Styles in the Driver’s Seat

Sometimes a pitbull just needs to take charge.

Last winter, Styles felt that way when we drove out to Long Island for the day to go to a doctor’s office. I guess he didn’t appreciate my staying in the right lane on the Throgs Neck Bridge and getting passed like we were standing still by commuters rushing to work.

So while I was upstairs at the doc’s, he acted. I came down and saw him in the driver’s seat, paused and then decided it seemed only natural to climb in back. When I did he turned and gave me his look, like, “Where to, Poppi?”

That’s his black watch plaid coat he’s wearing. It’s his favorite; he gets excited when I pull it out, and he sticks his head into the neck opening and waits for me to wrap the Velcro strap around his chest in anticipation of a trip or a walk.

He’s less excited about his ThunderShirt. It’s an open question as to whether it will solve his jitters with thunder, but the last time he seemed antsy, I put it on him and he went right to sleep, thud, on the hardwood floor.

But forget about driving: Styles is at his take-charge best when we go for walks, particularly when we’re at the Milford house in PA. He pins his ears back and puts those muscular pitbull shoulders into it like he’s Buck in The Call of the Wild pulling a sled across the Alaskan tundra.

And in the process he’s a babe magnet. If I were younger (lots younger), I’d be picking up twenty-something girls like magic. They flock to him. “Oh, he’s so handsome, can we pet him?”

Who could say no? Not Sty. He lets them get in a few strokes to his head, then goes for the crotch with his nose, the old doggie greeting. “Oooh,” they say and giggle.

Good boy, I’m thinking. What a guy.

That’s what pitbulls do; take charge and get babes.

And Styles isn’t your ordinary pitbull. He’s quite a character, such that I made him a character in my thriller, Spin Move, and dedicated the book to him.