Canine Towards Humanity

CHAPTER 10

Rowan cowered into the cold corner of the alleyway. He wished he had just left those people alone at the water park. He promised in his mind, he would never mess with them again if he wasn't captured. Anything but that pound again.

Annie was driving throughout the city, hoping to find Rita Humane Society, when suddenly, two men wearing dark suits and grasping onto nets were huddled in a dark alleyway. She slowly creeped about to check out what was going on, when she noticed a dog. It looked timid and frightened, as if it was being chased by the men for no reason given. She quietly rolled her window down as she approached the men, still inside of her vehicle.

"Excuse me! That's my dog!" She tried to sound as convincing as possible.

"Ma'am.. are you sure this is your dog?" They questioned to Annie.

"Yes! Positive. His name is..."
Annie looked around to find anything relatively close to a name for the pup. She noticed a restaurant nearby, with the name of "LEO'S SUSHI".

"Leo. His name is Leo." Annie convincingly stated.
The two men glanced at each other, not sure what to respond with. They eventually peered over to Annie, wondering if she was being truthful with them.

"Hm... Okay. Here's your dog, ma'am. Have a nice day." They'd slowly trotted away, glaring back at Annie and Rowan, as if waiting for Annie to make any sudden movements.

Rowan stared into Annie's eyes. He had no clue what was going on.

Who is she? I'm not her dog. I belong to nobody.
Rowan thought to himself in disbelief.

He started to strut away, panting as heavily as could be. Annie pulled up to him in her car, only making him more terrified of cars and starting to skitter away.

"Wait! Leo... Come. It's okay."
Annie tried to explain to Rowan as soothingly as possible.

Rowan slowly greeted her with a sniff to her palm, searching for traits within her personality, what she ate that day, and any familiarity.

Hm. She doesn't work for that prison.. Maybe she's safe.

Rowan trustingly and hungrily barged his way into her vehicle through her open window, sniffing for any food crumbs. He found a singular goldfish cracker and a stale crumb of bread. He was grateful to find just those even.

"Woah, you're a bit outgoing." Annie chuckled. She had no idea why she'd done that. Who knows who Rowan truly belonged to. He could have rabies. He could be aggressive. He...

Maybe I'm overthinking this. I should accept this gift that God's given me... a dog. Not many people, at all, have a random dog start trusting them within seconds of meeting, to the point the pooch hops into their car as if they own the vehicle.

Annie rolled her windows up in fear of the new puppy jumping out of them, and she googled GPS directions to the nearest pet store. She found Petco, which was only 3.2 miles away, so she decided to stop there. She drove to Petco in a rushed manner, bringing her books on animal care that she'd rented from her library inside with her. She left Rowan in the car.

Mistakenly, she did.

Rowan did not like the feeling of the hot car, claustrophobia, being alone, no access to food or water, and wondering what had happened to that lady that, pretty much, dog-napped him. He started to scratch at her windows, leaving scratch-like marks along the sides of her doors. He chewed among the seats, one by one, as if they were pillows because of how soft they were. Rowan eventually started to chew on her car mirror, due to the hardness of it. He liked a hard surface to chew on, due to his teething urges.

When I was a human, teething habits never happened. Maybe as a baby, but this one will never go away.

Meanwhile, inside of the Petco, Annie was browsing the pet leashes. She had planned on bringing Rowan inside the store with her, but she needed a lead to attach him to, first. She didn't trust him not to run away if she had not carried a leash with her.

She decided on a blue and thick leash, seemingly because blue suited Rowan pretty well.

She proceeded up to the checkout cashier, scanning her dog leash up.

"$15.99, please."
The cashier told her.

$16?! What? That's a lot for one dog leash!

Annie, still, being the kind person she was, paid the amount and proceeded to check up on her latest pal, Rowan. Or, Leo.

"Leo, come on bud."

She noticed her vehicle was very chewed up, in that short of a time period.