early days

I don’t remember much about my early puppy days. It was three years ago, but sometimes it feels like three hundred. Mostly I recall fighting with my sibs for the primo meal spot. Lots of squirming and squeaking. Everything soft and milk-smelling and movable. Like we were one great big complicated animal.

I never met my dad, and my mom didn’t say much about him, except that he was trouble. Mom had a beautiful fawn coat. Chihuahua, some this, some that. Nice messy bloodline.

Mutts rule.

Mom crooned to us. Told us stories. Laid down the law.

I wonder if she knew she didn’t have much time to prepare us for the world.

We were born in a dark place. Probably under some porch stairs, I suspect, since I remember the sound of boots plodding up and down, the biting and ugly smell of human feet.

They called my mom Reo. And they fed her most days, though sometimes she had to fend for herself.

She never showed fear toward them, or respect. Indifference, I guess you’d say. Unless they tried to handle one of us. She growled then, hoping to make it clear that we were hers and hers alone.

I myself got picked up a couple times. The hands reached in, grabbed. They were rough and smelled of strange scents, bitter and meaty.

My mom’s growl made me fearless, and I wriggled and yipped. The hands shoved me back to the warm place, where I could sleep and drink and dream in safety.

Still, I understood, in my simple puppy way, that dogs belonged to humans, and that was how it would always be.

boss

My mom wasn’t much for names. She’d had a lot of litters. I guess she’d run out of ideas.

My brother “First” was, natch, the firstborn. “Runt,” my youngest bro, was the last. “Dot” had a little spot on her back, and “Yip” was always complaining. I was “Rowdy.” Goes without saying. And that left my oldest sister. We all called her “Boss.”

Boss was small but mean, with a distinctive sharp-sounding bark. She could outmaneuver any of us to the best spot for dining.

I admired her grit. Even if she did get on my nerves.

When we got a bit older, less blind, more cocky, I fought her off occasionally. But mostly Boss won. She was fearless, that pup.

alone

The truck happened without warning one night. They threw us in a box, left my mom behind. I can still hear her frantic howls.

I landed in a muddy ditch. It was a cloudy night, nearly freezing. Even the moon had abandoned me.

And the smells! Everything so wild and unknown. Animals with big jaws and bigger appetites. Birds that swooped in to kill. Death and life all mixed up together.

I searched for my siblings until the truth became clear: