it was rather unjust that such energy was always granted to children, rather than the adults responsible for them.
"Axel, no face kisses," Jamie scolded somberly, making his mother's smile grow at the glow of loving pride she felt in her eldest's maturity. Sophie's bright giggle seemed to indicate that she didn't mind the sloppy sign of affection, and she barked again, scrambling to her feet so she could jump up and pretend to grab onto something.
Mrs. Bennett's smile evaporated. Her breath caught and she snatched at the edge of the sink for balance with a quiet choking noise, her eyes wide and shocked. Outside, Sophie continued to giggle as she hung from thin air.
"Off, Sophie!" Jamie ordered sternly as Abby barked in excitement, still using what his mother had come to categorize as his Trainer Voice. "Stop climbing Jack!"
Jack… Jack Frost?
As if her thoughts were a trigger, Mrs. Bennett could almost imagine she heard the echo of a laugh that didn't belong to either of her children.
Shaken, she leaned against the sink for a few moments as the world seemed to swirl around her. Her movement caught Jamie's notice, and he waved at her while trying to avoid tripping over Axel or Sophie, who was on all fours again, like nothing had happened. Mrs. Bennett managed to gather herself enough to wave back before setting down the washcloth and moving out of sight of the window.
She exhaled shakily and sat at the kitchen table, forcibly collecting herself. She seriously needed more sleep if her imagination was running away with her like that. It was just her imagination, wasn't it? It had to be.
But what if it isn't?
It had to be. There was no invisible fable hanging around her children.
Even so… Mrs. Bennett needed to surreptitiously question her children, and keep a better eye on them than ever. She threw another look out at the perfectly normal scene outside the sliding door before going to look for her laptop, only half conscious of what she was doing in her whirlwind of confused disbelief.
It couldn't hurt to do a little research.
I live! I had all these good intentions to post another chapter over spring break, but I was so burned out that I did pretty much nothing productive that week. But now I survived my year of college (with a 4.0, whoooo!) and am finally paying some attention to my hobbies! This month will still be a little hectic, with an upcoming dance recital, several concerts, a room move, siblings' birthdays, and figuring out my summer work, but I hope to get more chapters written over the summer! (I've been dying to further the Mrs. Bennet subplot since last summer!)
Fun fact, Axel is 100% stolen from the real life poodle puppy that a family I babysat for adopted– adorably black and fluffy-curly, but also yappy, nippy, naughty, and not trained. (So, a regular puppy, ha!) Jack's sad moment is also from my experience, as you never stop missing the pets you lose. (I seem incapable of not giving Jack an angsty second of introspection each chapter, but he's so skilled because he was lonely and bored.) Even so, Jack and I both know that the love is worth the loss, and hugs for all of you who understand that experience as well.
Anyway, thank you so much to all who read, followed, and favorited since I've been MIA, and hope this is a fun read for such a long wait! Wishing you all a wonderful May! Elen out.
