Penny by Hal; Borland Page A

talk to her.”
    Barbara thought for a long moment. “Any other bright ideas?”
    â€œLearn to talk cow.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œAnd tell a couple of those old milkers to stop running from Penny. Tell them to kick the stuffing out of her, though I’m not sure that would do much good.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t. It would just make Penny mad. Now it’s just a game with her, like chasing a ball. If a cow kicked her it would turn into a feud.”
    We let it go at that. But half an hour later Barbara called the basset owner up in Massachusetts who had given the basic advice about caring for Penny even before she came to live with us. Barbara told her about the cow problem.
    â€œThe obvious solution,” Sybil said, “is to get rid of the cows.”
    â€œYes. But what is the sensible solution. We don’t even own the cows, so we can’t sell them, even to please Penny.”
    â€œWell, why not put her on a leash and take her out among the cows and show her that they don’t have to be chased?”
    â€œBut she doesn’t chase them any other time of day. Just in the evening. She doesn’t pay any attention to them in the morning. They come up here every morning and she couldn’t care less.”
    â€œShe sounds neurotic, to me.”
    â€œDo you know a good dog psychiatrist?”
    â€œLook,” Sybil said at last, “why don’t you bring her up here to me, if she won’t handle. We haven’t any cows. Maybe that’s the solution.”
    â€œYou’d be surprised if we took you up on that.”
    â€œNo, I mean it. I can find her a good home.”
    â€œWe’ll have to think about it.” And Barbara hung up.

Nine
    The next day Penny left the cows strictly alone. We stayed at home and watched her, just to see what she did. She was a model dog, came when called, ate her food, didn’t chase cows and went to bed without protest. The same the next day, and the next.
    Barbara said, “She’s settling down, at last.”
    And when this exemplary behavior continued for a week I said, “Well, life may be dull around here, but it’s worth living again.”
    â€œAfter what we’ve been through with that dog,” Barbara said, “I could do with weeks and weeks of this kind of dullness.”
    Penny was on her best behavior right through the second week, ebullient, lively, but starting no uproars. Maybe, I thought, she had finally got all that out of her system. Barbara and I both began to relax.
    Looking back later, we wondered why we were surprised that it didn’t last. Some dogs, like some people, simply can’t abide a quiet life. Life isn’t life for them unless things are happening. Maybe they have a heightened sense of drama and adventure. Maybe they actually need dragons at every turn in the road. Penny had her dragons out there in the pasture at five o’clock in the afternoon, for a few days. Then they stopped being dragons and were just plain cows. But there had to be other dragons somewhere.
    It started like another normal, quiet day. Penny was her gay, happy self when I let her out of her house, frolicking and romping in the dewy grass, dashing to the back door to be let in, eating her breakfast with gusto, then going outdoors for fifteen minutes. She came back in, greeted Barbara, came up to my study with me and napped for an hour, then went down to lie on the front steps and watch the morning. All routine. Before lunch we would go for a walk, all three of us, and maybe Penny would chase a rabbit.
    I was at work at my desk when a highway truck came up the road about nine-thirty. The town highway department was going to sweep our secondary blacktop road, prepare it for a coat of road oil. The highway crew is a group of men we know, men who patch the chuckholes in the spring, mow the roadsides in the summer, plow the snow in the winter. Friends. They knew us. They knew Penny, at least