Pedro lifted Dusty off the ground and followed Georgia and Dr. Jessica to a nearby exam room. Dr. Jess examined Dusty quickly and gently. She checked his heart and ears. She palpated his stomach and felt for his organs. She was gentler than the vet in Mexico, but Dusty’s nose twitched just the same. The table was just as cold and just as slippery. It was hard to stand up! And it didn’t smell good in here like it did in the big room of the puppy palace.
“Considering he’s only been off the streets about a week, he’s doing pretty well,” she noted. “He doesn’t have mange, worms, or fleas.”
Pedro was glad to hear it, since they’d just shared a pillow.
“Still, he’s not entirely out of the woods. He’s definitely underweight, and based on my internal exam I suspect he’s having digestive issues.”
Pedro nodded grimly, remembering the state of his slipper. Dusty certainly was.
“His pads are also in bad shape—burned on the hot pavement, no doubt.” She made some notes on a chart.
“He needs ointment put on his feet several times a day.” She pulled a tube from her bag and slathered on a thick layer of the antibiotic.
Dusty didn’t waste a second getting to work licking off the goo. Dr. Jess half laughed. “And he’s going to need near-constant supervision. He should wear socks or booties so he doesn’t lick obsessively and make his condition worse. The faster he can grow new tissue, the better.” She handed the tube of ointment to Pedro, who was getting more worried by the moment. Caring for Dusty was going to be time-consuming … like a full-time job, which he already had!
Dr. Jess made a few more notes. “We need to get his stomach accustomed to dog food, which could take a while. Let’s start him on some new food this afternoon, and give him four small meals a day for the first week. More than four would mean he’d have to spend a lot of time and energy digesting, but four won’t feel constant and should keep his stomach from having to process too much kibble at one time. When he’s adjusted we can drop to two daily meals and increase the amount.”
“It’s too bad we can’t feed him garbage …” Pedro joked. “We know his stomach is accustomed to that …” But his smile faded quickly as Dr. Jessica handed the pup back to Pedro. He had a busy schedule on the ranch, one that didn’t allow for him to be a twenty-four-hour dog sitter! Georgia eyed the dog and trainer pair, seeming more than a little concerned herself. The ranch was a busy place, and there were always trainers and dogs waiting. It wasn’t as if Dusty was one of them!
Feeling slightly numb and being unusually silent, Pedro walked out of the exam room and nearly bumped into Shelby, who was lurking just outside the door.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the welcome center desk?” Georgia asked, spotting her daughter and employee.
“Bathroom run,” Shelby replied quickly. Georgia tipped her head knowingly and opened her mouth to point out that the bathroom was, as far as she knew, still in the opposite direction. But before she could get the words out she noticed that her eldest daughter was gazing at Dusty like he was the most handsome dog in the entire world and not the large-eared, puny, underweight mutt he actually was.
“Time to get back to work, Shelby,” she said instead. “The welcome center needs to be staffed at all times.”
“Grandma is covering for me. She was working in the office …” People who had heard about the center stopped by unannounced on a regular basis, and calls came in daily from fire and police departments looking to get trained dogs. Everything funneled through the welcome center. It was the face of the ranch.
Shelby’s gaze still rested on the Chihuahua runt. With a sigh she prepared to tear herself away, but Dusty stretched his neck and licked her hand. It was all the encouragement Shelby needed.
“I could keep an eye on him for you,” she said, looking at Pedro. Her mom might say no, but Pedro … “He can sit on my lap while I work, and I can do the ointment and keep him from licking and make sure he gets the new kibble four times a day.”
Georgia raised an eyebrow. “Bathroom break, huh?”
“I was just worried. He’s so little. And I missed him,” Shelby admitted. “Morgan told me you guys had him with Dr. Jess and I just wanted to find out what was going on.” She halted, but her hand rested lovingly on the dog’s back. “Sorry, Mom.”
Georgia considered the situation. She didn’t want her daughter to be distracted—she had an important job to do, and work was work. But she couldn’t ignore the hopeful expression on Pedro’s face, or the fact that Shelby was offering a workable solution that could benefit all of them, Dusty included.
