I threw one of the sticks out into the water and he raced after it, yelping madly as he went. He returned a new, wiser opponent. This time he was cautious and refused to come anywhere near me. He stood about ten yards away, stick in mouth, eying the new object of his desire, which just happened to be the old object of his desire, his first stick, now perched high above my head. I could see the cogs moving again. He was thinking, This time I'll just wait right here until he throws it, and then he'll have no sticks and I'll have both sticks. This time I'll just wait right here until he throws it, and then he'll have no sticks and I'll have both sticks. "You think I'm really dumb, don't you, dog," I said. I heaved back and with a great, exaggerated groan hurled the stick with all my might. Sure enough, Marley roared into the water with his stick still locked in his teeth. The only thing was, I hadn't let go of mine. Do you think Marley figured that out? He swam halfway to Palm Beach before catching on that the stick was still in my hand. "You think I'm really dumb, don't you, dog," I said. I heaved back and with a great, exaggerated groan hurled the stick with all my might. Sure enough, Marley roared into the water with his stick still locked in his teeth. The only thing was, I hadn't let go of mine. Do you think Marley figured that out? He swam halfway to Palm Beach before catching on that the stick was still in my hand.

"You're cruel!" Jenny yelled down from her bench, and I looked back to see she was laughing.

When Marley finally got back onsh.o.r.e, he plopped down in the sand, exhausted but not about to give up his stick. I showed him mine, reminding him how far superior it was to his, and ordered, "Drop it!" I c.o.c.ked my arm back as if to throw, and the dummy bolted back to his feet and began heading for the water again. "Drop it!" I repeated when he returned. It took several tries, but finally he did just that. And the instant his stick hit the sand, I launched mine into the air for him. We did it over and over, and each time he seemed to understand the concept a little more clearly. Slowly the lesson was sinking into that thick skull of his. If he returned his stick to me, I would throw a new one for him. "It's like an office gift exchange," I told him. "You've got to give to get." He leaped up and smashed his sandy mouth against mine, which I took to be an acknowledgment of a lesson learned.

As Jenny and I walked home, the tuckered Marley for once did not strain against his leash. I beamed with pride at what we had accomplished. For weeks Jenny and I had been working to teach him some basic social skills and manners, but progress had been painfully slow. It was like we were living with a wild stallion-and trying to teach it to sip tea from fine porcelain. Some days I felt like Anne Sullivan to Marley's Helen Keller. I thought back to Saint Shaun and how quickly I, a mere ten-year-old boy, had been able to teach him all he needed to know to be a great dog. I wondered what I was doing wrong this time.

But our little fetching exercise offered a glimmer of hope. "You know," I said to Jenny, "I really think he's starting to get it."

She looked down at him, plodding along beside us. He was soaking wet and coated in sand, spittle foaming on his lips, his hard-won stick still clenched in his jaws. "I wouldn't be so sure of that," she said.

The next morning I again awoke before dawn to the sounds of Jenny softly sobbing beside me. "Hey," I said, and wrapped my arms around her. She nestled her face against my chest, and I could feel her tears soaking through my T-shirt.

"I'm fine," she said. "Really. I'm just-you know."

I did know. I was trying to be the brave soldier, but I felt it, too, the dull sense of loss and failure. It was odd. Less than forty-eight hours earlier we had been bubbling with antic.i.p.ation over our new baby. And now it was as if there had never been a pregnancy at all. As if the whole episode was just a dream from which we were having trouble waking.

Later that day I took Marley with me in the car to pick up a few groceries and some things Jenny needed at the pharmacy. On the way back, I stopped at a florist shop and bought a giant bouquet of spring flowers arranged in a vase, hoping they would cheer her up. I strapped them into the seat belt in the backseat beside Marley so they wouldn't spill. As we pa.s.sed the pet shop, I made the split-second decision that Marley deserved a pick-me-up, too. After all, he had done a better job than I at comforting the inconsolable woman in our lives. "Be a good boy!" I said. "I'll be right back." I ran into the store just long enough to buy an oversized rawhide chew for him.

