Cadence and The Marine

Cadence of Moonstone, a PTSD Dog who broke the rules to save her person.

As told to Samantha Maris

Written by Sam Maris with Cadence’s Approval

TW: Gunfire, mentions of sexual assault, suicide and killing

My ears feel the air shift a nanosecond before the sound of the violent CRACK of a high-powered round reaches me. A pressure snap that causes the nerves in my ears to stand at attention. Instinct takes over, and I launch myself at Taylor, knocking her to the tile floor and covering her body with mine.

Another CRACK, as more rounds are fired and the bullets pass the sound barrier. Behind each fired round were the sounds of more. More hisses of the gas-operated mechanism ejecting the spent shells, more clinks of the empty casings hitting the tile floor. More people screaming as I hear the mechanical slam of a new round chambering.

This is not a war zone; it’s a mall in Dallas, Texas. But for my human, it might as well be. My human’s PTSD makes every day a world filled with landmines and panic. This asshole with a gun is going to set back her progress. I try not to tremble from fear. Taylor is strong. She is a former Marine, and I will be just as tough as she is. She deserves that from me.

Taylor is always scanning, bracing, and trying to interpret the shadows for threats. Leaving the house to shop has been our goal for the last eight months. The metallic clink of another round skittering across the tile reminds me that, for Taylor, loud noises allow the memories room to expand and become unteneable.

Right now, the cilantro smell of adrenaline is paired with the tart odor of fear. Her cortisol level has blown through her normal limits, but she doesn’t fight me or try to run. She curls into a tight ball beneath me. I flatten myself over her, my size almost enough to blanket her completely. She grips a handful of my long white fur, anchoring herself to me, to something real.

It is my job to get her through every imagined war zone, but today is not imagined. Today, the bullets are real, and the rapid repeat of the rifle continues. CRACK, hiss, clink, slam, the constant noise holding us prisoners. Bullets are rapidly launched toward bodies not designed to withstand such firepower. The splat of bullets splitting apart human flesh is getting closer. The gunman has come to the lower level of the mall and is finishing off his casualties.

Taylor’s and my own hearts are pounding like the drums of the Pacific. I can hear hers distinctly; she can feel mine thumping against her back, reminding her I am here. I have her six.We are pinned to the spot as the crack, hiss, clink, and bolt return sounds continue for what seems like forever. I breathe deep and remember my training. “Always protect your human.” Pi Yi’s gentle voice speaks in my head. Thinking of Pi Yi calms me, and, in turn, calms Taylor.

Moonstone Specialty Canines, One Year Earlier:

I wag my tail so hard my butt wiggles when I see Pi Yi enter the canine suite area of M. S. C. I am always so happy to see her. Of the six dogs that came into the training facility, I clicked with Pi Yi like cheese and crackers. Sometimes, she takes me home with her at the end of the day, and I spend the night learning what it is like to live in a human’s space and be an asset.

“Cadence, you are the best Golden Retriever ever! Even though you’re more white than gold. Yes, you are so beautiful!” She laughs and ruffles my scruff, and I wiggle harder at the praise and sit to show her I am in control of myself, even though inside I want to jump and run and do helicopter turns.

Pi Yi never yells. Her voice is warm, low, tender and paced the same most of the time. I have heard her yelp a few times. She does it when she’s teaching the puppies not to use their teeth so forcefully. They always fall over and look at her funny, but they stop nipping with those needles they call teeth.

Pi Yi says I am ready to get my person. I am excited and trepidatious. I would do anything for Pi Yi, but she tells me I will need to develop the same devotion and use my skills to help someone new. Someone who needs me. She tells me this person is the reason we’ve spent so many hours learning and training together. She tells me every day that my job will be the most important thing I will ever do. She urges me to respect the sacrifice my person made for our country. We work on tasks that will help my new person with her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Pi Yi told me I will be responsible for making sure my human has good days, even when the bad ones seem too harsh to move past.

Seven, Gunner, and I are at ease on our mats at the front of the classroom when the new humans arrive. There’s a man in a wheelchair. He won’t be mine. Gunner is the one trained for wheelchair tasks.

Seven, named by the resident Star Trek fan, will be a hearing dog for a deaf woman. Seven is a mix between a Rat Terrier and a Corgi. She has a tiny body on short, stout legs. Her tenacity makes her a great hearing assistance dog. She vibrates with excitement as she meets the deaf woman she will assist.

“Cadence.” I hear my name and immediately sit at attention. Pi Yi strokes my head, and I know I am a good girl. “This is Taylor. Taylor Cooke. Are you ready to work? I jump to my feet and do a happy dance at my favorite word, “work.” Taylor laughs, my ears perk in her direction because I like that sound, and I want to hear it again.

Within three months of our meeting, I am Taylor’s. Pi Yi taught me all the tasks and behaviors that gave me the job of helping a human, but Taylor is mine. She needs me as much as Pi Yi said she would. Even more. Taylor has taught me devotion. She says I give her what no one else can. Trust, safety, and warmth are things that have been missing from her life after her deployments and other traumatic events.

She’s told me the stories. Stories that are so appalling, my fur prickles, and growls accrue in my throat. Why are humans so vicious to each other? The hell she went through in Afghanistan. First tour, nearly raped by insurgents before her fellow Marines extracted her just in time. Second tour, her Humvee was destroyed, and she was held captive in a cave with men threatening to behead her.

Her nightmares are brutal, and she often becomes trapped, unable to wake up from the night terror. Another job of mine is to use my weight, my nose, my paws, my tongue to pull her out of the dream. Those nights, her tears soak into my fur, binding us together in a way that is deeper than training.

