Update on Painting the Dogs

Well, I lost the dog paintings commission. This is how it happened:

The other day, I went back to the customer's house to take pictures of the dogs as reference images. She took me into the kennels and was introducing me again to the dogs in the front whom I'd met before. Just as we were ready to start shooting, my customer was called into the house. Something about a shipment of sperm. So she said, "Just start here and keep working your way around, Marc. I should be back before you get through this side."

Naturally, she was expecting me to start shooting pictures of the Labradoodle and move dog by dog from cage to cage.

But I was inclined to treat the kennels as I would an art show. The first thing I always do when I go to an exhibition is take a quick walk around the entire space. I like to take in everything and get a feel for the show as a whole. I like to see what immediately catches my eye. After my short jaunt through the galleries, I return to the front and examine each piece closely.

So I took a quick trip around all the kennels and sure enough something did catch my eye. One dog, in the back, was paying close attention to me. It was quiet and noble. It seemed to be following my thoughts as much as my movements. I walked up to the cage and the fluffy creature seemed, more than any of the other dogs, to want attention from me.

"They really have evolved to desire companionship," I thought to myself as I opened the door and went in. I knelt down and was petting the dog and marveling at her golden yellow eyes when suddenly it clicked. I stopped petting the dog and studied it.

"It's part wolf!" I whispered. "It's a Woodle. You're a Woodle, my friend!"

With that, the dog took off through the open door and was gone.

I looked around for a safe place to put the camera, almost choosing the dog's soft pillow, then thought better of it and sticking my head and arm through the strap, attached it to my body like a machete and ran after the dog.

But my friend the Woodle had not made it far. She'd stopped in front of a large kennel that was just a little removed from the other kennels. She was staring into it through the bars. I walked up to the kennel slowly and looked in. But there was nothing inside. I was just noticing something about the floor when I realized that the dog was sitting perfectly still and I had the chance to reach out and take hold of it's collar and lead it back to its cage. I knelt down beside it and was about to reach out when I heard my customer calling.

"Marc, don't move," she said calmly but with a chilling seriousness that succeeded in stopping me. "She won't respond well to being held."

"Sorry," I said. "She surprised me when she ran out."

"Yes, her father was quite an escape artist, too," said the lady tragically. That's the only way I can describe the way she said it. Tragically. As though it just came out of her mouth, like an involventary sigh, without her realizing she was going to say it. As though it was waiting to get loose, just like the Woodle. I got the sense that I shouldn't admit to suspecting the breed.

We took pictures of all the dogs except Ulva, the Woodle. My customer told me that Ulva was going to have a new home soon. I didn't question this, though it made no sense. "Aren't all these dogs going to another home at some point?" I wanted to ask. I got the impression that Ulva really wasn't going anywhere.

By now I was depressed. I was feeling the horrible, nagging feeling once again that I was getting wrapped up in something I didn't need to be doing. Another distraction. I was already feeling a premonition that I wouldn't earn any income from this experience. I felt doomed and I felt sick for pretending to be a capable dog portraitist.

I got a new wave of enthusiasm later in the evening, however, and spent the night drawing dogs from the pictures. In the morning I got a call from my customer. Her husband had arrived back in town from a business trip last night and told her that his sister, whom he'd visited while in D.C, had just taken up painting as a hobby and he felt that they should give the job to her instead of me. Something about it didn't sound quite right, but my customer apologized and said she'd keep me in mind and recommend me to her friends, etc. She didn't offer me any compensation for the work I'd done so far, though.

Looking back on it now, I know what was odd about that kennel that Ulva was staring into. The floor was newer cement.

I wonder what happened to the wolf. Or wolves. I wonder what they did. I wonder what's hidden under that floor.