Page 48 of Happiness for Beginners

“Wrong!” Windy said. “It didn’t work because he told you to be the wrong kind of alpha.”

I couldn’t imagine what that meant.

“All popular thinking about dogs is based on wolf packs,” Windy said then. “But dogs are not wolves. A wolf is a wild animal. A dog is a domesticated animal. Wolves want to be with other wolves, but dogs want to be with people.”

“Not my dog,” I said.

Windy went on. “Humans have always hated wolves. Every culture has myths about the Big Bad Wolf, and in every place where humans and wolves have tried to coexist, the wolves have been exterminated.”

“Is that true?”

“So how did one of the most hated animal foes of the human race give rise to Man’s Best Friend?”

I wasn’t sure if it was a rhetorical question. I was about to attempt an answer, when Windy went on: “Dogs evolved from wolves. Wolves hung around the outskirts of human settlements—for the food scraps, mostly. But the ones who were too aggressive got killed. Only the ones who got along with people—who were friendly enough and nonaggressive—survived to reproduce.”

“So you’re saying it was ‘survival of the friendliest’?”

“Exactly! Research backs it up. The leaders of wolf packs may be the most aggressive and dominant, but the leaders of dog packs are invariably the dogs with the most friends.” I couldn’t help but think of Jake in that moment. Friendly Jake, who had emerged as the clear alpha of our little group, despite all of Beckett’s protests.

“Dogs have friends?” I said. My dog certainly didn’t have any friends.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Windy said. “Whatever horrible things happened to Pickle, she’s given up on everybody.”

I felt tears in my eyes. I knew, of course, that Pickle had been in a bad situation before me, but I’d never tried to imaginehowbad. What had those former owners done to her?

I said, “So she thinks of all humans as out to get her?”

“Probably.”

“I’m not out to get her.”

“I think she knows that. Did you say she sleeps with you?”

“It’s the only time she’s not mad,” I said.

“So she must trust you to some degree.”

“I rescued her,” I said. “Do you think she knows that?”

“She definitely knows.”

I felt the need to defend her. “I kind of like her toughness. Nobody messes with her.”

“But she’s afraid for no reason. Nobody was going to mess with her in the first place. Nowadays, anyway.”

“True.”

“She’s lost the ability to trust.”

“So how do I fix her?”

“You’re going to have to teach her not to be afraid. You’re going to have to convince her that she’s safe.”

“But how?”

“Well,” she said, like she was still thinking, “you’re going to have to retrain her neurobiology. Which will take a serious effort for a long time. And it may not work. How old is she?”

“They think she’s about three, but they don’t know for sure.” She looked a thousand.

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