"Doranna Durgin - A Feral Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Durgin Doranna)

"For two hours in the morning, and she hates it. She's bad at it, and she doesn't know what she's doing."

"What do you have to know to bathe a dog?"
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"The question," Brenna said, managing to keep her voice light only because she'd had so much practice,
"is what do you have to know to bathe a dogcorrectly ? Or even, say, to get a dog in the tub?"

She shouldn't have said that last; she knew it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. His face
closed down at the reminder of the time Katy had needed his help andneither of them could get the
seventy pounds of quivering German Shepherd into the waist-high tubтАФnot by trying to convince her to
walk up the ramp meant for large dogs, nor by tugging or shoving or lifting. Until Brenna walked in from
lunch, expecting to find the animal bathed and drying, and with no more thought thanI don't have time
for this , slung the dog up into the tub.

Only in retrospect had she seen the look on Roger's face, now imbedded in her mind's eye.
Embarrassment. Resentment. It had at least, she'd hoped, taught him that he couldn't simply throw just
any of the interchangeable floor associates back to work grooming for a day.

She hadhoped .

"It's just a bath," Roger said. "No clipping. Medium-sized dog, I checked."

Brenna felt something clutch hard in her stomach. She waved toward the tub room. "There's a whole
room full of dogs waiting for me, and every one of them is a problem today. I swear, there's something in
the air today. I can't do it, Roger. I can't even do what I've already got."

"We don't turn away walk-ins, you know that."

Steadily, her voice as flat as it could be when she had to raise it over the dryers and the barking, she
said, "Then get me help."

Agreeably, as if he'd never consider asking the unreasonable of her, he said, "I'll grab someone off the
floor when the dog comes in," and left the room with the air of a man who has just solved a major
problem with much aplomb.

Brenna closed her eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by the impossible.

Then she picked up her clippers and went to work.
***

Twenty minutes later she presented Flowers to Ginger Delgaria, a pleasant woman who had come to
Brenna since Flowers' first puppy cut. Flowers, by this time tucked into the nook of Brenna's elbow with
a sulky expression pasted on her face, merely stared at Mrs. Delgaria without bestirring herself to move;
Brenna had to hand her over. The woman gave a rueful shake of her head. "I see her mood hasn't
improved."