When we got home a few minutes later, Jenny came out to meet us, and Marley tumbled out of the car to greet her. "We have a little surprise for you," I said. But when I reached in the backseat for the flowers, the surprise was on me. The bouquet was a mix of white daisies, yellow mums, a.s.sorted lilies, and bright red carnations. Now, however, the carnations were nowhere to be found. I looked more closely and found the decapitated stems that minutes earlier had held blossoms. Nothing else in the bouquet was disturbed. I glared at Marley and he was dancing around like he was auditioning for Soul Train Soul Train. "Get over here!" I yelled, and when I finally caught him and pried open his jaws, I found the incontrovertible evidence of his guilt. Deep in his cavernous mouth, tucked up in one jowl like a wad of chewing tobacco, was a single red carnation. The others presumably were already down the hatch. I was ready to murder him.

I looked up at Jenny and tears were streaming down her cheeks. But this time, they were tears of laughter. She could not have been more amused had I flown in a mariachi band for a private serenade. There was nothing left for me to do but laugh, too.

"That dog," I muttered.

"I've never been crazy about carnations anyway," she said.

Marley was so thrilled to see everyone happy and laughing again that he jumped up on his hind legs and did a break dance for us.

The next morning, I awoke to bright sun dappling through the branches of the Brazilian pepper tree and across the bed. I glanced at the clock; it was nearly eight. I looked over at my wife sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling with long, slow breaths. I kissed her hair, draped an arm across her waist, and closed my eyes again.

CHAPTER 8.

A Battle of Wills.

When Marley was not quite six months old, we signed him up for obedience cla.s.ses. G.o.d knew he needed it. Despite his stick-fetching breakthrough on the beach that day, he was proving himself a challenging student, dense, wild, constantly distracted, a victim of his boundless nervous energy. We were beginning to figure out that he wasn't like other dogs. As my father put it shortly after Marley attempted marital relations with his knee, "That dog's got a screw loose." We needed professional help.

Our veterinarian told us about a local dog-training club that offered basic obedience cla.s.ses on Tuesday nights in the parking lot behind the armory. The teachers were unpaid volunteers from the club, serious amateurs who presumably had already taken their own dogs to the heights of advanced behavior modification. The course ran eight lessons and cost fifty dollars, which we thought was a bargain, especially considering that Marley could destroy fifty dollars' worth of shoes in thirty seconds. And the club all but guaranteed we'd be marching home after graduation with the next great La.s.sie. At registration we met the woman who would be teaching our cla.s.s. She was a stern, no-nonsense dog trainer who subscribed to the theory that there are no incorrigible dogs, just weak-willed and hapless owners.

The first lesson seemed to prove her point. Before we were fully out of the car, Marley spotted the other dogs gathering with their owners across the tarmac. A party! He leaped over us and out of the car and was off in a tear, his leash dragging behind him. He darted from one dog to the next, sniffing private parts, dribbling pee, and flinging huge wads of spit through the air. For Marley it was a festival of smells-so many genitals, so little time-and he was seizing the moment, being careful to stay just ahead of me as I raced after him. Each time I was nearly upon him, he would scoot a few feet farther away. I finally got within striking distance and took a giant leap, landing hard with both feet on his leash. This brought him to a jolting halt so abrupt that for a moment I thought I might have broken his neck. He jerked backward, landed on his back, flipped around, and gazed up at me with the serene expression of a heroin addict who had just gotten his fix.

Meanwhile, the instructor was staring at us with a look that could not have been more withering had I decided to throw off my clothes and dance naked right there on the blacktop. "Take your place, please," she said curtly, and when she saw both Jenny and me tugging Marley into position, she added: "You are going to have to decide which of you is going to be trainer." I started to explain that we both wanted to partic.i.p.ate so each of us could work with him at home, but she cut me off. "A dog," she said definitively, "can only answer to one master." I began to protest, but she silenced me with that glare of hers-I suppose the same glare she used to intimidate her dogs into submission-and I slinked off to the sidelines with my tail between my legs, leaving Master Jenny in command.

This was probably a mistake. Marley was already considerably stronger than Jenny and knew it. Miss Dominatrix was only a few sentences into her introduction on the importance of establishing dominance over our pets when Marley decided the standard poodle on the opposite side of the cla.s.s deserved a closer look. He lunged off with Jenny in tow.

