Home Is Where Your Bark Is

Chapter 35

Up near Loyola Park just off Lake Shore Drive, the breeze was softening the late-June temps, and had she not had somewhere important to be, Jenna wouldn’t have minded working at this pop-up craft fair another several hours, soaking up a perfect summer day by the lake.

Having only owned the vehicle for a little over a month, she was still getting used to everything about the new-model, high-roof Ford E-Transit van that she and Jake had transformed into a mobile version of Plants N Pots by Jenna. Inside, the walls had been decked out with custom built-in shelves in a variety of sizes and hanging grow lights, and the sides and back on the outside had been professionally painted with her new logo as well as her own paintings of her potted plants. Driving it in Chicago traffic wasn’t the most fun thing she’d ever done, but she was getting used to it, kind of like driving a mobile billboard around.

To help draw in potential buyers, Jenna had invested in an assortment of whimsical plant stands that she set up outside the van at events to showcase some of her best plants and pots. Not only were the metal and wood stands helping sell her wares, but people had proven interested in buying them as well, so she’d added them to her expanding retail list.

Today had been her fourth event with the van, and packing up was more seamless each time.

“Taking off?” Carla, a woman selling ceramics over at the folding tables, asked while on her way back from the specialty ice cream truck.

“Yeah, I’m heading out to see Seven in his first agility and herding fun show this afternoon.”

“Oh yeah? Wish him good luck for me. And whereabouts are you working next weekend?”

“Actually, I’ll take next weekend off. Jake and I are getting out of town for a long weekend over the Fourth and heading up to Voyageurs National Park for some camping and canoeing—with the dog, so we’ll see how he likes canoes.”

“Oh fun. Well, I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”

“For sure.” Jenna jutted her thumb toward the van. “Now that I have this, I plan on doing a lot more events this year.” She’d dropped down to three days a week at the clinic, which had opened up her schedule, enabling her to commit to more, but Jenna’s big goal was to dive into Plants N Pots by Jenna full-time next spring. The thought still seemed completely out of reach at times, but then again, so had owning a truck like this one. While she never would’ve wished for the accident, good things had certainly been born from it.

Several of them.

After loading up, Jenna had just enough time before she headed out to swing by a vendor selling specialty dog and cat treats. For Seven, Jenna picked a peanut-butter-flavored doggie doughnut with Greek-yogurt-based icing and bacon bits for sprinkles, and for Rosie, she chose a bag of heart-shaped catnip treats. Now four months old, Rosie was a veritable rocket ship of energy most of the time—and enough like Seven that Jenna had given her sister credit for the comparison she’d made that first night they found her. The good news was that a high-energy kitty was a lot more manageable in Monica’s busy household than a high-energy border collie had been.

Earlier, Jenna had bought a bag of the boys’ favorite cinnamon toast popcorn for later this evening. Jake was coming over to help babysit the boys overnight. Hopefully, it would give Mom and Dad an easier evening and night with Clary Mae, who’d joined the world three weeks ago and who’d been breaking hearts ever since.

Maybe Jenna was leaning into this trusting-the-heart business her sister was always going on about because she hadn’t even blinked an eye when Monica had been right about Clary being a girl. “When you know, you know,” Monica had insisted, and Jenna had never agreed with her more.

***

An hour later, Jenna made her way onto the bleachers, content in the crowd of spectators assembled for the fun show at a popular agility farm an hour west of the city. Whether Seven would prove to be a good sheepherder remained to be seen, although he’d certainly perked up the handful of times he’d been in an arena with sheep so far. The trainer Jake and Seven had been working with insisted the dog had both the intelligence and instinct for herding, but right now, Jake wanted to focus on agility competitions with him, a sport Seven enjoyed as much as Jake.

Today would be Seven’s first timed agility trial. He’d passed the American Kennel Club’s Agility Course Test, and Jake had gotten him registered to compete in agility events. Today’s event was open invitation, and it didn’t take Jenna long to realize that however Seven ended up doing today, he almost certainly wouldn’t be the worst.

