seems to know when she’s starting to go to a dark place and will put her head in Mom’s lap.”
Lucas had said my name, so I wagged again.
“I’m glad to hear she’s doing better.”
“She is going to meetings on a much more frequent basis.” Lucas looked to Ty.
“I sort of can’t confirm that, Lucas,” Ty said apologetically.
“Oh right. Sorry.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” the man said, clearing his throat. “I cannot give you anything regarding her being a seizure dog. But as I understand the FHA, all that’s required for her to be considered an emotional support animal is a letter from a doctor currently treating Terri. So I’ll do that right now.”
“Will that … will the building allow us to stay if we have that letter?” Lucas asked hopefully.
“I’m not an attorney, but what I read online seems to clearly imply they have to.”
“Thank you so much, Dr. Sterling. You have no idea how much this means to me and my mother.”
The man was using a pencil to scratch a piece of paper. “This doesn’t give you a get-out-of-jail-free card for the VA.” He looked sharply at Ty. “Having her here is still against the rules. A seizure dog, that might be a different story, but emotional support animals are barred.”
“Understood, doctor,” Ty said.
“I’m not going to rat you out, I’m just warning you what might happen if you’re discovered.”
“Oh, I think we can keep Bella a secret,” Ty observed dryly. “We’ve got good people on it.”
The man handed over a piece of paper and Lucas put it in his pocket. He seemed really, really happy, but he did not celebrate with any treats.
* * *
After that, things changed at home. No longer did Lucas step outside for a moment before running with me to the sidewalk. Now we left together, and Lucas did not mind if I sniffed and dawdled around our front door.
At first, I was confused. A good dog, I had decided, learned from doing things over and over. That’s how I knew No Barks meant to remain silent no matter what the provocation, and Tiny Piece of Cheese meant Lucas loved me and had a very special treat in his fingers. When he told me I was a good dog it was as good as any treat, even chicken, except of course it was always better if there was a treat as well.
But humans can change without warning, and I just accepted this as part of being with my person. So if our pattern of leaving the house was different, I couldn’t begin to guess why.
When Mom took me, we did not walk as far, but sometimes we met people. “She’s my therapy dog,” Mom would say to them. Whatever that meant, I heard the word “dog” and I could feel the approval and affection of the people who would pet me, and knew they understood I was a good dog.
When the air warmed and the leaves waved in the breeze, Olivia took us for car rides to places high up in the hills where the smells were all different. “Let’s go for a hike,” Lucas would say. I always got excited when he went to his closet and brought out a sack with straps looped onto his shoulders—there were always treats in there for me.
“Fox!” Olivia blurted on one such hike. I smelled an animal I had never before encountered, and saw it up ahead on the trail. It ran a little like a cat, low to the ground.
“See the fox, Bella? The fox!” Lucas said excitedly.
A fox was different from another animal—a coyote. We sometimes saw a few of those and I growled deep in my throat at each one. The fox looked fun to chase, but something about the coyotes made them look like small, bad dogs—dogs I instinctively hated.
“Bella wants to chase it,” Olivia remarked on one such occasion. Far up ahead of us, a lone coyote was staring at me as it stood insolently on the path. I growled.
“Right, well, even though they’re small, they’re vicious,” Lucas replied. “And there might be more than one—this one’s out in the open, trying to lure Bella into pursuit, while one or two more are hiding in the bushes.”
“I wasn’t saying you should let her do it, I was just saying she wants to.”
“You’re always telling me I should lighten up. I thought letting my dog chase wildlife might be part of the program.”
“You’re misunderstanding me. What I’m saying is that you should be