Margaret

Margaret is the woman who chooses Toby as a puppy and trains him for a life among people who are ill. Her importance lies not only in adopting him but in recognizing a quality others doubt, teaching him the restraint his new work requires, and bringing him into a setting where his affection can reach many people rather than one particular person.

Choosing Toby

Toby first sees Margaret among six women who visit his litter. Their garments are alike, and he learns to tell them apart by smell; all are older than CJ but younger than Hannah. The women laugh as the puppies jump on them and tug at their long robes. Margaret, who holds Toby, singles him out as calm. When one woman objects that there is no such thing as a calm beagle, Margaret maintains her choice. Another doubts that a puppy will work out and favors getting a mature dog like Oscar instead.

Margaret’s case for a puppy comes from experience rather than a claim that raising one will be easy. She reminds Jane that Jane was not there when they got Oscar: there had been several false starts, and Oscar lived with them only a short time before he died. Margaret believes that training a puppy from the beginning could give them many years together. The disagreement establishes both the risk she accepts and the hope behind it. Others see the beagle’s energy as a reason to reject him; Margaret sees a chance to shape a young dog for a longer life with them.

The scene also gives her confidence a gently comic edge. The women debate whether a beagle can be calm, while Toby misunderstands the word “Beagle” as though it might be one woman’s name. His limited understanding does not make Margaret’s choice arbitrary: she has noticed his stillness and keeps advocating for him even as others warn that puppies are too energetic.

Teaching “Be Still”

Margaret’s first important lesson is a command that directly answers the concern the women raised. She teaches Toby “Be Still” by holding him down and repeating the words. At first he thinks she wants to wrestle; he tries licking, squirming, and other responses, only to learn from her repeated “No, no, Be Still” that he has misunderstood. When he finally gives up, she praises him and offers a treat, although he has not yet understood what she wanted.

The lesson takes several days. Toby gradually connects the command with lying down and not moving, even though waiting is difficult for him. Margaret then tests the behavior in unfamiliar parts of the building, asking him to remain still in people’s laps. He dislikes the exercise but cooperates. In one room, she places him on a blanket beside a woman lying on a couch. Though the woman’s laughter tempts him to get up and kiss her, he obeys and earns a treat. The training is practical: stillness is not an abstract trick but a behavior Margaret will need him to carry into close contact with people.

Taking Toby to work

After Toby demonstrates that he can settle beside people, one of the women agrees that Margaret can take him to work and see how he does. Another still predicts that he will upset everyone and chew everything. Margaret answers that he will be fine, addressing the approving woman as “Sister.” The exchange shows that permission comes after a trial of his behavior, not simply because the puppy is appealing. Margaret is prepared to put her judgment to a real test.

The next morning, she puts a collar on Toby, leads him out on a leash, and takes him by car. He is delighted to be a front-seat dog, though still too small to put his nose out the window. At their destination, he smells many people and senses that some are sick. The quiet, soft-floored place resembles the rooms where he had previously sat with CJ, but this is the beginning of a different routine: Margaret has brought him into a workplace where his calm presence can be useful to strangers as well as to the women who care for him.

A shared work of care

Toby later understands the purpose of the stillness Margaret taught. People lying in bed may be in pain, and jumping on them could hurt them. He remembers once stepping on a man’s stomach and hearing the man cry out; the sound stayed with him for days. This lesson makes the command consequential. Margaret’s training gives Toby a way to approach vulnerable people without repeating that mistake, and he distinguishes his controlled behavior from the rambunctiousness he associates with Duke.

Toby’s work grows beyond Margaret’s individual attention. When he is not being taken around by Mona, Fran, or Patsy, he visits the man he once stepped on, Bob, carefully climbing onto a chair before settling on the blankets. He also lies beside Bob as the man nears death. Toby comes to understand that staying with someone in their final breaths can matter especially when his purpose is to comfort people who are ill. Margaret does not appear in these later visits, but the discipline she began teaching is part of the role Toby makes his own.

The same pattern continues when CJ works in the building. Toby follows her among the rooms, lies beside people who need him after she leaves for the night, and lets family members hold him as long as they need. CJ calls him a good dog. Near the end of her life, she tells Toby that he is loved and cared for, asks him to stay with her in her final moments, and recognizes in him gentleness like Molly’s and self-assurance like Max’s. He is beside her when she dies. These later scenes extend the work Margaret first enabled: the quiet, attentive presence of a dog able to remain still, accept an embrace, and accompany someone in pain or at the end of life.

Narrative significance

Margaret’s role is concentrated but decisive. She sees promise in a puppy whom the others regard as too energetic, argues for the long-term possibility of raising him, and gives him a specific skill that makes his later care work possible. The contrast between her small, repeated training exercises and Toby’s eventual presence at bedsides supplies the arc: a command learned for a treat becomes a form of consideration for people whose bodies are hurting.

Toby’s account also complicates the idea that a dog must belong to one person to have a purpose. In this new home, many women feed and play with him, and no single person is his particular charge. He understands his work instead as loving each person he encounters. Margaret is the hinge between those circumstances: she chooses him for a shared home and carries him into a shared vocation, where affection is expressed through restraint as well as closeness.