by Dale Mayer
“One of the local restaurants down on the beach around the corner from our place does a big one. Not sure if any are scheduled for this next week though.”
“We’ll find out,” Greyson said. “That would be an enjoyable dinner.”
“It’s always a good time,” his grandfather said. They drove in companionable silence, interspersed with talking about everything and nothing, when his grandfather pointed to a sign on the street. “I think that’s the exit we want, isn’t it?” Just then the GPS gave instructions to take that exit.
“You’re doing pretty good, Grandpa. You’re ahead of the GPS.”
“Stupid computer things,” his grandfather said with a shake of his head. “That’s why so many old people have dementia now. We stopped using our brain cells.”
Greyson laughed. “I don’t think your brain cells are in any danger of dying anytime soon.”
“I hope not,” he said. “I’m seventy-four now, and I’d love to see another ten, fifteen years.”
“In good health with enough money and your own home and a great climate, absolutely,” Greyson said. “I’d think that would be very doable.”
Taking the exit, they turned the corner into another small suburban area. After driving through that, they came out on the other side to what looked like much more of a countryside community, more spacious. Up ahead was a rescue center sign. His grandfather parked in front of the building. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
The two men hopped out of the truck, and Greyson walked in to talk to the woman across the counter. She appeared to be the only one on staff, and she was looking a little harried.
She looked up, frowned, and asked, “May I help you?”
“I’m here on behalf of the War Dogs department,” he said. “I believe you were holding the dog that had been accidently shipped here, until transport details could be arranged to ship her back to Denver.”
“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “We haven’t had a dog lost or stolen in all our years, and now we’ve got a high-profile animal that we’re trying to help out in a spot, and, sure enough, it goes missing.”
“Goes missing?” Greyson pounced. “So was it stolen, did it jump out, did somebody accidentally leave a gate open? What happened?” He held up his hand at the woman’s affronted look. “Believe me. I’m not accusing anybody,” he said. “I’m here to do my best to track down the dog and to make sure it’s okay.”
Some of the stiffness left the woman’s shoulders. She nodded. “We don’t have a clue,” she said. “Nobody saw what happened. We had one dog in that run and one dog in the next one. Only the one was taken.”
“Okay,” he said, “that’s good to know. But no sign of the missing one?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing at all. And that was pretty frustrating too. We’re not in the business of losing dogs.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “So what can you tell me,” he said, “from start to finish.”
“Let’s see. The dog came crated and was delivered at four o’clock in the afternoon. We took it out into a run, gave it some food, water, and a bit of exercise. We were here through six o’clock. All the security was checked at the time. No, we don’t have cameras. We don’t have anything other than a basic alarm, and, no, there’s no alarm on the dog runs.”
“Right.” He stopped, turned, and looked around, noting a sleepy-town atmosphere to the place. “Did anybody know? Was there any fanfare, like media coverage or anything like that?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. No.”
“How was the dog? Socially?”
She looked at him, clearly puzzled.
“Was he aggressive or cranky?”
“She,” the woman said with emphasis, “was calm, patient, and well-behaved. She drank some water but then went and laid down in the run.”
“You didn’t have any trouble with her? She wasn’t difficult to approach?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “And I can see that may have been part of the problem. It looks like, you know, if somebody wanted to, they could have come up and spoken to her and even potentially stolen her.”
“Now this was a Malinois-shepherd cross,” he said, “so it looks like a fairly intimidating dog.”
“That was my concern going in,” she said. “I don’t know why anybody would want a dog like that, unless they wanted it for a watchdog or a guard dog.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “Do you ever get any theft or crime around here? Have you had any other animals stolen?”
She shook her head. “We’ve never had a problem at all. People leave them here. They don’t steal them. There was an issue on the road that day, and I wondered if the dog had somehow got involved in that, but I don’t know how she would have.”
“What issue?”
“A car accident out front here. A couple bumpers banged up. I know the cops were here to talk to the people involved. The dog would have been visible from that run on the side, but there wasn’t any reason for the dog to have tried to get away.”
“Could I possibly see the run, so I have a good idea of what the dog was up against?”
She hesitated and then gave a clipped nod. “I’ll sure be glad when this is over with,” she said. “We don’t have any failures around here. And to know that it was a dog like this, with the government involved, it’ll probably never end,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a shame because it puts a smear on our spotless record.”
He waited with his grandfather beside him as she had to answer the phone, then dealt with a cat in a cage on her desk. When that was finally done, he’d had a chance to check out the very simple front reception area, realizing that, while not a whole lot of money was spent on the place, it appeared to be sound and well cared for.
She opened the double doors and led them into the back, past a bunch of cages with small animals inside and a lot of empty cages.
“Thankfully you don’t appear to have a full house right now,” he commented.
“We hate being full,” she said. “We’re constantly doing drives to raise money for looking after the animals, but, more than that, we’re always looking for people to take the animals home and to get them out of these cages. It’s not a good way for any of them to live.”
