Wade marked down Joe for anticipating commands rather than waiting for them, something else that Joe had also always excelled at. Joe lost his self-control and broke for a spotted towhee flitting in a hedge of pink oleander, but when Teddy called him off, Joe came sprinting in, flipping onto his back at Teddy’s feet, butt swiveling on the grass and tail wagging desperately.
Looking up, Joe saw the anger on his Boy’s face, and heard it in Wade’s big voice: “That’s going to cost him, Ted!”
Joe knew that they were unhappy and that it was his fault — I did it, I did it, I did it! — but the bird was right there in the bush and Joe badly needed it.
He calmed himself down, and the off-leash field work went nearly perfectly. Their expressions inspired him. Wade’s big gnarled hands worked the black Slab.
They did the detection test in a modest 1950s stucco house relocated to the Excalibur for just this purpose. It was smaller than the warehouse and Joe had never been inside.
“Unfamiliar territory,” said Wade. “To make it as hard on them as we can.”
Joe had no idea what that meant, and hoped that Teddy did.
“He’ll do good, Mr. Johnson. He knows when things are important.”
Joe followed them up the steps to the front porch, his nose keen to this new world.
Over the months, Joe had learned his basic discard odors welclass="underline" human and dog food, dogs and other animals, tennis balls and plush toys, chews and tugs, small amounts of currency. And many other things that Joe enjoyed smelling but brought him no reward at all. Only sharp words and mean faces. Joe thought Bacon should get him a reward, but he’d learned that it wouldn’t.
Joe’s detection command was one holy word: find.
Which would be issued by Teddy, as he let Joe whiff a sample of a target item that Wade had hidden somewhere in the house.
They stood in the entryway of the house, Joe’s nose in the air, drawing in the river of scent. He whimpered softly.
Teddy smelled the strong Lysol and the bleach used to disguise the scents.
Wade gave Teddy a salted-in-shell peanut.
“Go to, Teddy,” he said looking at his watch.
Joe watched Teddy’s face, shivering. This was the most important thing in the world. He was so excited he believed he could jump up and bite the ceiling if he wanted to. Then Teddy held out the thing, his voice an urgent whisper.
“Find the peanuts, Joe! Find peanuts!”
A scent drew him forward into the living room, but he stopped and put his nose to the hardwood floor, then abruptly retreated back to the hat rack in the entryway.
Where he sat, looking up at the hats and umbrellas and raincoats. Went up on his hind legs, braced his paws on the entryway wall, nosed the pocket of a windbreaker that was streaming scent into his quivering muzzle.
Peanuts!
In his peripheral vision Joe saw Wade doing something on the black slab.
But he focused on Teddy, reaching into the jacket pocket and pulling out a clear bag of peanuts!
Teddy smiled as he held up the small plastic bag and Joe’s receptors nostrils bristled with an irritating scent.
Teddy brought the bag to his nose. “They used ammonia on the bag, Joe. But you found the peanuts anyway. You found them!”
His Boy gave Joe two small kibbles from his pocket. “How did Joe do? Did he get a fast time?”
“Yes, sir, Ted. It took Joe eight seconds to find his target, inside an ammonia-wiped plastic mini-bag.”
“You’re the best dog in the world,” said Teddy. He only said that sometimes, and Joe loved the sound of it. Joe knew the word Dog, of course, and he’s pretty sure that “best” is a very good word.
Joe watched Wade give his Boy another item and Teddy let him smell the small blue rectangle. It smelled like Teddy after getting wet in the rain box.
“Find the soap, Joe. Find soap!”
So Joe stepped forward into the living room again, feinting left and right, then came another sudden stop. His nose dropped to the floor like something weighted.
Again, he backtracked into the entryway. Sniffed the old rug, then dug a corner up and over itself, revealing the still-wrapped piece of chewing gum underneath.
Teddy brought it to his nose. Smelled the cinnamon, but Joe smelled the little shard of soap.
“Took eleven seconds to find a slice of soap hidden in a cinnamon gum wrapper,” said Wade.
Joe’s tail wagged hugely as his Boy gave him a treat from his pocket. “You’re the best dog,” said Teddy again and Joe knew exactly what he meant. There was something on his Boy’s face that made Joe feel love, though he had no word for his strong, good feeling.
Joe was really getting this game: Wade gave Teddy something for him to find, and he found it with his nose and Wade did something with his black slab and everyone was very happy.
Suddenly Joe was off again, after another peanut smell, but Teddy sternly called him back to the entryway. Joe bolted back and sat, scanning both faces with bright worry. Teddy’s voice had gotten lower lately and when Teddy was stern he was very stern. It surprised Joe. He thought he was playing.
“In a timed test, you have to start from the same place,” said Teddy, but Joe understood not one word.
Teddy looked at Wade for the next item.
Joe took in the grassy smell, not the yard grass where they played but like it.
“Find, Joe!” Teddy whispered intensely. “Find the spice!”
Joe quartered the living room in three short bursts, which brought him to the old fabric couch along the far wall. Like a lure enticing a fish, the scent drew him to the seam between the back cushions and the seat. He sprang up and buried his thick Labrador muzzle in it. It took him four quick, tingling snorts to confirm his find. He pulled his snout out, looked at his Boy.
Teddy ordered Joe off the couch and down. Joe watched him pull away a cushion like at Home.
Joe’s nostrils were bristling as he watched Teddy lift a small box that emitted this important smell that he had never smelled before. He watched his Boy open and look into it.
“Twelve seconds for half an ounce of dried oregano,” said Wade. “Packed in a freezer bag, stashed in a cigar box slathered in hot sauce.”
Teddy praised him and fed him more treats. Joe was happy. Teddy was happy. Team happy.
It was all so easy and fun. Joe got treat after treat, good face after good face. Praise from Teddy.
Joe found the cotton ball wiped with antiperspirant in a wastebasket in the bathroom; the breath mint inside a jar of peanut butter; the pinch of laundry soap sprinkled in the opened pack of smokes; an apple in the lidded toilet; a fragment of lemon peel wrapped in scented tissue wrapped tight in a sandwich bag.
“The drug traffickers will try anything to hide the scent of their product,” said Wade, working his tablet. “But the scent almost always ends up on the container, no matter how they try to wipe them down or stink them up.”
Joe listened intently to Wade, but didn’t recognize one word in all those sounds.
The bigger stuff was farther back in the bedrooms and bathrooms: a shoe high on a closet shelf, part of a jacket, a nautilus seashell still smelling faintly of the ocean.
The grand finale was a handful of wild bird feed in a small plastic food container with a toilet puck and six naphthalene moth balls inside.
“Eighteen seconds,” said Wade.
Joe followed Teddy and Wade into the small dining room and sat next to Teddy’s chair. No more Play. He heard Wade tapping the Slab.
“Pretty much what I thought,” said Wade in his rocky old voice. “Joe just did a slightly modified Class I detection course almost twice as fast as it’s ever been done. No false positives, not one miss. I’ve been doing these tests for thirty years and Joe’s the best I’ve ever seen.”