Even though the man has taken him on several go-for-a-rides, they haven’t taken him to Justine. Mack loves go-for-a-ride. At least he did until go-for-a-ride ended up in the cab of that truck. But this man doesn’t go far, or for long, and has only left him waiting for a little while, measured in whether Mack chooses to lie down and snooze or remain upright in the front seat, tail curled around his forepaws, eyes on the place where the man has gone. When the man comes back, he proffers a whole strip of bacon. Mack, being a well-trained dog, accepts this treat with gentleness, a tail wag, and a quick head bob. Bacon is Justine’s training tool of choice. Little crumbles just big enough to hide in a hand, doled out at the correct completion of his movements: circle, reverse circle, side step. The man isn’t making any of those hand signals that mean bacon; he’s just handing it over, in a strip. Mack would be more than willing to do a few movements if asked, but this is okay, too. So go-for-a-ride is good. But it isn’t getting him where he wants to be.

When Alice puts on her yoga pants and sneakers, Mack believes that it means they will dance. He accompanies her to the back door, prancing on his little white front feet, his pointy muzzle split into a grin. Maybe, just maybe, Justine will be where this woman takes him to dance. He will find Justine there.

When Justine first taught Mack to dance, he thought it was just more of the same sort of training that they had been doing for a long time. He enjoyed showing off to the others that he could sit-stay longer and more attentively than any of them. He loved the leaps over rails and the scurry through the fabric tunnel. He understood on some organic level that doing all these things, touching the right spots on the platform, leaping accurately and quickly over bars, weaving through the poles as fast as an otter, was the point of the exercise. When he did his best, there was always loud applause, and sometimes he got to stand by himself in the ring while the Important Person presented Justine with objects that Justine smiled to receive and always let him nose. No other dogs, just him.

Then Justine began to ask him to weave not through poles, but between her legs. Leap, not over a pole, but over a short cane. Rise up on his legs and wriggle his tail. Walk backward, forward, and place his paws against her back. Some hand signals were so subtle that he had to keep his eye on her at all times, sometimes having to decide what it was she wanted, because the movement was only a degree different from another one. A bow instead of a cocked head. Walk or army crawl.