I could see that Freddie had very strong white teeth underneath his twitching nose. He was interested in me and seemed to want to play. A ferret was like a friendly version of a cat.
“Mom says ferrets aren’t really pets, and they should be out living in the wild. But Freddie’s never lived outside, and he’s too old to learn, so it’s a good thing the science teacher takes care of him,” Maggie Rose told me. “If we tried to set him free now, a coyote or a wildcat could get him.”
I wondered what all her talking meant. Was she saying that she was going to put me in the cage or that she was going to let Freddie come out to play? Either of those would be fine with me.
But it seemed that Maggie Rose had no intention of opening the cage door. I had no idea why. She was content to just hold me up to the wires so I could examine the ferret.
Freddie seemed to figure out the same thing—that he wouldn’t be coming out to play. Bored with just touching noses, he turned his back and dashed away, more quickly than I could run. He scrambled up a box and dived into a hole on the top. Moments later, his head poked out, and he looked at Maggie Rose and me before pulling his head back in.
“I guess Freddie doesn’t want company right now,” Maggie Rose said and carried me on.
I was very disappointed that we were leaving without any play. Perhaps I should have done something to let Maggie Rose know how much I wanted to wrestle with the ferret.
The next kennel she carried me to had yet another new kind of animal! I was amazed. Before today, I had known that there were boy dogs and girl dogs, big dogs and small ones. And of course, people, too. Now I knew the smell and sight of cats and ferrets and—what was this thing?
It was smaller than Oscar, so it wasn’t a cat. It had a face a bit like Freddie’s, though its body was not as stretched out. This animal was stockier and rounder. It had a white chest and black eyes, and it had ears like a cat. Its tail was a huge, puffy thing that seemed to float up in the air behind its back, quivering and twitching with each movement.
It had one funny leg, all wrapped in something white that looked like cloth but that clunked loudly against the floor of the kennel. I’d never seen a leg like that!
Even with that funny leg, the creature moved quickly in little darting movements that were very exciting to watch. I squirmed until Maggie Rose put me down, and then I scratched at the gate and whined a little.
The gate was strange to touch; there was something smooth and clear over the wire so that my paw could not get inside. I couldn’t really smell through it, either.
I wanted this little animal to come out or to let me in. I wanted to chase it. It needed to be chased!
I looked up expectantly at the girl, who was smiling down at me. I already knew that opening doors was something only people do—all dogs can do is sit and wait. So I sat and waited for Maggie Rose to open the door and let the quick, jerky creature out.
I knew as soon as she did, we would have a lot of fun!
3
Maggie Rose didn’t seem to understand that I wanted to wrestle with this new and interesting not-dog. She hadn’t understood that I wanted to play with Freddie, either. To make things clearer to her, I pawed helpfully at the smooth door again.
“No, Lily, Sammy can’t come out,” Maggie Rose said, laughing. “We’re not supposed to play with him or touch him at all. He’s a squirrel. He’s not a pet. That’s why his cage is glass, the kind of glass where we can see him but he can’t see us. We’re just taking care of him until his leg is better, and then he’ll go back to the park. He can’t get used to people feeding him or petting him or dogs playing with him, or he won’t be safe in the wild, see? My dad rescued him. He’s a game warden. He found Sammy caught in an illegal trap, and he even arrested the men who put the trap out!”
The animal was moving in such a tantalizing manner—quick little hops, its head making sudden jerky motions. I knew it must want to play Chase Me! I peered up at Maggie Rose and whined a little. I was wagging my tail so hard it thumped against my rump. Why didn’t she understand? I needed her to open up the gate!
“Better leave Sammy alone. Lily, come with me,” Maggie Rose said. She scooped me up.
I was astounded that we were leaving again. Why show me these wonderful playmates if they were going to remain in their cages?
Oh, well. If I couldn’t play Chase Me with Sammy, at least I was able to snuggle with Maggie Rose. I leaned into her, very content. It was as nice as pressing up against my mother’s side—better, even, because there was no risk of a couple of brothers stampeding up and crushing me.
