Wendy Parmet doesn’t like to talk about herself. She’ll talk about her dog, though. “This is Noah, that was the name when we got him,” she says, holding up the white, 10-pound toy mix on her lap. “He’s about 8 years old, he’s very cute and he’s the stupidest dog there ever was. Untrainable.”
According to colleagues, Parmet has one of the most diligent, dazzling minds ever to grace the halls of Northeastern University’s law school, where her teaching has won devoted fans and prestigious national awards. Yet despite her best efforts, Noah is tenuously housebroken and never bothered to learn his own name. Last fall, he bolted out the front door of her house in Newton, Massachusetts, ran two miles to a major road, got hit by a car and ran two miles in the opposite direction. Thousands of dollars in veterinary bills later, he still tries to escape at every opportunity.