All the other dogs were sitting placidly beside their masters at tidy ten-foot intervals, awaiting further instructions. Jenny was fighting valiantly to plant her feet and bring Marley to a halt, but he lumbered on unimpeded, tugging her across the parking lot in pursuit of hot-poodle b.u.t.t-sniffing action. My wife looked amazingly like a water-skier being towed behind a powerboat. Everyone stared. Some snickered. I covered my eyes.

Marley wasn't one for formal introductions. He crashed into the poodle and immediately crammed his nose between her legs. I imagined it was the canine male's way of asking, "So, do you come here often?"

After Marley had given the poodle a full gynecological examination, Jenny was able to drag him back into place. Miss Dominatrix announced calmly, "That, cla.s.s, is an example of a dog that has been allowed to think he is the alpha male of his pack. Right now, he's in charge." As if to drive home the point, Marley attacked his tail, spinning wildly, his jaws snapping at thin air, and in the process he wrapped the leash around Jenny's ankles until she was fully immobilized. I winced for her, and gave thanks that it wasn't me out there.

The instructor began running the cla.s.s through the sit and down commands. Jenny would firmly order, "Sit!" And Marley would jump up on her and put his paws on her shoulders. She would press his b.u.t.t to the ground, and he would roll over for a belly rub. She would try to tug him into place, and he would grab the leash in his teeth, shaking his head from side to side as if he were wrestling a python. It was too painful to watch. At one point I opened my eyes to see Jenny lying on the pavement facedown and Marley standing over her, panting happily. Later she told me she was trying to show him the down command.

As cla.s.s ended and Jenny and Marley rejoined me, Miss Dominatrix intercepted us. "You really need to get control over that animal," she said with a sneer. Well, thank you for that valuable advice. And to think we had signed up simply to provide comic relief for the rest of the cla.s.s. Well, thank you for that valuable advice. And to think we had signed up simply to provide comic relief for the rest of the cla.s.s. Neither of us breathed a word. We just retreated to the car in humiliation and drove home in silence, the only sound Marley's loud panting as he tried to come down from the high of his first structured cla.s.sroom experience. Finally I said, "One thing you can say for him, he sure loves school." Neither of us breathed a word. We just retreated to the car in humiliation and drove home in silence, the only sound Marley's loud panting as he tried to come down from the high of his first structured cla.s.sroom experience. Finally I said, "One thing you can say for him, he sure loves school."

The next week Marley and I were back, this time without Jenny. When I suggested to her that I was probably the closest thing to an alpha dog we were going to find in our home, she gladly relinquished her brief t.i.tle as master and commander and vowed to never show her face in public again. Before leaving the house, I flipped Marley over on his back, towered over him, and growled in my most intimidating voice, "I'm the boss! You're not the boss! I'm the boss! Got it, Alpha Dog?" He thumped his tail on the floor and tried to gnaw on my wrists.

The night's lesson was walking on heel, one I was especially keen on mastering. I was tired of fighting Marley every step of every walk. He already had yanked Jenny off her feet once when he took off after a cat, leaving her with b.l.o.o.d.y knees. It was time he learned to trot placidly along by our sides. I wrestled him to our spot on the tarmac, yanking him back from every dog we pa.s.sed along the way. Miss Dominatrix handed each of us a short length of chain with a steel ring welded to each end. These, she told us, were choker collars and would be our secret weapons for teaching our dogs to heel effortlessly at our sides. The choker chain was brilliantly simple in design. When the dog behaved and walked beside its master as it was supposed to, with slack in its lead, the chain hung limply around its neck. But if the dog lunged forward or veered off course, the chain tightened like a noose, choking the errant hound into gasping submission. It didn't take long, our instructor promised, before dogs learned to submit or die of asphyxia. Wickedly delicious, Wickedly delicious, I thought. I thought.

I started to slip the choker chain over Marley's head, but he saw it coming and grabbed it in his teeth. I pried his jaw open to pull it out and tried again. He grabbed it again. All the other dogs had their chains on; everyone was waiting. I grabbed his muzzle with one hand and with the other tried to la.s.so the chain over his snout. He was pulling backward, trying to get his mouth open so he could attack the mysterious coiled silver snake again. I finally forced the chain over his head, and he dropped to the ground, thrashing and snapping, his paws in the air, his head jerking from side to side, until he managed to get the chain in his teeth again. I looked up at the teacher. "He likes it," I said.