Maggie Rose took me along a hallway lined with great big sacks, each one bigger than my mother. They smelled marvelous. I wiggled, ready to get down and sniff a sack close up and maybe get my teeth into the paper that covered it and pull hard enough to make whatever was inside spill out. But Maggie Rose held me close.
“No, Lily. You’re too young to eat regular dog food,” she told me. “And when you are old enough, your family will put it in a bowl for you.”
We were approaching a door, and I heard a frightened yip from the other side, then another, and then another. I could tell there was an unhappy dog inside. She smelled older than I was, but younger than my mother. She was a girl, and her barks told me she was terrified.
Maggie Rose pushed the door open, and I saw that the tall woman with short black hair was holding a small dog on a table. Carefully, she wrapped white stuff around one of the dog’s legs. I remembered that the woman’s name was Amelia. The white lump on the dog’s leg looked a lot like what Sammy had been dragging around.
Was that why we were all in this place, to get our legs wrapped up in white stuff? When was my turn? Could Amelia do my brothers first?
“Shut the door, Maggie Rose. I don’t want this little girl to get loose,” Amelia asked.
The frightened dog was trembling under Amelia’s hands. She wasn’t a puppy, but she was tiny, smaller than I was. Astounding! Every dog I had ever met before was bigger than I was. I’d just assumed I was the littlest puppy ever. But this female was the smallest dog imaginable! Amelia’s hand could wrap around her entire rib cage.
The girl dog did not look like me. Instead of sleek, short fur in gray-and-white splotches, she had wiry black fur that stood out in all directions. The tufts were shaking with fright. I wagged. Why was she so frightened? Could I help?
“Is she a stray?” Maggie Rose asked.
“Nope, just lost. Someone found her on the streets and brought her in. She’s got a bite on her leg; I guess she tangled with something, maybe a raccoon. A little Yorkie like this is no match for a big, aggressive raccoon.”
“Will she be all right?” Maggie Rose asked.
“I think so,” Amelia replied. “I cleaned the bite and gave her a stitch, and when her owner gets here, we’ll send her home with antibiotics so the wound doesn’t get infected. She should have been kept indoors or in a fenced yard, but people don’t always do that. Still, the good news is that she’s microchipped, so I already called her family. They’ll be in to get her right away. Her name’s Missy. There, there, sweetie, don’t be scared. Your leg’s all fixed.”
“Good dog, Missy,” Maggie Rose said.
“Poor thing is terrified,” Amelia said sympathetically. “She’s probably been shaking since she tussled with that raccoon. Why are you still so upset, Missy? You’re safe. Here you go.”
Amelia bent over to put the little dog, Missy, on the floor. Missy sat down, hunched over, with her head low and her ears nearly flat against her skull. She had not been happy on the table, and now she was not happy to be down on the floor. She kept trembling.
“Go say hi, Lily,” Maggie Rose told me. She set me down on the floor, too.
I studied Missy. She was not ready to play. If I bounded up to her as my bigger brothers did to me, it would only scare her more. She might even snap at me—she looked and smelled terrified enough to do it.
But there wasn’t anythin
g to be frightened of here. There was just Maggie Rose, who was gentle and nice, and Amelia, who was probably nice, too. I figured that out because Maggie Rose was talking to her and smiling. If Maggie Rose felt okay with Amelia, Amelia was okay by me.
I was the only other living thing in this room. And I wasn’t scary. I was a puppy! I padded a little closer to Missy and then stopped and wagged my tail. This was how I wished my brothers would come close to me—slowly, calmly, so I could tell what they were going to do next.
I kept my head and ears up, but not so high that Missy would think I wanted to boss her around. I didn’t want to boss her. I just wanted to play with her.
I moved a little closer.
Missy lowered her head a bit, studying me cautiously.
I stopped and waited.
Missy’s ears lifted. That seemed friendly.
I crept closer and sniffed Missy all over. She still smelled scared, but not as scared as before. She smelled like Amelia’s hands, and the white thing on her leg had a strange, sharp odor that I did not like.