As she was getting seated, small dog breeds were still finishing up their first round in the agility arena, and a miniature dachshund entered the arena with her handler. Just the sight of her trotting in confidently with her head and tail held high had people laughing. The jumps were currently set at their lowest level, but other than that, the course was the same for dogs of all sizes. After starting out in the wrong direction, the dachshund got redirected and did an admirable job the first half of the course, jumping poles, dashing through tunnels, and crossing the seesaw, but at the weave poles, she stopped and sniffed, then squatted in the middle to urinate on the Astroturf, which sent a roar of laughter through the audience. Afterward, she was considerably less interested in finishing the course, but she trotted around after her owner, sidestepping most of the jumps and doing an impressive job of hauling herself up and over the steep A-frame planks, which sent the crowd into wild applause. While the announcer had poked fun at her mishaps as she moved through the course, he’d done it in a congenial way and, at the end, encouraged the crowd to applaud her for her spirit, which they did.

Slower paced from the start, the corgi who followed her proved more consistent throughout, tackling each obstacle with the same focused intensity and generating a good deal of praise from her owner as well as from the audience. The last of the small dogs was a Jack Russell who was too ramped up to wait for the starting bell and dashed through the exit of the nearest tunnel and over two jumps before his owner got him corralled and started him over, but once he got going, he was impressive to say the least.

Next, there was a short break while the jumps were raised, and then it was time for the larger dogs to move through the course. Jenna pulled out her phone and texted Jake good luck and added a kiss emoji even though she doubted he was paying attention to his phone. He was somewhere behind the scenes on the opposite side of the large arena, waiting with Seven.

Spying a new text from her sister, Jenna opened it to find a reminder to get Seven’s debut on video, and Jenna texted back that she would.

The first dog out after the jumps were raised was a black-and-white husky who took the course at a trot but did everything his owner asked, moving over the seesaw, the pause table, and the A-frame planks with steady determination, but then he lost interest in the final two jumps and trotted over to sniff the judge’s pockets, making everyone laugh. Next up was a yellow Lab who popped out of the first tunnel, then circled right back around to run through it again and then attempted to head back inside it in the opposite direction before her owner was able to get her attention and get her moving through the course again. The announcer had a lot of fun with her.

Laughing, Jenna clamped one hand over her mouth. At least there were other newbie dogs here today too.

When she finally spotted Jake and Seven entering the big arena from the far side, Jenna’s heart skipped in her chest. However Seven did out here today, she’d forever be proud of them both, Jake for not quitting on him when the rest of the world had, and Seven for giving Jake a chance right back.

When Jenna lifted her phone to start videoing, she spotted a new text from Jake.

Glad you made it! Love you and see you on the other side.

Maybe because Seven was the first border collie up, and border collies had a reputation for being good agility dogs, the crowd fell quiet as Jake and Seven walked over to the starting circle and got still, waiting for the referee to give the go-ahead.

Just as he should be, Seven was alert and keyed in on Jake, waiting for his signal to start. As soon as he got it, Seven bolted out toward the center of the arena, missing the first jump entirely, and the crowd let out a disappointed “Awww.”

But Jake was quick to get his attention and Seven circled back, watching Jake’s signal for where to head next. From that moment on, the two of them worked together, Seven sailing over jumps and Jake running at his side, signaling which obstacle to jump or scale next, each of which Seven did with ease. This gave Jenna a sense of how deeply the two of them had bonded. More than that, they’d become a team.

Even though she’d seen them practicing together dozens of times, Jenna had never seen them so coordinated, so in tune with each other. Seven moved through the weave poles with the grace and fluidity of a true canine athlete and scaled the seesaw without the slightest hesitation. It was what drew crowds, a border collie with the athleticism and focused attention to make moving through the course appear effortless, and when he was finished, the crowd went wild with applause.

Jake knelt down, and Seven ran into his arms, wagging his tail. He licked Jake’s chin as Jake wrapped him in a hug. After this, Jake looked toward the bleachers for the first time, scanning the crowd. Jenna, who was still on her feet, let out a whoop and blew him a kiss. Grinning at her, Jake stood up and closed one hand over his heart, and Jenna knew just what he meant.

His cup runneth over too.

“There you go, folks. That’s what it’s all about!” the announcer blurted into the microphone. “Even with that mishap in the beginning, my bet is that we’ve just seen our winning time today, and it’s by a first-timer named Seven, of all things. But it says here that’s for good reason. Folks, believe it or not, this dog circled through shelters six times before finding his forever home. Would you believe that? Well, I for one will say he’s a lucky-number Seven at that.”

While Jenna couldn’t agree more, she’d counter the claim with one of her own. She and Jake were just as lucky. Likely even luckier.