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said. I stroked him a moment, scratched his silky ears gently. He looked at me dubiously. Then I lifted the front part of his body so that he was sitting. He growled at me.
    “I know, I know,” I said to him.
    “It isn’t fun, is it?”
    “He doesn’t much like to be moved,” Jean Bennett said.
    Arthur’s hind legs made no accommodation to the sitting posture, and he lay down again as soon as I released him. I came around by his hind legs and manipulated them gently. They were utterly limp. He turned to watch me, perhaps thinking about warning me off. But clearly nothing hurt him.
    “Good boy,” I said.
    I did a couple of other tests on him—a few needle sticks for superficial pain, with no result until I was halfway up his back. I was explaining things to Jean Bennett as I went along, that it seemed Arthur had a spinal injury that was causing paralysis. I talked about the levels of pain response in the spinal column. She winced when I pinched his toe with a hemostat, but Arthur just watched. His ears were down, he was nervous still, but he didn’t cry or try to bite.
    Jean Bennett was sitting by now, in the client chair. I asked her again when Arthur had gone down.
    “Go down?” she said.
    “When did he stop being able to walk?”
    “Well, he had pain all week, I think. But on Friday he just wouldn’t walk. Or couldn’t. But he did seem more comfortable, so I thought .
    I thought, Well, this is bad, but it’s a good sign he’s not in so much pain, and anyway…” Her voice trailed off.
    “I blew it, didn’t
    I?”
    “Well, it’s not good that he’s been like this for so long. If we’d gotten to him right away—if he’d come in on Friday—I would have sent you immediately to Angell Memorial for surgery. Back surgery.”
    “And Angell Memorial is… ?”
    “It’s a big, very complete animal hospital in Boston, where they do this kind of thing. I do more or less just routine surgeries here.
    But it’s not anything I’d recommend now. At this point, I’m afraid it really wouldn’t make any difference.”
    “So what you’re saying is the damage is done.”
    “I’m afraid so.” She looked shocked, defeated. I made my voice gentle.
    “This was a tough, tough call for you to make, because of the arthritis. That meant you were balancing pain against mobility, and it’s always harder on us when an animal’s in pain, so we’re relieved when it stops. But in this case, unfortunately, it’s the absence of pain that’s the bad sign.”
    She sat still a moment, looking at Arthur. Then her fists balled and she punched her thighs.
    “Shit! Shit! Shit!” she said fiercely.
    I had stepped over closer to her, and now I put my hand on her shoulder.
    She leaned back and looked up at me.
    “No, I’m okay,” she said. She smiled wearily. After a few seconds, she sat up and said, “So where do we go from here?”
    I stepped back and rested my hands on Arthur.
    “Well, I’m afraid that in the end you’re probably going to have a choice of whether to keep this guy alive in a pretty compromised way or not. And there’ll be a lot of care if you do, cleanups and changing bedding and whatnot.” I could see she was pained.
    “We could, if you want to, try a round of steroids,” I offered.
    “Would that help?”
    “It’s a very long shot, actually. But there’s a possibility. Remote, but possible.”
    “Well, I want to do whatever I can. So let’s. Let’s try them.” She clutched her hair back from her face, held it there.
    “Christ, I feel so gilty”
    “You shouldn’t.” I tried to make my voice reassuring.
    “When a dog is so incapacitated anyway, it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s going on.”
    She released her hair—it burst out around her face—and shook her head.
    “No. No, I think it’s more what you said earlier. That I was just relieved he wasn’t in pain.” Her lips firmed bitterly.
    “Cowardly,” she said.
    “So we’ll try the steroids,” I said gently. I