Present Day:

Heavy footsteps refocus me from my thoughts, and I flatten myself more over Taylor as I hear them approach. A foot comes into my view.

I smell oil, gunpowder, and the tart, acrid odor of hot metal and sulfur. I also smell the fear that coats the sweat dripping down his forearm as he lowers his hand toward Taylor and me. I know from the smell what he’ll taste like, but I have to protect Taylor at all costs!

Pi Yi was strict about biting and taught me to never bite any human, but I am positive that Pi Yi never met this human cur. I hope she understands the choice I have to make. I hope Taylor will, too.

Lying on top of Taylor, I remember the last attack Taylor confessed to me while crying in my fur. It happened here, at home. I know I cannot let this man violate my friend. Not when I have the power to prevent it. Not when I know what will happen to MY Taylor’s life if anyone else hurts her. She has worked so hard to do her own shopping again, to have the freedom and agency to walk from her car to the grocery store without freezing. I will not let this monster take from her what he has no right to take.

I don’t growl, I don’t look up, I don’t move from Taylor. My backpack says Service Dog-Do Not Touch, and he thinks that means I won’t touch him. His hubris gives me my chance. As his hand reaches close enough to grab Taylor’s jacket, I lunge and grab his wrist with my teeth. I hear the bones snap. He is screaming, trying to hurt me. When the taste of copper and drugs hit my tongue, I think to myself.

Surprise motherfucker! I am the Samuel L Jackson of Service Dogs!

Taylor did not freeze in the throes of a flashback or suffer with the heart-clutching immobilization of a panic attack. Taylor, my broken human, comes to my rescue now. She scrambles and grabs his rifle before he can aim at me, and cracks him across the forehead. I let go of his wrist and begin to lick my butt. All that fear, sweat, and whatever drugs he is on taste awful.

Hours later, we sit in the back of the ambulance. Taylor’s hand rests on my withers. She kisses my temple.

“You know,” she murmurs, “they might fire you as a service dog? Not sure what Moonstone will say when they find out.” I shrug. The Pup Cup I am enjoying says otherwise.

An officer approaches, nervously rolling her lid in her hands.. “Are you Taylor Cooke?” Taylor nods. She appears calm, but my nose scents her rising cortisol level. I abandon my Pup Cup and lean into my human, one paw on her thigh.

“You probably don’t remember me, but I was first on scene when…” Taylor cuts her off gently. Taylor is sweeter than most humans. Especially considering what humans have done to her. Her scent is now a combo of cortisol and rage, which releases a burnt odor because she is holding in her anger.

“Can I help you, officer?” Taylor‘s voice belies the roiling emotions. She speaks in a polite tone. The question is open-ended; she is searching for a name. I take a slow lick of the Pup Cup and wait, my nose keeping tabs on Taylor’s condition.

“It’s Officer Humphrey. Um… Yolanda Humphrey, my friends call me Yaya.”

“And you want to be friends with me? Or Cadence?” Taylor looks at me lovingly and pets the back of my head and neck. The officer blushes, and now her cortisol is kicking up. Her arousal is wafting up to my nose. Oh, for fucks sake. I roll my eyes and finish my Pup Cup.

“NO,” Taylor said with cemented finality. Yaya looked stunned, and she stammered out her objection.

“I know what happened to you, Taylor, and I just want to help.” My human stands and faces the cop eye to eye. They are the same height.

“I do remember you, YaYA.” My human’s voice is sarcastic. I abandon my treat altogether and nudge her with my nose. She lays her hand on my head and makes eye contact. “Thank you, Cadence. I’m okay.” She’s lying. My nose and every instinct I possess say she is anything but okay. I don’t think Pi Yi will forgive biting two people in one day.

“You may have been first on scene, but you were the first one to dance away when the cops started treating me like a perpetrator. When they blamed me for kissing my wife in public!You were already in your unit when they said it was my fault that a group of good old boys raped us and killed her while they made me watch.

I needed an advocate, an officer of the law who took an oath to serve and protect, and instead I got you, who let your colleagues violate me again with their homophobia and judgment while you held the blue line!

So, no, Ms. Humphrey, we will not be friends. Not me and not the dog, who is the only reason I can get through every day. Cadence is the only advocate I have in this world, and she proved it again today by performing an act that could get her pulled from service work or even euthanized.”

Humphrey tripped backing up to get away from Taylor. It was such a spectacular fail that I had to watch with comic horror, the way humans watch NFL bloopers. That reminds me, we were shopping for a Denver Broncos doggie jersey for me to wear while we watch the game at home. She says she cleared it with Pi Yi, who is a die-hard 49ers fan. As long as my human is happy and healthy, I will be by her side on shopping trips and football games that we don’t attend in person because Taylor is “not there yet.”

I can’t undo what a world of bad humans has done to this one good human. I will stand between her and the next blow. I will stay by her side no matter the consequences because I am her service dog, and I have the same commitment to my assignment as any Marine has to their fellow Marines. I will never leave Taylor to struggle on her own; I will never leave her behind.

Epilogue:

“Taylor, it is good to see you and Cadence. We put Cadence through her tests here and tomorrow we will recertify you as her handler in the field. You two will be fine, though. Cadence’s choices were very limited under the circumstances. It wasn’t like she could grab his arm and take his weapon away. Her teeth are her only defense.”

I am sitting calmly next to Taylor, her hand on my head. She does this to ground herself.

“But tell me, Taylor, is Cadence giving you what you need to expand your horizons a bit?” Pi Yi laughed when Taylor threw herself into her arms and squeezed.

“Cadence is better than a sibling, a parent, a friend. She is like a Marine, always has my back, and on occasion, lets me know I am being an idiot. She is everything that makes my world a place worth staying around for.”

I have never been more proud.