But Missy’s fur held a lot of very interesting scents. It smelled a bit like Maggie Rose’s shoes, with hints of a place I had never been—someplace out there bigger than my kennel, someplace with dirt and air and wind and lots and lots of animals and people. One animal’s odor in particular stood out in Missy’s scruffy fur. It smelled like a not-dog and a little bit like Freddie—wild and untamed.
There were apparently very many not-dogs I needed to meet and play with. I was certainly learning a lot this day! It seemed as if the moment Maggie Rose picked me up, my world became much bigger, and my life changed.
Now Missy was sniffing me back, paying particular attention under my tail and between my rear legs. This was, I decided, how grown-up dogs greeted each other for the first time, with a polite sniff to the butt.
Missy shook herself. I shook, too, just to be friendly. Then Missy pushed at me a little with her nose. I pushed back. I nibbled at her face. She shook herself and darted away. I flopped over on my back, legs in the air. Missy limped over and put her good paw across my belly.
I wiggled. She jumped away and bowed, front legs low, back legs high, tiny tail wiggling.
In a moment, we were wrestling. At last! I had finally found a new friend to wrestle with!
I knew to go easy with Missy, because her leg hurt her; I could tell by the way her scent changed when she put weight on it. But she did not let that stop her. It was fun playing with a smaller dog instead of three bigger brothers. Missy knew when to stop, too. When she bit down on my ear and I yipped, she backed off right away.
I liked Missy!
“Oh, look!” I heard Maggie Rose say. “Lily got Missy to play. She’s not so scared now.”
“Lily? Is that the puppy’s name now? Good work, Lily.” Amelia smiled. “A puppy can cheer anybody up.”
“Did you see how gentle Lily was at first?” Maggie Rose asked.
“She must have sensed how afraid Missy was feeling,” Amelia agreed. “Dogs can pick up on fear.”
I heard a door open somewhere, and in a moment, a woman rushed into the room. A boy Maggie Rose’s age followed behind her.
“Oh, Missy!” the woman wailed.
Missy stopped chewing on my face to bound over to the woman’s feet. The woman, tears flowing down her cheeks, snatched the little dog up and hugged her and held her close. “I was frantic! I just looked around and she was gone. It’s been two days!” she cried.
Missy was not scared at all now. Missy was very, very happy.
This weeping woman was Missy’s person, I realized with a jolt of understanding. That was why Missy was so overjoyed.
In that instant, I understood something new. My life here in this place with my mother and my big, heavy brothers was a good life, but it was not what a dog needed most. To be truly happy, a dog needed to be like Missy and have a person of her own.
Did I have a person? I looked up at Maggie Rose.
4
Maggie Rose caught me staring at her and smiled down at me, almost as if she knew what I was thinking. Yes. Yes, I realized. Of course Maggie Rose was my person. But did she know it? Did she know I was her dog?
I watched how Missy wouldn’t stop kissing the crying woman. Missy had shown me the proper way to greet a new dog, and now she was showing me what to do if someone was your person. You showed how much you loved her, and then you were her dog.
That’s what I would do. I would show Maggie Rose that I was her dog and that we belonged together forever.
The woman and Amelia talked, and Amelia gave the woman some papers and the woman gave them back. My girl, Maggie Rose, sat down on the floor to let me climb into her lap. Her hands stroked me, and I could feel the love flowing through them. I kissed her fingers the way Missy had kissed the crying lady’s cheeks, letting my girl know that yes, yes, yes. Without words, I told her, You are my person, Maggie Rose.
The boy came over and knelt down beside us. “Can I pet him?” he asked. He had a soft, shy voice.
“She’s a girl. Her name is Lily. Sure, you can pet her. She’s really friendly,” Maggie Rose said, and the boy reached out to rub my ears. Very nice.
“I’m glad you got your dog back,” my girl told him.
“She’s my mom’s dog, really,” the boy said. “But I’m glad, too.”