His grandfather looked at some of them and shook his head. “It doesn’t look like much fun for anybody,” he said sadly.
“If you see someone you want to join your family,” she said with a bright smile, “just let me know.”
He shook his head. “Not without the wife’s permission. That wouldn’t go well at all.”
“Bring her back with you then,” the woman encouraged.
As for Greyson, he let the conversation go back and forth. He doubted his grandfather wanted a pet to look after at this stage of his life, but Greyson had been wrong before. As his grandfather passed a basset hound lying all alone in a cage, his footsteps slowed. He crouched and reached out a few fingers toward him. The dog stretched forward and sniffed, then got the most woe-be-gone look in his eyes. Knowing that his grandfather was already getting quite hooked, Greyson turned to the woman, who was still walking away. “What’s the story with the basset hound?”
“His owner died,” she said, “and the family surrendered the animal.” She frowned. “He really needs a quiet home with somebody to love him because he not only needs a good home, but he’s grieving too.”
Greyson’s grandfather straightened up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and determinedly turned away, but his gaze kept going back to the dog behind them. The dog stared out at them as they walked away. The woman led them to the rear door. Greyson stepped through to a large gate and then went out to the dog run. A walkway was between two of the runs, and then another walkway between two other runs.
“She was on the outside run,” she said, pointing to the left.
“Any reason for that?”
She shook her head. “It was random. Completely random. Well, not re
ally random, I guess. We put her in the largest of the runs. She was a big dog and had been cooped up in a crate on a plane for who knows how long. We just thought it would give her the best chance of easing up from a stressful day.”
That made sense to him, and he appreciated the thought. He crossed into the dog run and walked up and down, looking for any sign of anything. He stopped when he saw hair on the top of one of the wires. He pulled out his phone and quickly took an image of it.
“What are you looking at?” she asked suspiciously.
“Just hair,” he said, “caught on the top of the fence here.”
“That could have been there forever,” she protested.
He gave her a sideways look. “Maybe,” he said, “it also could be from the K9 dog.” She didn’t say anything more. He walked back a little bit and checked out the ground. “Thank you for letting me see this.” He took a few more photos of the area from inside the cage, realizing he could see a little bit of the street and a bit of the forested area nearby. And, with the receptionist at his side, he slowly walked back through the building toward the front of the place. They found his grandfather crouching in front of the basset hound again.
The woman stepped forward. “He really would appreciate a good home,” she said. “He’s really depressed.”
“How long has he been here?”
She hesitated. “Two weeks. Normally we can’t keep them past ten days.”
Grandfather looked at her in horror. Then at Greyson, as if asking what he should do.
“You could always call Grandma and see what she says.”
“Or …” and his grandfather fell silent.
But Greyson knew exactly what he’d started to say. “Or you could take him home, knowing she will fall in love with him, the same way you just did.”
Grandfather winced. “I do miss our dogs,” he said.
“I’m sure you do. Is there any place to walk?”
He nodded. “I walk the trails. Miles and miles of them every day,” he said. “And I’m always alone now.”
At that, the woman reached down and opened the cage, letting the dog out to say hi. And, sure enough, he headed right for Grandpa, the connection already forming. Grandpa gently rubbed the dog’s long ears. “How old is he?”
“The best we can tell is about five,” she said.
Grandfather nodded. “What is his name?”
“Leo.”
He chuckled at that. “Well, that makes a lot of sense to me,” he said. “What kind of fees are we talking about?”
She hesitated. Greyson looked at her, then at his grandfather, and said, “Why don’t you let me cover that for you? It will be a gift for letting me stay with you.”
Grandpa looked at him and smirked. “If you think your grandma will let you get away with that, you’re wrong, son.”
“We can hope though,” he said, laughing.
“Well, it might make things easier.”
Decision made, Greyson went out to the front and took care of the paperwork, while his grandfather and Leo got to know each other. And when Leo was allowed in the front area and led out to the truck, it seemed the dog had just been given a priceless gift. And it was true. The dog had just gotten a loving home with two people who would spoil him rotten, and what could be better than that? Leo was getting a new life, and, considering what the woman had said about not keeping them past ten days, Greyson figured that Leo had well and truly been given the gift of a second life—literally.
As they got to the truck, his grandfather looked down at Leo and over at Greyson. “I don’t have much room in here.”
“I’ll hold him,” Greyson said, and that’s what they did. His grandfather hopped into the driver’s side, and Greyson picked up the big basset and, holding him in his arms, managed to get himself into the front of the truck and buckled the seat belt around the two of them.
Laughing, his grandfather shook his head. “Your grandmother will kill me.”
“Not if she falls in love first,” he said.
“And how will we do that?” he asked.
“How about I go in with the dog first?” he said.
Grandfather nodded eagerly. He was up for anything that would take the heat off him. They had another twenty minutes to think about it as they drove.
When they pulled up to the front of the house, Greyson awkwardly opened the truck door and carried the dog in his arms. His grandmother came flying out the front door, racing toward him. She tried to give him a hug, but Leo was in the way.
