Free Skidboot 'The Smartest Dog In The World' by Cathy Luchetti

easier to understand the scene that happened the next day.
    He'd just driven home, turned off the key, when she flung herself out of the mobile home, yelling. Barbara was the last person he expected to yell, at least not without a hog attack or a house fire. He jammed out of the car, startled.
    "I got him to lay down and crawl!"
    This project had driven David wild. He couldn't seem to make Skidboot understand crawling . Since none of their tricks involved actual body language, only verbal language, he'd failed to convince the dog, even by falling to the floor and mock crawling, that crawling was something he should do. Skidboot might as well have been offered a Tango session, given the disinterest and his frantic eye-darting to avoid looking at David, hopelessly riddled down on the floor. Get up sir! he might have thought. Skidboot could not believe the ends to which this family would go. He resisted crawling. It seemed demeaning, puppy-like and servile, none of which Skidboot was.
    "Look! I'll show you." To the astonishment of man and dog, Barbara flung herself into the air, and like a quarterback landing a tackle, sailed straight on top of Skidboot. Then she reached out and paddled with feet and hands stretched out, sneezing at the dusty shag carpet, Skidboot pressed underneath like a skateboard. A minute into this and Skidboot, interested in his life, lashed out in swimming-like motions, bearing up bravely under his excited load. Like some dystopian were-animal, the duo inched along, Barbara's pony tail bouncing, Skidboot's speckled tail beating out a frantic backlash underneath.
    As this... thing pulled itself across the floor, David flew into an uncharacteristic laughing fit. He teetered into a chair, shaking with great, sucking howls, sparking Russell into even greater hilarity as he choked back his tears and giggles, as they both discovered that yes, their dog really could crawl.
    Wiping his eyes, David wondered if he was supposed to use this dog-as-skateboard routine out in the arena? Throw himself over the dog, swim with him?
    "No, look!" Barbara jumped up, crossed the room.
    "Skidboot, crawl!"
    David's skin crawled as he watched Skidboot slowly lower himself to the rug, paws outspread, nuzzle thrust into the shag, eyes fixed on Barbara, and then, in a show of haunch and knobby joints, like crawling in the mud on D-Day, Skidboot pulled himself across the floor, crawling.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
    Who's Top Dog?
    A delicious stillness settled over the evening, broken melodically by cicadas or the liquid query of a whippoorwill. The fading daylight erased the harsh edges of the day, rubbing them into soft lavender and grey, as everything grew silent and humbled by the fine light of the first star. Those same stars had looked down on the Mexican troops that raided San Antonio, who bested the Texas rangers, who forced them to bargain for their lives with "beans for death," the selection of white beans meaning life, and black beans leading seventeen to die, and the stars overhead had blinked to hide themselves from the sight.
    So much bygone history. So many lives and deaths, all for the republic of Texas. And the tide of the present kept moving, pulling the past behind it, nothing ever staying still for more than its time. And now here he was too, flowing along toward some end. Some destiny. But what kind, David couldn't tell. Then the unexpected.
    "Go on, use Skidboot, I give you permission!"
    Barbara hugged the dog, and Skidboot stared up at her, then at David, who thought he'd misunderstood. She must be joking. But no, Barbara had followed her business instincts and decided that Skidboot had entertainment potential. Sure, David's rancher friends had said so from the start, but David hadn't paid any attention. But Barbara had called the Malakoff Cornbread Festival organizers. She'd described Skidboot, his routines, and they thought it sounded fine.
    Trained hell, was all David could say. One thing to have fun with a stick,