The boy had stopped rubbing my ears, so I nosed his hand to get him to start it up again. When he did, I decided that if he wanted to live here with us, that would be okay by me. Maggie Rose was still my person, of course, but he could be a friend. “What kind is your dog?” he asked.
“Lily’s not really mine,” Maggie Rose said. Her voice sounded a little wistful, and I wondered why. I had a girl, and she had a puppy. I could think of no reason to be sad. “She’s waiting for adoption. Her mom and brothers, too. We don’t know what kind of dog the father was. The mom’s a pit bull mix.”
“She’s cute,” the boy said. “You can tell she really likes you.”
Maggie Rose nodded. “She’s a special dog.”
“Time to go, Brandon,” Wet Cheeks Woman called. Brandon jumped to his feet. As they were leaving, I looked up at Missy in the woman’s arms. She looked back at me.
Missy was no longer afraid. I was happy that her fear was gone and grateful for the two things she had taught me: that dogs need to have a special person, and that when you first meet a dog, you should always sniff it in the butt.
Maggie Rose kept petting me, so I stayed in her lap, growing sleepier and sleepier.
“Going to take Lily back to her mom?” Amelia asked.
Maggie Rose didn’t move.
“Maggie Rose? What’s wrong, sweetie? Why do you have that expression?”
“I want her to be mine,” my girl said, looking up at Amelia. “My own dog.”
Amelia sighed. “Maggie Rose,” she said gently. “We can’t do that. We’re a rescue organization. We save animals and find homes for them. We don’t keep the animals ourselves. And there are all kinds of good reasons for that.”
My girl held me close to her face. I was limp with sleepiness and didn’t stir in her hands.
“It will work, Lily,” Maggie Rose whispered to me. “I’ll find a way for you to be my dog. I promise.”
My girl carried me back to my kennel, but instead of putting me down so that my brothers could jump all over me, she carried me inside, shut the gate, and sat down with crossed legs on the floor. I curled up again in her lap and had a nice snooze there. I sort of knew that my brothers kept trying to hoist themselves over her knees and on top of me, but Maggie Rose kept them off. After a while, they stopped trying, and I supposed they were sleeping as well.
When I woke up, it was because I heard a door slam shut.
“Hi, Chelsea!” Amelia called out from somewhere else in the building. “Maggie Rose is back in the dog kennels.”
I stretched and yawned in my girl’s lap as the tall woman I’d seen before came down the row of pen
s, followed by Amelia. I remembered that Maggie Rose called the tall woman Mom.
My brothers were still all asleep, cuddled up against our mother.
“Time to say good-bye to the puppies,” Mom told Maggie Rose. “The boys are waiting in the car. We need to go.”
Maggie Rose didn’t stir. She put her hands around me. It reminded me of the way my mother would curl her body around mine while I slept.
“I want to keep Lily,” my girl declared. Her voice was soft. “I want to take her home with me.”
“Oh no,” Mom replied with a long sigh. “Maggie Rose, you know we can’t do that.”
Amelia had a sad smile on her face as she looked back and forth between Maggie Rose and Mom.
“I’ll take care of her,” Maggie Rose insisted. “She’ll be my dog. I’ll do all the work.”
Mom sighed again, shaking her head. “For the summer, I’m sure you would. What about when you go to school in the fall? And I’m at work here? Who’s going to look after Lily then?”
“I’ll feed her and keep her clean and do everything before and after school.” Maggie Rose gazed up at Mom imploringly. “Can’t she come here with you? While you’re working?” she asked.
Amelia looked at Mom. Mom looked at Amelia. I looked at them both.
“Listen, Maggie Rose,” Mom said. “When someone who works in rescue takes an animal home and adopts it, it’s called a foster failure. It sounds like a good thing, giving an animal a home, but it’s not. Once someone has a pet, they usually stop fostering new animals. It’s a big problem for a shelter like ours. So one of the first things I did when I started working here was to make a strict rule. Staff and volunteers can’t adopt any animals from this shelter at all. It’s better that way, believe me. Better for the animals and for us.”
Puppy Tales 07 - Lily's Story Page 2