As instructed, I got Marley to his feet and got the chain out of his mouth. Then, as instructed, I pushed his b.u.t.t down into a sit position and stood beside him, my left leg brushing his right shoulder. On the count of three, I was to say, "Marley, heel!" and step off with my left-never my right-foot. If he began to wander off course, a series of minor corrections-sharp little tugs on the leash-would bring him back into line. "Cla.s.s, on the count of three," Miss Dominatrix called out. Marley was quivering with excitement. The shiny foreign object around his neck had him in a complete lather. "One...two...three."

"Marley, heel!" I commanded. As soon as I took my first step, he took off like a fighter jet from an aircraft carrier. I yanked back hard on the leash and he made an awful coughing gasp as the chain tightened around his airway. He sprang back for an instant, but as soon as the chain loosened, the momentary choking was behind him, ancient history in that tiny compartment of his brain dedicated to life lessons learned. He lunged forward again. I yanked back and he gasped once more. We continued like this the entire length of the parking lot, Marley yanking ahead, me yanking back, each time with increasing vigor. He was coughing and panting; I was grunting and sweating.

"Rein that dog in!" Miss Dominatrix yelled. I tried to with all my might, but the lesson wasn't sinking in, and I considered that Marley just might strangle himself before he figured it out. Meanwhile, the other dogs were prancing along at their owners' sides, responding to minor corrections just as Miss Dominatrix said they would. "For G.o.d's sake, Marley," I whispered. "Our family pride is on the line."

The instructor had the cla.s.s queue up and try it again. Once again, Marley lurched his way manically across the blacktop, eyes bulging, strangling himself as he went. At the other end, Miss Dominatrix held Marley and me up to the cla.s.s as an example of how not to heel a dog. "Here," she said impatiently, holding out her hand. "Let me show you." I handed the leash to her, and she efficiently tugged Marley around into position, pulling up on the choker as she ordered him to sit. Sure enough, he sank back on his haunches, eagerly looking up at her. d.a.m.n d.a.m.n.

With a smart yank of the lead, Miss Dominatrix set off with him. But almost instantly he barreled ahead as if he were pulling the lead sled in the Iditarod. The instructor corrected hard, pulling him off balance; he stumbled, wheezed, then lunged forward again. It looked like he was going to pull her arm out of its socket. I should have been embarra.s.sed, but I felt an odd sort of satisfaction that often comes with vindication. She wasn't having any more success than I was. My cla.s.smates snickered, and I beamed with perverse pride. See, my dog is awful for everyone, not just me! See, my dog is awful for everyone, not just me!

Now that I wasn't the one being made the fool, I had to admit, the scene was pretty hilarious. The two of them, having reached the end of the parking lot, turned and came lurching back toward us in fits and starts, Miss Dominatrix scowling with what clearly was apoplectic rage, Marley joyous beyond words. She yanked furiously at the leash, and Marley, frothing at the mouth, yanked back harder still, clearly enjoying this excellent new tug-of-war game his teacher had called on him to demonstrate. When he caught sight of me, he hit the gas. With a near-supernatural burst of adrenaline, he made a dash for me, forcing Miss Dominatrix to break into a sprint to keep from being pulled off her feet. Marley didn't stop until he slammed into me with his usual joie de vivre. Miss Dominatrix shot me a look that told me I had crossed some invisible line and there would be no crossing back. Marley had made a mockery of everything she preached about dogs and discipline; he had publicly humiliated her. She handed the leash back to me and, turning to the cla.s.s as if this unfortunate little episode had never occurred, said, "Okay, cla.s.s, on the count of three..."

When the lesson was over, she asked if I could stay after for a minute. I waited with Marley as she patiently fielded questions from other students in the cla.s.s. When the last one had left, she turned to me and, in a newly conciliatory voice, said, "I think your dog is still a little young for structured obedience training."

