Luis Carlos Montalván - Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him

THE FIRST LOOK

The first thing everyone notices is the dog. Whenever I walk through my neighborhood in upper Manhattan, every eye is drawn to Tuesday. A few people hesitate, unsure of such a large dogTuesday is eighty pounds, huge by New York City standardsbut soon even the cautious ones smile. There is something about the way Tuesday carries himself that puts everyone at ease. Before they know it, construction workers on their coffee break are yelling to him and cute young women are asking if they can pet him. Even the little kids are astonished. Look at that dog, Mommy, I hear them say as we pass. What a cool dog.

And its true. Tuesday is, without exception, the coolest golden retriever I have ever known. Hes big and well built, but he has a goldens innate love of life: playful, bouncy, exuberant. Even when hes walking, he looks like hes having fun. Not silly, doggy fun, though. There isnt anything loose or sloppy about Tuesday, at least when hes out on the street. Sure, he cant resist a sniff or two where the other dogs have left their mark, but when he doesnt have his nose pressed against a fire hydrant hes as regal as a Westminster show dog, walking lightly at my side with his head up and his eyes straight ahead. He keeps his tail up too; this marks his confidence and shows off his luxurious coat, which is more auburn than the usual golden and seems to shine, even in the shade.

That gorgeous coat is no accident. Tuesday has been bred for generations to impress. He has been trained for temperament and deportment since he was three days old. Not years, days. He has been groomed every day of his life for at least fifteen minutes, and twice every day since I adopted him at the age of two. Each time we return to my apartment, I clean his paws with baby wipes. I clean his ears and trim his nails at least once a week. I clip the hair from his footpads and around his ears as soon as I notice them getting long. I even brush his teeth with chicken-flavored toothpaste every night. One night, I accidentally grabbed Tuesdays toothpaste, popped a brushful in my mouth, and almost threw up. It was appalling, like eating mealy apples mixed with sand. But Tuesday loves it. He loves sitting on my lap while I groom him. He loves having Q-tips dipped down three inches inside his ears. Whenever he sees his toothbrush, his lips peel back and he shows me his teeth in anticipation of chicken-flavored sand.

But its not just his beautiful coat, or his extraordinarily fresh breath (for a dog), or even his regal bearing that attracts the stares. Its his personality. As you can see from the photo on the cover of this book, Tuesday has an expressive face. He has sensitive, almost sad eyesI think of them as smart-dog eyes, since they always seem to be watching youbut they are offset by a big goofy smile. Tuesday is one of those fortunate animals whose mouth forms a natural upward curve, so that even when hes just loping along he looks happy. When he really smiles, his lips push all the way up into his eyes. Then his tongue drops out. His head goes up. His muscles relax and, pretty soon, his whole body is wagging, right down to his tail.

Then there are his eyebrows, a couple of big furry knots on the top of his head. Whenever Tuesday is thinking, his eyebrows move in random order, one up, one down. Every time I say his name, his eyebrows start dancing, up-down, down-up. They also start galloping when he smells something unusual, hears something in the distance, or notices someone and wants to figure out their intentions. He never passes anyone without flashing them a sly look with those deep eyes, his eyebrows bobbing, a big natural smile on his face and his tail wagging back and forth as if to say, Im sorry, I see you, Id love to play, but Im working right now . He makes a connection, thats the best way to say it; he has a friendly disposition. Its common for people to pull out their cell phones and take pictures of him. I am not kidding: Tuesday is that kind of dog.

And then, in passing, they notice me, the big man standing beside the star. Im HispanicCuban on my fathers side, Puerto Rican on my mothersbut Im whats known as a white Latino, someone light enough to be mistaken for Caucasian. Im also six-foot-two, with broad shoulders and a muscular build from decades of workouts, now regrettably in my past. Im going a little soft, I must admit, but Im still intimidating, for lack of a better word. Thats why they called me Terminator, back in my old job with the U.S. Army. Thats how I became a captain in that Army, leading a platoon of men in combat and training Iraqi soldiers, police, and border police at the regimental level. There is nothing about me, in other wordseven the straight, stiff way I carry myselfthat seems disabled. Instead, the first impression I give most people, Ive been told, is cop.

Until they notice the cane in my left hand, that is, and the way I lean on it every few steps. Then they realize my stiff walk and straight posture arent just pride, but a physical necessity. They dont see the other scars: the fractured vertebrae and torn-up knee that gave me this limp, or the traumatic brain injury that left me with crippling migraines and severe balance problems. Even more hidden are the psychological wounds: the flashbacks and nightmares, the social anxiety and agoraphobia, the panic attacks at the sight of something as innocuous as a discarded soda can, a common IED during my two tours in Iraq. They dont see the year I spent in an alcoholic haze, trying to cope with the collapse of my family, my marriage, and my career; the months I spent trying and failing to step outside my apartment; the betrayal of all the idealsduty, honor, respect, brotherhoodI had believed in before the war.

And because they cant see that, they never quite understand my relationship with Tuesday. No matter how much they admire him, they can never know what he means to me. Because Tuesday isnt an ordinary dog. He walks directly beside me, for instance, or exactly two steps in front, depending on his mood. He guides me down stairs. He is trained to respond to more than 150 commands and to realize when my breathing changes or my pulse quickens, so that he can nudge me with his head until Ive come out of the memories and back into the present. He is my barrier against crowds, my distraction from anxiety, and my assistant in everyday tasks. Even his beauty is a form of protection, because it attracts attention and puts people at ease. Thats why he was bred for good looks: not for ego, but so that people will notice him and, hopefully, the red vest with the white medical cross he wears across his back. Because beautiful, happy-go-lucky, favorite-of-the-neighborhood Tuesday isnt my pet; hes my trained-to-help-the-disabled service dog.

Before Tuesday, I caught glimpses of snipers on rooftops. Before Tuesday, I spent more than an hour in my apartment working up the courage to walk half a block to the liquor store. I took twenty medicines a day for everything from physical pain to severe agoraphobia, and even benign social encounters caused crippling migraines. Some days, I could barely bend down because of the damaged vertebrae in my back. Other days, I limped half a mile in a gray-out, awakening on a street corner with no idea where I was or how I had gotten there. My equilibrium was so bad because of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that I often fell, including one time down a flight of concrete subway stairs.