Free The Goodbye Summer by Patricia Gaffney

without pets.”
    Caddie nodded, although she hadn’t known that.
    “It’s good to be able to back up what we do with data, but once you’ve observed a well-run pet visit at a hospital or a nursing home or a psych unit, you don’t need any more proof. It’s right there in front of your eyes.” He leaned forward on his elbows, ignoring his dinner. Candlelight sparkled on his glasses and made his eyes dance. “I’ve seen folks come back almost from the dead because a dog put his head in their lap. Disoriented people, people sick with pain or hopelessness, crazy people, violent, disconnected—you can see their eyes clear. An animal is such a pure thing, Caddie, it’s got no motivation except to be with these people, and they know it. It breaks through. Touch. That’s all they want. Bring a dog into a roomful of old folks, everybody’s in their own little world, it’s fifteen or twenty separate brains on autopilot. Bring that dog in—something happens. People start talking, first to the animal, then to each other. They even sing to it. The dog or the cat, whatever it is, unlocks memories, associations. Everybody has a story—all of a sudden there’s community.”
    “It’s wonderful.”
    “Trust. The animal has no agenda, it just wants to lick your face, hear your voice. Barriers these people have erected against the outside world come crashing down without a fight, and it’s just warmth and two-way gentleness. The innocent animal-human bond. It’s powerful, it’s beyond words. Deeper than words.”
    “Wow,” Caddie breathed. “What wonderful work. You must find it so satisfying.”
    “There are frustrations, too, of course. Nothing happens as fast as you’d like it to. People resist out of ignorance, so you have to start from page one all the time, educating and reeducating—it’s frustrating.”
    “I can imagine.”
    He sat back suddenly and took off his eyeglasses. “Is this boring?”
    “No.”
    “I’m sorry, I get on a roll and forget this isn’t the most important thing in everyone else’s life, too.”
    “It’s not boring at all! You’re so lucky to have work that means the world to you. How did you get into it? How did you start out?”
    He’d grown up in Iowa on a farm, so there had always been lots of animals around the house, cats and dogs, birds, guinea pigs, rabbits, a duck, and, once, a llama. But especially dogs—dogs were his passion. He was the baby, with three older sisters who spoiled him. One was a lawyer now, but the other two were veterinarians, and that’s what he’d wanted to be, too. In college he did a little too much partying, though, and when it was time to go to grad school in vet med, his grades weren’t good enough.
    “I ended up with a degree in business I didn’t know what to do with. I backpacked in Europe for a year, came home, worked a couple of dead-end jobs. I started going out with a woman whose brother trained dogs to be companion animals for handicapped people, and he took me on as an assistant.”
    That ended when the relationship with the sister ended, but by then he’d acquired one-year-old King, who’d flunked out of the brother’s assistance dog school for being too “scattered.”
    “By then I’d heard about CAT, which had a chapter in Columbus, where I happened to be living. I signed up to be a volunteer, took the training with King, and became a visitation team leader. For no pay—I paid the rent by working in the accounting office of a big insurance firm, which I hated. I was praying for the day I could quit. Which I did when CAT hired me to be chapter coordinator for the eastern region—thirteen states and the District of Columbia. So that’s my life story.”
    “But what do you do ?”
    “I open chapters, get them up and running and independent enoughso they can be administered from headquarters instead of on-site. Then move on to the next place.”
    “How long have you been here?”
    “A couple of weeks.”
    “How long