"He's a handful, isn't he?" I said, feeling a new camaraderie with her now that we'd shared the same humiliating experience.

"He's simply not ready for this," she said. "He has some growing up to do."

It was beginning to dawn on me what she was getting at. "Are you trying to tell me-"

"He's a distraction to the other dogs."

"-that you're-"

"He's just too excitable."

"-kicking us out of cla.s.s?"

"You can always bring him back in another six or eight months."

"So you're kicking us out?"

"I'll happily give you a full refund."

"You're kicking us out."

"Yes," she finally said. "I'm kicking you out."

Marley, as if on cue, lifted his leg and let loose a raging stream of urine, missing his beloved instructor's foot by mere centimeters.

Sometimes a man needs to get angry to get serious. Miss Dominatrix had made me angry. I owned a beautiful, purebred Labrador retriever, a proud member of the breed famous for its ability to guide the blind, rescue disaster victims, a.s.sist hunters, and pluck fish from roiling ocean swells, all with calm intelligence. How dare she write him off after just two lessons? So he was a bit on the spirited side; he was filled with nothing but good intentions. I was going to prove to that insufferable stuffed shirt that Grogan's Majestic Marley of Churchill was no quitter. We'd see her at Westminster.

First thing the next morning, I had Marley out in the backyard with me. "n.o.body kicks the Grogan boys out of obedience school," I told him. "Untrainable? We'll see who's untrainable. Right?" He bounced up and down. "Can we do it, Marley?" He wiggled. "I can't hear you! Can we do it?" He yelped. "That's better. Now let's get to work."

We started with the sit command, which I had been practicing with him since he was a small puppy and which he already was quite good at. I towered over him, gave him my best alpha-dog scowl, and in a firm but calm voice ordered him to sit. He sat. I praised. We repeated the exercise several times. Next we moved to the down command, another one I had been practicing with him. He stared intently into my eyes, neck straining forward, antic.i.p.ating my directive. I slowly raised my hand in the air and held it there as he waited for the word. With a sharp downward motion, I snapped my fingers, pointed at the ground and said, "Down!" Marley collapsed in a heap, hitting the ground with a thud. He could not possibly have gone down with more gusto had a mortar sh.e.l.l just exploded behind him. Jenny, sitting on the porch with her coffee, noticed it, too, and yelled out, "Incoming!"

After several rounds of hit-the-deck, I decided to move up to the next challenge: come on command. This was a tough one for Marley. The coming part was not the problem; it was waiting in place until we summoned him that he could not get. Our attention-deficit dog was so anxious to be plastered against us he could not sit still while we walked away from him.

I put him in the sit position facing me and fixed my eyes on his. As we stared at each other, I raised my palm, holding it out in front of me like a crossing guard. "Stay," I said, and took a step backward. He froze, staring anxiously, waiting for the slightest sign that he could join me. On my fourth step backward, he could take it no longer and broke free, racing up and tumbling against me. I admonished him and tried it again. And again and again. Each time he allowed me to get a little farther away before charging. Eventually, I stood fifty feet across the yard, my palm out toward him. I waited. He sat, locked in position, his entire body quaking with antic.i.p.ation. I could see the nervous energy building in him; he was like a volcano ready to blow. But he held fast. I counted to ten. He did not budge. His eyes froze on me; his muscles bulged. Okay, enough torture, Okay, enough torture, I thought. I dropped my hand and yelled, "Marley, come!" I thought. I dropped my hand and yelled, "Marley, come!"

