By Ed Staskus

   Maggie Campbell got ice cream for her dogs all the time. It started when she started going to her sister Elaine’s house in West Park with their family’s Rottweiler, whose name was Chavez. She took Elaine’s Rottweiler, whose name was Wellington, with Chavez for walks in the neighborhood.

   The dogs and she went to the Dairy Queen on Riverside Dr. just north of Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It’s a Cone Zone now, but back then it was a DQ. She did that every weekend without fail. One Saturday, as they were strolling past the Shell gas station on their way to the DQ, she noticed some guys walking towards them. They were four young guys coming her way. She began to get a little nervous.

   “What the hey,” Maggie whispered. She knew how to take care of herself one-on-one. She didn’t like four against one.

   As they got closer they started getting obnoxious and making cat calls. She had two thoughts going. One was that she shouldn’t make eye contact with them, and the other was, at least I have my dogs with me. But, when she looked the teenaged posse over, it didn’t seem like the guys had even noticed the dogs.

   Finally, when they got closer, they stopped looking her up and down and focused on the Rottweilers. The Rottweilers focused on them. The posse stopped and Maggie stopped. The dogs stopped and started to bristle and snarl. Then, just like that, the guys all split.

   Thank God, she thought. One of them yelled back over his shoulder, “That’s some well-guarded piggybank, girlfriend.”

   “You two are getting some extra ice cream today,” she told Chavez and Wellington. “You’re getting a sundae, in fact, one big one for each of you.”

   Dogs know what’s up when they’re out in the hood. They have a sixth sense. They don’t like anything that the other five senses don’t declare as kosher. If you have something to worry about, then you have something to worry about. If you don’t, you’re fine. You don’t have to take the Fifth. If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear from dogs.

   Steve de Luca, her husband, and she had once had a Wolf Labrador who was her life when there had still been lots of life in him. He was the sweetest thing ever and she just loved that dog. His name was Blue. One night they ordered Chinese. The only time she ever saw Blue go after somebody was when the pale-faced Fu Manchu deliveryman came to their front door. The Wolf Lab chased him right back to his car. He barked at the car all the way down the street as it sped away.

   He never before or ever after did anything like that. Fu Manchu obviously had some bad intentions. If someone comes to the door and there’s ill will, or there are bad intentions, the hair on all dog necks goes up and their blood starts to run hot. A woman’s intuition is strong, but a dog’s is even stronger. They know when the feeling is just not right. There had been a few times in Maggie’s life when things had not been right. Every time she had a dog with her for protection, thank goodness.

   She and Steve usually had four or five dogs in the house, so a bad man would have to be out of his mind to try and come and rob their house. He would have to be absolutely nuts. Cats will offer you up as a sacrifice when push comes to shove, but a dog, it’s all about serve and protect.

   Steve came upon a King Charles who needed a new home. He and Maggie rescued dogs. He was going to move it to one of his cousins. But he private messaged Maggie, “My cousin’s not responsible.” After that she put the dog on Facebook. She had a client at the hair salon who had been pestering her for a King Charles, so she tagged her. She came back with, “When can I meet this dog?”

   “Let me find out what the scoop is,” Maggie told her.

   Her client had just built a house in Olmsted Township. The dog was from Olmsted Falls, and he loved children and other dogs, so everything was all right there. But then Steve called and said, “I think I’ve got someone else who wants that dog.”

   “Well, if the meet and greet doesn’t go well, you can have your shot, but remember, my client was first,” Maggie said.

   In the end, Maggie’s first in line was well off, had a big new home, and the family had had to put their own King Charles down a couple of months ago. They loved the new dog, the new dog loved them, and it all came together.

   Sometimes Steve and Maggie took dogs in for themselves, especially if they found them on the street. They found Gretel that way. Steve brought her in and when Maggie saw her, she said, “That’s it, I love her, she’s mine. She’s not going anywhere.” They kept Gretel, although too many dogs in the house can be a problem.

   One big problem at their house was dog hair, which was a problem because Maggie was a clean freak. Some dog lovers believe that if you’re not covered in dog hair your life is empty, but she wasn’t one of them. In the years Steve and she had been married they had always had Dysons. The last one broke when she accidentally dropped it and watched it fall down the stairs, bouncing one step at a time on its way all the way down to the first floor. When it stopped it was all over for it.

   “Damn it,” she thought, as it cracked and broke apart. It wasn’t the first time. Dyson wasn’t built for hostilities. Maggie went on Facebook and asked, “I’m really tired of giving Dyson my money, what do you guys got?”

   In the meantime, they bought an Electrolux. The new vacuum cleaner was the biggest joke of all time. She hated that piece of crap. Even Steve hated it. He used it once and cursed all day about it. Maggie took it back to Best Buy and told them how much she hated it. They bought a Miele with the refund. 

   Some people think not wanting to scare their dog is the perfect excuse for not vacuuming. Not Maggie. She loved her Miele. It was a godsend, especially since she loved to vacuum. She did it every day. The dogs thought it was a bad habit, but Maggie ignored their grousing.

   The other problem they had all the time was dog nose smudges all over their glass surfaces, which was mostly the doors when they pressed their noses against them. Whenever she came home from the grocery store, or the pet store, and was bringing in bags of food, they ganged up on the glass. Sometimes she thought they must think she was the greatest hunter in the world, judging by how much food she brought home. There were the two of them and a pack of the four-footers. That added up to not only a whole lot of food, but a whole lot of Windex, too.

   “I wonder where their sixth sense tells them I’m getting all that food from,” she asked Steve over bowls of Chunky Monkey ice cream. He wasn’t able to speak up about it. His mouth had freezer burn. As long as the chow kept coming through the door the dogs didn’t care and didn’t waste their time putting their sixth sense to work on it. They made eyes at the bowls of Chunky Monkey.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Cross Walk” by Ed Staskus

Late summer, New York City, 1956. Big city streets full of menace. A high profile contract killing in the works. A private eye working out of Hell’s Kitchen scares up the shadows.

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRPSFPKP

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication