Yes I did! AND I rubbed his belly. I’m not a demon.
This all should have done the trick for my old pal Baxter. My professional opinion is that there is only one thing that can be done at this point. You probably won’t like it.
Don’t keep me in suspense. What will save my dog, doctor?
The only thing that will save your dog is if you and he meet me and Hazel at a dog park near you, and SOON. I think this is too serious to discuss in a text, but let’s just say there are only so many remedies for a canine’s broken heart, and you need to do something before it gets worse.
Carly smiled. She couldn’t have Baxter’s broken heart on her conscience. She texted Max to find out when and where. And then she smiled for the first time in what felt like days.
Nine
Carly’s text could not have come at a better time.
Max and his good friend and faculty adviser, Dr. Drake Silverman, were sitting outside the College of Natural Sciences, watching a television broadcast crew pack up. A student passing by told them they’d been on campus to interview Dr. Alanna Friedman about her important work in the neurobiology of addiction and her isolation of certain receptors in the brain as it related to addiction. Max knew about her work. It was promising, something that could lead to new modalities of treatment and even pharmacological interventions.
They’d stumbled on the interview quite by accident—Max had asked Drake to do a beta read of his research paper and findings, as well as his proposal for further study into the translational aspects of the behavioral and endocrine phenotypes of dogs and the presentation of autistic behaviors in humans.
“So basically you’re saying that our understanding of autism in the human brain can be learned from studying similar behaviors in the canine brain,” Drake said.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Max said.
Drake grinned. “I think you like having dogs in the classroom.”
“Who doesn’t?” Max asked. “Except for O’Malley. He didn’t seem too thrilled.”
Drake waved a hand. “He doesn’t like anything. I think this is good to go, Max. I made notes for a couple of suggested tweaks, but you’re ready to present.”
The paper Drake had reviewed was the last bit of research Max would submit as part of his dossier, which included all the research and published articles he wanted to be considered in his quest for tenure, as well as proposed articles and his future research goals. The departmental tenure committee would review his work and his plan. If that committee deemed his body of work and the latest research to be sufficient to move him forward, his dossier would be sent to the college dean. If Dean Goldbart reviewed his research and deemed it worthy, he would be moved on to the campus tenure committee. If that committee found him worthy, they would recommend him to the provost. If the provost decided to grant him tenure, Max would move from assistant professor to associate professor with tenure, with a chance to compete for endowments and license to continue his study of neurodevelopmental issues and, specifically, autism. Oh, and there would be a nice pay raise.
It was a long, complicated process and there were a lot of scientists to please along the way. It was little wonder the tenure track took years. In addition, the department had a policy of submitting no more than one candidate each year. That meant all tenure-track professors had to compete for one annual slot. Max had believed that this was his year. He’d been before the committee twice before and had never moved forward. But his body of work was more robust now, and his publication schedule was great. He thought that, for once, he was a lock. Which was why, when he and Drake noticed the TV crew, his belly dropped.
Alanna was doing some excellent work. Most people chuckled at Max with his dogs, like he’d chosen his field of study to hang out with them. “This does not bode well,” Max said to Drake as they watched a guy in a photographer’s jacket close the van door and hop into the passenger seat.
“Don’t sweat it,” Drake said. But Max noticed he avoided eye contact. Well, Max was sweating it, and he had a tendency to slide into a hole when he was worried about something. So when his phone pinged in his pocket, he was glad for the distraction.