The decision was clear. “Okay, you can keep an eye on Dusty. But I still expect you to manage your responsibilities.”
Pedro let out a relieved breath and handed Dusty over. “Gracias, Shelby,” he said, smiling.
“Yip, yip!” Dusty barked before licking Shelby’s face repeatedly. Georgia smiled, hard-pressed to be certain who was happiest about the arrangement—Pedro, Dusty, or Shelby!
“All of that came out of you?” Shelby stared at the big pile of puked-up kibble on the floor and the very small, very sorry-looking dog standing next to it. Normally she would not go near barf (because it made her want to, um, barf), but what choice did she have? She’d offered to take care of the dog. And besides, it was for Dusty.
Squatting down next to the mess with a handful of paper towels, she cleaned it up as quickly as she could. When she’d disposed of it in the outside trash, keeping it as far from her body as possible, she returned to pick up the kitten-sized dog.
“You do weigh less than Twig, don’t you?” she crooned in Dusty’s ears. “But everyone knows he’s a monster. Still, if you want to get bigger you have to keep the food inside a little longer.” She couldn’t quite believe how hard she’d fallen for this little guy. She’d only spent a few afternoons with him but already found herself dreaming of keeping him even though that was totally against Sterling rules. No pet dogs in the family household. Period.
“You might be more Bud-sized.” Bud was the tiny gray-furred runt of a litter of kittens and the last pet allowed. The Sterlings had found him in the maintenance shed. Well, Morgan and a dog-in-training named Ember found him. They’d been on a secret search for Twig, who’d gone missing and whose absence was making Juniper even more impossible to live with than she usually was …
“Yes, I’d say you are just a teensy bit bigger than Bud, but way, way cuter! Maybe I can convince Mom you’re more like a cat,” she rambled, scratching him behind the ears. Dusty stopped licking his double-layered doggy socks for a second, his giant ears twitching. His nose sniffed the air and his black-spotted tongue re-emerged, this time to lick Shelby’s cheek. She giggled.
“If you don’t stop your licking, I’m going to have to put a third pair of booties on you, and you won’t be able to walk!”
“Yip!” Dusty protested.
Shelby shook her head. “Doctor’s orders,” she said, wagging a finger. The single layer of fabric had proven completely worthless—Dusty had plenty of determination!—so Shelby had added a second pair. She’d had to scrounge around the cabinets in the pavilion to find a pair of baby socks and then stitch up the sides to make them narrow enough to stay on his skinny legs.
“Thank goodness the phones have been quiet today!” she told him. Between his licking obsession and keeping up with her friends, there wasn’t a lot of time to field Sterling calls. “And that my homework load is light.”
Dusty put his tiny black nose up to hers and Shelby’s heart melted. Could there be a more adorable creature on the entire earth?
Ping! Her cell phone alerted her to a new DM. It was Alice, her longtime best friend.
Bunch of us going 2 movies tonite, and u-know-who is coming!
Shelby felt a little tingle of excitement. There was another extremely adorable creature on the horizon, and his name was Ryan Westerly. Ryan transferred into her school in the spring of freshman year. From the moment he’d taken a seat
in her bio class Shelby was crushing, big-time. Friendly and just plain nice, Ryan had big, dark eyes and bangs pushed off his forehead in an adorable swoop. So far, this year in chem, she hadn’t been able to tell if he liked her like that but spending time with him outside of science was the best way to find out.
She was about to type I’m there! when she remembered they had a family dinner—it was her grandmother’s birthday. I can’t tonite, she typed instead, feeling thoroughly disappointed.
The moment she hit send her little brother pushed through the back door of the welcome center.
“I need your lap rat. It’s time for his feeding. We’ll handle his medicine in the canine pavilion, too,” Forrest panted.
Shelby scowled.
“Mom told me to go ahead and treat him like a rescue trainee as long as he’s living with Pedro.” Forrest cracked up as the words “rescue” and “trainee” came out of his mouth. “As if. Can you imagine this rodent becoming a rescue dog? Freaking ridiculous! I bet they don’t even make working vests that small!”
