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“Hello, puppies,” she said. “What a good job you did today.”
Her gentle words earned her sleepy doggy smiles and more tail thumping.
“They’re pretty tuckered out,” Bill told her. “Or they’d be all over you. If you come back in the morning, you’ll see.”
“How do we check their paws?” she asked.
“I just get down on the straw and run my hands over each paw to make sure they aren’t sensitive and that they don’t have a splinter or any kind of cracking or bleeding,” he told her. “If you want, start on that side and we’ll meet in the middle. If one of them whimpers or you find anything, let me know.”
“Okay,” she told him, heading over to the door side of the barn.
She knelt beside the dog nearest the door and gave him a little pat before reaching for his left front paw.
He panted, ears down, and let her search him for trouble.
“If you want, I’ll give you a rundown of the most important elements of caring for the dogs while we work,” Bill said.
“Sure,” she told him, moving on to the next dog.
“Well, of course they need plenty of good food and fresh water,” Bill said. “And more of it than you’d give to a pet. I’ll zap my recipe for the best chow to your bracelet when we wrap up, if you’d like. That way you can include the ingredients when you’re making import orders.”
“Sure,” she said.
“And unlike a pet dog, they normally want to be tethered for resting, if they’re on a journey, with plenty of lead to stretch out, socialize with each other, and get away from the others if they want,” he went on. “On a night as cold as this one they’re keeping in the barn, but down further south, they’ll want to sleep outside.”
“Wow,” she said.
“But the most important thing you’ll do is keep records,” he told her. “You only have six dogs on your team, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to lose track of how much each one is eating and what vet attention they’ve needed.”
She nodded thoughtfully as she examined another paw. To her, six living beings was a huge number to keep track of.
“Those records can show you patterns that are important,” Bill went on. “When an animal works as hard as these creatures do, and they can’t tell you if something is off, you have to use every clue at your disposal to pay attention, and help them.”
“How do you record everything?” she asked him.
“I’ll share that info with you when we go as well,” he told her. “That way you can always see a running snapshot of how they’re doing. It’s a modified health tracker you might use for yourself. I adjusted the template and added some fields though.”
“You love these dogs,” she said.
“It’s a job,” he told her. “Being detail-oriented can help me protect your investment in your team.”
One of the pups hopped up and gave him a big slobbery kiss, then began snuffling in his pockets.
“Ha, Baba,” he laughed, fishing something out for her.
She took it delicately in her big jaw and lay down to nibble.
“Alibaba?” Kinsley guessed.
“She got hungry all the time when she had a litter,” Bill said, nodding. “I used to give her extra feed, but I also suspected she was feeling nervous, so I started offering her a slice of dried red-root just to chew on. Never was able to break her of it.”
“So, you carry it for her?” Kinsley asked.
He nodded, looking down to the next paw.
She smiled at the idea of the big cowboy slicing and drying a root vegetable and walking around with bits in his pocket for one of the dogs.
It obviously wasn’t just a job to him.
