A Dog's Life: Part III

The woman in blue was opening drawers and laying things on a counter, when another woman, this one wearing a white smock, bustled into the room.

The woman in blue was opening drawers and laying things on a counter, when another woman, this one wearing a white smock, bustled into the room.

She’s been in a few fights, and I can see an old fracture on her right shoulder, which healed up pretty well on its own.

Also, she has fleas and quite a bit of tartar on her teeth.

I don’t remember when any of this happened, only that eventually I woke up in my cage feeling very groggy and with a huge pain in my leg.

The next time I woke up I felt a little better, and soon Dr. Roth was coaxing me out of my cage and encouraging me to walk across the room.

I was wearing a huge plastic collar around my neck and there was some sort of heavy contraption on my leg, but I couldn’t see what it was.

“Good girl! Good girl!” Rachael and Dr. Roth said as I hobbled and slid across the linoleum floor.

“Good girl! Good girl!” Rachael and Dr. Roth said as I hobbled and slid across the linoleum floor.

Rachael opened my cage and I stepped out onto the floor and scrabbled across it.

The barn swallow parents had built their muddy nests in the eaves and each pair was raising four babies.

I looked above me and saw that one branch of a maple had turned a brilliant color that I think may have been red, although red is another color I can’t distinguish.

Then I sauntered back to the garage for supper.

After that, the Beckers forgot my food more often than they remembered it, and I was glad of my hunting skills. When my dish was left empty, I scoured the woods.

In the evening, I looked for the lawn chair and discovered that it was no longer on the Beckers’ terrace.

I wandered through woods and fields and along highways and around the outskirts of towns.

The wind became blustery and the air frosty, but no snow fell, and I was able to find food.

They were fighting one another over an old carcass, leathery now, with no meat left on it. But they fought as if it was a fresh kill.

On the morning after the first night a man saw me and set out dishes of water and kibble and tried to coax me inside, but I was wary.

I slept in a niche between the logs and the shed wall.

I was standing motionless a little distance from the tree, one paw raised, ready to dash forward, pounce, and surprise the squirrels, when BAM! I heard a noise so loud it seemed to jolt my body.

The light inside was dim and the dank air smelled of hay and manure and grain.

I came upon a pile of old vegetables and coffee grinds and eggshells. It wasn’t exactly like the Merrions’ garbage heap, but it was all right. I learned later that it was called a compost heap.

I could barely lift my nose from the ground. But when I did, I saw an expanse of cars, and a line of buildings with people coming and going, and some lampposts, and then a lamppost on a bit of grass with a tree nearby.

I was an old dog with black fur beginning to turn white, a filmy eye, bad hearing in one ear, and very achy bones in the shoulder and leg I had broken when I was young.