As he catapulted forward, I squatted and clapped my hands to encourage him. I thought he might go racing w.i.l.l.y-nilly across the yard, but he made a beeline for me. Perfect! Perfect! I thought. "C'mon, boy!" I coached. "C'mon!" And come he did. He was barreling right at me. "Slow it down, boy," I said. He just kept coming. "Slow down!" He had this vacant, crazed look on his face, and in the instant before impact I realized the pilot had left the wheelhouse. It was a one-dog stampede. I had time for one final command. "STOP!" I screamed. I thought. "C'mon, boy!" I coached. "C'mon!" And come he did. He was barreling right at me. "Slow it down, boy," I said. He just kept coming. "Slow down!" He had this vacant, crazed look on his face, and in the instant before impact I realized the pilot had left the wheelhouse. It was a one-dog stampede. I had time for one final command. "STOP!" I screamed. Blam! Blam! He plowed into me without breaking stride and I pitched backward, slamming hard to the ground. When I opened my eyes a few seconds later, he was straddling me with all four paws, lying on my chest and desperately licking my face. He plowed into me without breaking stride and I pitched backward, slamming hard to the ground. When I opened my eyes a few seconds later, he was straddling me with all four paws, lying on my chest and desperately licking my face. How did I do, boss? How did I do, boss? Technically speaking, he had followed orders exactly. After all, I had failed to mention anything about stopping once he got to me. Technically speaking, he had followed orders exactly. After all, I had failed to mention anything about stopping once he got to me.

"Mission accomplished," I said with a groan.

Jenny peered out the kitchen window at us and shouted, "I'm off to work. When you two are done making out, don't forget to close the windows. It's supposed to rain this afternoon." I gave Linebacker Dog a snack, then showered and headed off to work myself.

When I arrived home that night, Jenny was waiting for me at the front door, and I could tell she was upset. "Go look in the garage," she said.

I opened the door into the garage and the first thing I spotted was Marley, lying on his carpet, looking dejected. In that instant snapshot image, I could see that his snout and front paws were not right. They were dark brown, not their usual light yellow, caked in dried blood. Then my focus zoomed out and I sucked in my breath. The garage-our indestructible bunker-was a shambles. Throw rugs were shredded, paint was clawed off the concrete walls, and the ironing board was tipped over, its fabric cover hanging in ribbons. Worst of all, the doorway in which I stood looked like it had been attacked with a chipper-shredder. Bits of wood were sprayed in a ten-foot semicircle around the door, which was gouged halfway through to the other side. The bottom three feet of the doorjamb were missing entirely and nowhere to be found. Blood streaked the walls from where Marley had shredded his paws and muzzle. "d.a.m.n," I said, more in awe than anger. My mind flashed to poor Mrs. Nedermier and the chainsaw murder across the street. I felt like I was standing in the middle of a crime scene.

Jenny's voice came from behind me. "When I came home for lunch, everything was fine," she said. "But I could tell it was getting ready to rain." After she was back at work, an intense storm moved through, bringing with it sheets of rain, dazzling flashes of lightning, and thunder so powerful you could almost feel it thump against your chest.

When she arrived home a couple of hours later, Marley, standing amid the carnage of his desperate escape attempt, was in a complete, panic-stricken lather. He was so pathetic she couldn't bring herself to yell at him. Besides, the incident was over; he would have no idea what he was being punished for. Yet she was so heartsick about the wanton attack on our new house, the house we had worked so hard on, that she could not bear to deal with it or him. "Wait till your father gets home!" she had threatened, and closed the door on him.

Over dinner, we tried to put what we were now calling "the wilding" in perspective. All we could figure was that, alone and terrified as the storm descended on the neighborhood, Marley decided his best chance at survival was to begin digging his way into the house. He was probably listening to some ancient denning instinct handed down from his ancestor, the wolf. And he pursued his goal with a zealous efficiency I wouldn't have thought possible without the aid of heavy machinery.

When the dishes were done, Jenny and I went out into the garage where Marley, back to his old self, grabbed a chew toy and bounced around us, looking for a little tug-of-war action. I held him still while Jenny sponged the blood off his fur. Then he watched us, tail wagging, as we cleaned up his handiwork. We threw out the rugs and ironing-board cover, swept up the shredded remains of our door, mopped his blood off the walls, and made a list of materials we would need from the hardware store to repair the damage-the first of countless such repairs I would end up making over the course of his life. Marley seemed positively ebullient to have us out there, lending a hand with his remodeling efforts. "You don't have to look so happy about it," I scowled, and brought him inside for the night.

CHAPTER 9.

The Stuff Males Are Made Of.

