I look at Scout.At the perfect heel, the calm down, the loose body language that screams trust from every fiber.
"That dog was a kennel case."
"That dog was a wreck.She bit three people before I got her.She couldn't be in a room with another dog without going over threshold."Lydia's hand rests on Scout's head."Took me four months to get her to take food from my hand.Eight months before she could walk through a parking lot without shutting down.She's been my working partner for fourteen months now, and there isn't a scenario I wouldn't deploy her in."
The Malinois opens her eyes and looks up at Lydia with an expression I recognize.The expression Duke gives me when we're working and everything is right.Complete focus.Complete trust.
I built that bond with Duke through three years of pressure and correction and repetition.
She built it with Scout through patience and whatever the hell her methodology involves.
The result looks the same from the outside.But the dog under it is different.I can see that.I don't want to see it, but I do.
"Fifteen minutes," I say."You can look around.I'll answer questions.But my dogs, my methods, my call."
"Fair."She doesn't smile, but something shifts in her eyes.Something warm."Fifteen minutes."
She walks past me toward the training field.The scent of her follows.Vanilla and pine needles and something underneath that is just her, warm and clean and completely disarming.My lungs pull it in before I can stop them.
Scout trots at her side.I fall into step behind them.
I'm watching the dog.I'm studying the handler-canine dynamic, the way Scout checks in with a glance every few strides and Lydia acknowledges it with a subtle shift of her hand position.
That's what I tell myself I'm doing.
But my eyes keep drifting to the woman.
To the way she moves through my property like she belongs in the wild.To the strip of skin between her tank top and her waistband when she bends to examine the scent detection boxes.To the way her ponytail swings across her shoulders when she turns her head.
Fifteen minutes, I told her.
It's been seven, and I already know I'm in trouble.
CHAPTERTWO
LYDIA
The man walks behind me like he's cataloging every breath I take.
I feel him back there.Six feet one of rigid control and broad shoulders and sea-green eyes that tracked me across his property.He gave me fifteen minutes like he was handing me a grenade and waiting for the explosion.
That was twelve minutes ago.He hasn't told me to leave.
I stop at the edge of his scent detection training area.It's well built.Clean stations, proper wind barriers, varying difficulty levels arranged in a logical progression.The man knows what he's doing.That was obvious from the moment I pulled up and saw his facility.Every structure serves a purpose.Every piece of equipment has a function.Nothing decorative, nothing wasted.
Just like the man himself.
"Your scent stations are solid," I say without turning around."But you've got them arranged in escalating intensity with no decompression stations between levels."
"Decompression stations."He says it like I've suggested installing a spa.
"A recovery point.Low-stimulus area where the dog can reset between high-intensity exercises.Sniff a neutral odor, take water, engage in a low-demand behavior before the next challenge."I turn to face him.He's standing with his arms crossed, feet planted, jaw set in a way that tells me he's been grinding his teeth since I got out of my car."You're running your dogs from peak to peak without giving their nervous systems time to come back down.It works in training because you're managing the environment.It fails in deployment because reality doesn't come with controlled intervals."
"My dogs have deployed successfully on fourteen operations in the last eight months."
"And how many of those dogs showed behavioral fallout within forty-eight hours of returning?"
The silence gives me my answer.