Shelby’s mood soured and she pursed her bow lips at her brother. “Oh shut it, Forrest.” She glanced at the computer screen in front of her. She was supposed to be posting adoption notices about Dusty but hadn’t made much progress. Her heart just wasn’t in it. The truth was, she was desperate to keep him, but the Sterlings had a rule: no dogs as pets. There were always multiple dogs on the ranch who needed care and attention and training … every single day. Adding pet canines to the mix would make more work and could be problematically distracting. Besides, Georgia said, they all loved dogs so much that if they started adopting, they’d be overrun. So Shelby’s parents held hard and fast to the no-dogs-as-pets rule.
“Oh, are you defending your new boyfriend?” Forrest teased.
“Dusty is not a rat!” Shelby snapped, though it was clear from the smirk on her brother’s face that he was just trying to get a rise out of her. Forrest was closest to Shelby in age and generally more clueless but less irritating than her sisters. Not today!
Forrest backed down a little. “Just teasing, Shel.”
“I’ll have you know that Dusty has a great nose and is one of the most persistent pups I have ever seen,” she defended. “As persistent as any of those big dogs in the pavilion.”
Forrest laughed hard at that, nearly doubling over. Shelby could be dramatic but wasn’t usually delusional. Who was she kidding?
Dusty let out a yip and turned his head away, pointing his butt in Forrest’s direction to demonstrate exactly how he felt about being laughed at.
Scowling at Captain Annoying, Shelby reluctantly handed the dog over. For the first time in ages she kind of wished she was back on dog care—usually a punishment in her mind—instead of working the front office. Then she could shove her annoying brother aside and take care of Dusty herself. “Be careful with his socks,” Shelby said. “I sewed the sides to make them narrower, but they’re still a little loose.”
“You mean his foot diapers?”
Shelby looked like she was going to leap over the desk and punch her brother. Forrest knew it was time to head out, and pronto.
“Let’s go, big guy,” he said with a smirk. Dusty settled into his arms reluctantly, not understanding his sarcasm. He hadn’t completely forgiven the boy for laughing, but he smelled like peanut butter, which trumped pretty much everything and prompted a lick.
“Not too much food,” Shelby called after them. “He’s still not keeping it down!”
Forrest grinned as he carried the dog away from his sister. “You’ve got a long tongue for a rat …” He chortled as the door swung closed behind him.
It was all Shelby could do not to throw something at his retreating back.
Dusty wagged like crazy as they neared the canine pavilion. There was something about the ranch and the people on it that made Dusty forget all about the humans who’d been cruel or indifferent—the people who treated dogs like trash. Here, dogs were treated well. Like treasures, or royalty. The doggy castle was proof of that. It was big. It was tidy. Besides the beds, water, and food, the palace was never too hot or too cold. Nobody yelled or kicked or used brooms as weapons. It felt happy. And safe.
The moment Forrest set Dusty down on the smooth floor, Dusty began his food-sniffing routine. He slipped a little on his sock booties but quickly adjusted his movements to stay steady. He knew he wouldn’t find any food—the floor of the palace was spotless. He also knew a bowl of kibble was coming. Neither of these things altered his behavior, though. Hunting for food was deeply ingrained. His tail on high, he sniffed and searched.
“He moves on those sock things pretty well,” Forrest commented as he readied the leashes for the post-breakfast potty walks the dogs always got. “He’s an agile little rat!”
Dusty was too busy investigating an alluring smell that was wafting out of the recycling bin to pay attention to the humans … until Morgan, the girl who’d been feeding him, called him over. She was crouched low with a miniature metal bowl—borrowed from Twig—ready. Dusty sat on his haunches and gazed up at her unbelievingly. Even after days and days of being served regular meals, he felt happy and surprised every time.
“Good sit,” Morgan praised as she set the bowl in front of him. She watched Dusty dig in, gobbling the food without really chewing. “Hey, slow down!” she advised, like always. “We want it to stay in!”
Dusty heard the words but didn’t slow down. It was sooooooo good! Lately Morgan had been putting something soft and wet in the bowl along with the dry bits. It didn’t taste like much, but it made the kibble a little chewy. And though Dusty had learned that kibble could come out in ways that didn’t feel good at all, that would happen later. Right now it was going in, and that was always delicious!