Every dog needs a good veterinarian, a trained professional who can keep it healthy and strong and immunized against disease. Every new dog owner needs one, too, mostly for the advice and rea.s.surance and free counsel veterinarians find themselves spending inordinate amounts of their time dispensing. We had a few false starts finding a keeper. One was so elusive we only ever saw his high-school-aged helper; another was so old I was convinced he could no longer tell a Chihuahua from a cat. A third clearly was catering to Palm Beach heiresses and their palm-sized accessory dogs. Then we stumbled upon the doctor of our dreams. His name was Jay Butan-Dr. Jay to all who knew him-and he was young, smart, hip, and extraordinarily kind. Dr. Jay understood dogs like the best mechanics understand cars, intuitively. He clearly adored animals yet maintained a healthy sensibility about their role in the human world. In those early months, we kept him on speed dial and consulted him about the most inane concerns. When Marley began to develop rough scaly patches on his elbows, I feared he was developing some rare and, for all we knew, contagious skin ailment. Relax, Dr. Jay told me, those were just calluses from lying on the floor. One day Marley yawned wide and I spotted an odd purple discoloration on the back of his tongue. Oh my G.o.d, Oh my G.o.d, I thought. I thought. He has cancer He has cancer. Kaposi's sarcoma of the mouth. Relax, Dr. Jay advised, it was just a birthmark.

Now, on this afternoon, Jenny and I stood in an exam room with him, discussing Marley's deepening neurosis over thunderstorms. We had hoped the chipper-shredder incident in the garage was an isolated aberration, but it turned out to be just the beginning of what would become a lifelong pattern of phobic, irrational behavior. Despite Labs' reputation as excellent gun dogs, we had ended up with one who was mortally terrified of anything louder than a popping champagne cork. Firecrackers, backfiring engines, and gunshots all terrified him. Thunder was a house of horrors all its own. Even the hint of a storm would throw Marley into a meltdown. If we were home, he would press against us, shaking and drooling uncontrollably, his eyes darting nervously, ears folded back, tail tucked between his legs. When he was alone, he turned destructive, gouging away at whatever stood between him and perceived safety. One day Jenny arrived home as clouds gathered to find a wild-eyed Marley standing on top of the washing machine, dancing a desperate jig, his nails clicking on the enamel top. How he got up there and why he felt the urge in the first place, we never determined. People could be certifiably nuts, and as best as we could figure, so could dogs.

Dr. Jay pressed a vial of small yellow pills into my hand and said, "Don't hesitate to use these." They were sedatives that would, as he put it, "take the edge off Marley's anxiety." The hope, he said, was that, aided by the calming effects of the drug, Marley would be able to more rationally cope with storms and eventually realize they were nothing but a lot of harmless noise. Thunder anxiety was not unusual in dogs, he told us, especially in Florida, where huge boomers rolled across the peninsula nearly every afternoon during the torpid summer months. Marley nosed the vial in my hands, apparently eager to get started on a life of drug dependency.

Dr. Jay scruffed Marley's neck and began working his lips as though he had something important to say but wasn't quite sure how to say it. "And," he said, pausing, "you probably want to start thinking seriously about having him neutered."

"Neutered?" I repeated. "You mean, as in..." I looked down at the enormous set of t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es-comically huge orbs-swinging between Marley's hind legs.

Dr. Jay gazed down at them, too, and nodded. I must have winced, maybe even grabbed myself, because he quickly added: "It's painless, really, and he'll be a lot more comfortable." Dr. Jay knew all about the challenges Marley presented. He was our sounding board on all things Marley and knew about the disastrous obedience training, the numbskull antics, the destructiveness, the hyperactivity. And lately Marley, who was seven months old, had begun humping anything that moved, including our dinner guests. "It'll just remove all that nervous s.e.xual energy and make him a happier, calmer dog," he said. He promised it wouldn't dampen Marley's sunny exuberance.

"G.o.d, I don't know," I said. "It just seems so...so final."

Jenny, on the other hand, was having no such compunctions. "Let's snip those suckers off!" she said.

"But what about siring a litter?" I asked. "What about carrying on his bloodline?" All those lucrative stud fees flashed before my eyes.

Again Dr. Jay seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "I think you need to be realistic about that," he said. "Marley's a great family pet, but I'm not sure he's got the credentials he would need to be in demand for stud." He was being as diplomatic as possible, but the expression on his face gave him away. It almost screamed out, Good G.o.d, man! For the sake of future generations, we must contain this genetic mistake at all costs! Good G.o.d, man! For the sake of future generations, we must contain this genetic mistake at all costs!

