Stepdog by Mireya Navarro

excuses. Joanna annoyed Eddie by her play. Max was the attacker, always off-leash and always jumping from behind. “I’d go out of my way to keep my distance from Max, but one time I ran into Max off-leash by the creek,” Jim had explained. “He took off after Eddie. They started to get into it and I grabbed each by the collar and pulled them apart. Another time Eddie was off-leash and Max again broke off his leash and attacked Eddie. I pulled them apart and the momentum pushed me into some bushes and I got scratched up and Max started biting on my hand. The wife finally got her dog and then blamed me. I said, ‘Are you joking?’ He was twice as big as Eddie. This was a dog they couldn’t control. I can control Eddie.”
    The journalist in me suspected there was another side to this story. A certain Eddie-tries-to-eat-baby-pug incident in a dog park came to mind. But Jim was adamant that Max had traumatized Eddie and left him forever looking over his shoulder during walks, fearful of an ambush.
    None of this exactly explained why the kennel expelled his darling dog. Jim complained that the staff conveniently overlooked Eddie’s own injuries from the fights. The place separated dogs into big and small. First they put Eddie with the big dogs, but he kept getting into fights. The staff used water sprayers to break up fights, and they’d empty the entire bottle on Eddie and he wouldn’t back off. Eddie sort of fell in between big and small, so they tried to put him with the little dogs next. They hoped the little dogs would be more submissive and that Eddie would behave. But he fought the little dogs too. He’d be fine for an hour or two and then turn on them. Eventually, Eddie ended up in solitary confinement. They put him in his own little caged area and it worked for almost a year, until Jim came to pick him up one Monday and they told him Eddie was expelled. At some point in the comings and goings of the kennel, Jim was told, Eddie had bit another dog around the neck and the risk of lethal injury had just become too high.
    Jim still held his dog blameless.
    â€œI got home and I was petting him and I felt these funny bumps on his ears and I saw scabs and bite marks,” Jim told me. “His ears had been bitten through. Clearly some other dog had fought with him and gotten the better of him. It makes me think that the owner of the place had thrown Eddie out and made up the story about Eddie being the aggressor to try to prevent me from suing him for my dog being injured.”
    Sure. What logical person would not reach the same conclusion?
    Jim was forced to board Eddie in a private house for a while. The caretaker had an old and amiable Irish setter. There’s no need to repeat what happened. By the time I moved to California, Jim had been paying a babysitter to come and look after Eddie in his house when he was away.
    Now, as I was about to venture out in the company of this thug, Jim warned me to stay far away from Pete, Max (yellow-ribbon Max), and Ally.
    â€œDon’t let the cute names fool you,” he said. “These are ninjas in furry costumes.” Never was I to try to pass them or even make eye contact with the owner, he said. I was responsible for smelling them before we saw them so we could cross the street or turn around and retreat. As he spoke, Jim was quickly scribbling. “Here,” he said handing me a list.
    Seattle. Golden Lab. Friend.
    Chipper. Labradoodle. Friend.
    Ally. Fat black Lab. Foe.
    Pete. Ally’s friend. Blond Lab, also very fat. Foe.
    Chloe. Really pretty short-haired brown mutt. Friend.
    Dancer, the whippet. Molly and Tigger, two goldens. All pals.
    Casper. Golden retriever. Foe.
    Max. Golden retriever. Archenemy.
    â€œWatch out,” Jim reminded me. “Eddie really has a bee in his bonnet about this one.”
    I think I was shaking a little by the time Eddie and I managed to finally leave. It was like entering