“I don’t even know how he does that,” Forrest commented as he watched Dusty inhale the last of the bowl. “It’s like he’s not even breathing!”
“I know,” Morgan said. “He eats faster than any dog I’ve ever seen. But his stools have been a tiny bit firmer lately, so that’s good.”
“Do you think it’s the pumpkin?” Forrest asked.
Morgan nodded. “It has a lot of fiber and will help with digestion. Kind of like a stomach buffer. And it doesn’t have any of the side effects anti-diarrheal pharmaceuticals do.”
Forrest shook his close-cropped head at his sister, his eyes rolling back in disgust. “Did you just say ‘anti-diarrheal pharmaceuticals’?” He didn’t mind cleaning up after the dogs, but words like that made him shudder.
“Yes,” Morgan answered earnestly. “Diarrhea in dogs can be life-threatening—especially in malnourished dogs who don’t have reserves.”
“Right,” Forrest replied, ready for this conversation to be over. His younger sister talked like a professor. He snatched up the leashes and went to get two dogs-in-training to walk with Dusty. The elimination area was large and often changing … the pit stop got smelly fast. Forrest bagged all the poop, but it still reeked of dog pee, even after it had been hosed down.
Dusty trotted right over to a bush with yellowing leaves and lifted his tiny, sock-covered leg. With that matter handled, he moved on to find an acceptable spot to squat. Morgan joined the party but turned her head away when she saw Dusty. Dogs didn’t like onlookers while doing their business, and who could blame them? She didn’t, either! When she turned back to see the deposit, her lips parted into a wide smile. It was an actual pile!
“Awesome job, Dusty!” she cheered, pulling out a biodegradable poop bag. She picked up the load and tied it off.
Not too far away, Forrest was laughing again. “Who’d a thought we’d get this excited about poop?” he asked. “Way to go, lap rat!”
Pedro whistled tunelessly as he approached the welcome center doorway. Despite the nagging feeling that came from not having found Dusty a home, there was a lightness in his chest. The truth was, he looked forward to seeing the Chihuahua pup at the end of every day. Now that he was no longer p
ooping in his slippers or stealing his pillow, he really enjoyed Dusty’s company. He appreciated his intelligence and the fact that he’d picked up obedience training so easily. And he admired his spunk—the tiny perro would not be pushed around. Pedro also liked waking up with the tiny ball of warmth next to his chest … maybe even loved it.
“How’s it going in here?” he asked as the door jangled. Shelby beamed at him from the other side of the desk, while Morgan, who was looking over the center’s shelves of books, waved a casual hello.
“Yip!” came Dusty’s greeting. He hopped down off Shelby’s lap and scampered, sock free, over to Pedro, his nails clicking on the linoleum. His pads were ninety percent healed. Lifting onto his back legs, he held remarkably steady and gave Pedro’s hand a lick.
“Little dude can balance,” Pedro noted.
“We weighed him this morning,” Morgan reported. “He’s gained three pounds!”
Pedro crouched and Dusty flopped over to let the bearded man scratch his belly—his new favorite treat. The two of them had discovered that Dusty liked a tummy scratch while watching TV together on Pedro’s couch. Now he couldn’t get enough.
“Well done, Dustito!” Pedro complimented.
“I wish he could stay with me.” Shelby half pouted, watching the two of them. “We don’t get enough time together on school days. He could stay the night … like a sleepover!”
Pedro stood and approached the desk. “No es posible,” he said, feeling a little sad for Shelby. He hadn’t told anyone that Dusty was sleeping in his bed with him. He actually felt kind of guilty about it, because he’d always thought dogs should be part of a family but not entitled to the same sleeping conditions as humans. Still, he obviously didn’t feel guilty enough to stop letting him into his bed!
“No dogs at your house except Cocoa.” Pedro recited the rule they’d all heard a hundred times. “I don’t think your mom would ever make an exception to that, even for this little thing.”
“True, unfortunately,” Morgan said. If it were up to her, she’d have a half dozen of her own pups in addition to the Sterling dogs-in-training. As far as she was concerned, dogs were better than people. And definitely better than siblings.
Dusty Page 4