I told him we would think about it, and with our new supply of mood-altering drugs in hand, we headed home.

It was at this same time, as we debated slicing away Marley's manhood, that Jenny was placing unprecedented demands on mine. Dr. Sherman had cleared her to try to get pregnant again. She accepted the challenge with the single-mindedness of an Olympic athlete. The days of simply putting away the birth control pills and letting whatever might happen happen were behind us. In the insemination wars, Jenny was going on the offensive. For that, she needed me, a key ally who controlled the flow of ammunition. Like most males, I had spent every waking moment from the age of fifteen trying to convince the opposite s.e.x that I was a worthy mating partner. Finally, I had found someone who agreed. I should have been thrilled. For the first time in my life, a woman wanted me more than I wanted her. This was guy heaven. No more begging, no more groveling. Like the best stud dogs, I was at last in demand. I should have been ecstatic. But suddenly it all just seemed like work, and stressful work at that. It was not a rollicking good romp that Jenny craved from me; it was a baby. And that meant I had a job to perform. This was serious business. That most joyous of acts overnight became a clinical drill involving basal-temperature checks, menstrual calendars, and ovulation charts. I felt like I was in service to the queen.

It was all about as arousing as a tax audit. Jenny was used to me being game to go at the slightest hint of an invitation, and she a.s.sumed the old rules still applied. I would be, let's say, fixing the garbage disposal and she would walk in with her calendar in hand and say, "I had my last period on the seventeenth, which means"-and she would pause to count ahead from that date-"that we need to do it-NOW!"

The Grogan men have never handled pressure well, and I was no exception. It was only a matter of time before I suffered the ultimate male humiliation: performance failure. And once that happened, the game was over. My confidence was shot, my nerve gone. If it happened once, I knew it could happen again. Failure evolved into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more I worried about performing my husbandly duty, the less I was able to relax and do what had always come naturally. I quashed all signs of physical affection lest I put ideas in Jenny's head. I began to live in mortal fear that my wife would, G.o.d forbid, ask me to rip her clothes off and have my way with her. I began thinking that perhaps a life of celibacy in a remote monastery wouldn't be such a bad future after all.

Jenny was not about to give up so easily. She was the hunter; I was the prey. One morning when I was working in my newspaper's West Palm Beach bureau, just ten minutes from home, Jenny called from work. Did I want to meet her at home for lunch? You mean alone? Without a chaperone? You mean alone? Without a chaperone?

"Or we could meet at a restaurant somewhere," I countered. A very crowded restaurant. Preferably with several of our coworkers along. And both mothers-in-law.

"Oh, c'mon," she said. "It'll be fun." Then her voice lowered to a whisper and she added, "Today's a good day. I...think...I'm...ovulating." A wave of dread washed over me. Oh G.o.d, no. Not the O word. Oh G.o.d, no. Not the O word. The pressure was on. It was time to perform or perish. To, quite literally, rise or fall. The pressure was on. It was time to perform or perish. To, quite literally, rise or fall. Please don't make me, Please don't make me, I wanted to plead into the phone. Instead I said as coolly as I could, "Sure. Does twelve-thirty work?" I wanted to plead into the phone. Instead I said as coolly as I could, "Sure. Does twelve-thirty work?"

When I opened the front door, Marley, as always, was there to greet me, but Jenny was nowhere to be found. I called out to her. "In the bathroom," she answered. "Out in a sec." I sorted through the mail, killing time, a general sense of doom hovering over me, the way I imagined it hovered over people waiting for their biopsy results. "Hey there, sailor," a voice behind me said, and when I turned around, Jenny was standing there in a little silky two-piece thing. Her flat stomach peeked out from below the top, which hung precariously from her shoulders by two impossibly thin straps. Her legs had never looked longer. "How do I look?" she said, holding her hands out at her sides. She looked incredible, that's how she looked. When it comes to sleepwear, Jenny is squarely in the baggy T-shirt camp, and I could tell she felt silly in this seductive getup. But it was having the intended effect.