She looked at the dog, laughing a bit. “I don’t know who this guy is,” she said, “but he’s determined to be in the middle of our hug.”
“Let me put him down.” Greyson slowly crouched, letting the dog onto the ground. With the leash still in his hand, he leaned over the dog and gave his grandmother a hug.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said. Then she bent down and greeted the basset. “I didn’t know you were bringing a pet though. That couldn’t have been a nice flight.”
“Well, he wasn’t on the flight with me,” he said. “This is Leo. He was surrendered to a local shelter because his owner passed away. He’s been there for fourteen days, four days past their usual limit, so his days were numbered, and he’s very depressed.”
“Oh, you poor little thing,” his grandmother spoke to Leo, as if to a small child.
Obviously Leo already had a good idea of who the boss was around here because he did a great job of squirming in and showing her how much he wanted to spend time with her. When she straightened up, Greyson handed her the leash and said, “So glad to hear that you like him because he really needs a home.”
Her jaw dropped, and she looked at him in surprise, but Leo was already sniffling at her legs and wandering around at the end of his leash. “I feel like I’ve just been conned,” she said, but she crouched again and gave the basset a great big hug. Just then his grandfather appeared at his shoulder.
He looked at Greyson and down at her. “So, did it work?”
Greyson laughed. “I don’t know. The next part is up to you. You’ve got to convince her to keep him.”
She looked up at Grandfather and over at Greyson. “I can hear a story is behind this, but you’ve been talking about getting a dog for months now.”
“I didn’t want to get tied down,” Grandfather said, staring at the dog, “but I couldn’t leave him in that cage.”
“Of course not,” she said. “Come on in. Let’s see about getting this guy some food.”
And that was all it took. Leo had a new home. Feeling once again like his grandparents were the best, and wondering why he had cut them out of his life for so long, Greyson followed the two into the house, loving that they could see the ocean and had pathways all around, including ones to get down to the beach. Leo would absolutely love this. Lucky dog. And Greyson said as much when he walked in. “This dog has got a great home,” he said, “and so do you. This is a perfect place to live.”
“Now you know why we moved here,” she said. “But I have to admit it was pretty rough that we left just around the same time that you had your accident and ended up with all those surgeries.”
“I know,” he said, “but it wasn’t your fault.”
“No, but it seemed like we deserted you when you needed us most,” his grandmother said. She reached out and hugged him again. Then she bustled about in the kitchen, wiping at the tears in her eyes.
After she made coffee, and she still couldn’t calm down, he reached over, clasped her hands with his, and tucked her into a gentle hug. “It’s fine,” he said. “At that point in time, I needed to push everybody away so I could focus on me. You couldn’t have done anything for me while I was in that state anyway.”
“That’s not true,” she protested. “We would have been there for you.”
“You were there for me,” he said. “Physically, nobody could be there for me. I was a mess. I needed time and a lot of surgeries, and I wasn’t even cognizant of a
lot of it,” he said. “Those months went by in a nasty blur, and I’m grateful they did, so that I had a chance to recover and to recuperate and to rebuild my life. Now I’m here, and you’re here, and you’re happy, and I’m fine,” he said with emphasis.
She smiled up at him mistily. “It was so hard to know what you were going through,” she said. “I’m so sorry that you had to suffer so terribly.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for the whole scenario. But it’s okay, and I’m fine now. I’m better than fine,” he said with a smile.
She smiled, then reached up and patted his cheek. “Well, you lie very well. There’s that.”
“I do,” he said, with a big laugh. “The bottom line is that it’s all good, Grandma. Really.”
She said, “Good then. You take these cookies over to the table, and I’ll pour some coffee.”
And that’s what he did. As soon as he sat down, Leo came lumbering over and sat on Greyson’s foot, looking for love. He gave the dog a good scratching; then Leo walked over to lie at his grandfather’s feet. Greyson nodded to his grandfather. “Good choice,” he said.
“I don’t know that there was any choice in it.” His grandfather reached a hand down, placing it on Leo’s head. “As long as it’s all good,” he said.
Greyson could see from his grandfather’s possessive stroking on Leo’s back that his grandfather was happy. And his grandmother? She had a soft smile on her face as she studied the man and his dog.
“Look at that,” she said. “You know something? I teased him for months and months about getting a dog, but he kept holding back. Now he’s with you for five minutes, and we already have a dog. What will we have in an hour or two?”
He burst out with a laugh. “Well, it was an accident that we went there in the first place. An accident in that Grandpa went along,” he corrected. “I’m here looking for a War Dog that was accidentally shipped to Hawaii instead of Denver.”
“How does that happen?” she asked in bewilderment. “Accidentally shipped to Hawaii? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“It doesn’t to me either,” he said, “but, once it was here, temporary arrangements were made for it to be housed by this shelter for a couple days, while another flight was scheduled. Only it disappeared that first night. I wanted to take a look at the actual location to make sure that the holding pen was adequate and to talk to someone firsthand.”