Elijah

Chapter one:

Hi. My name is Elijah. Now I know this is probably going to seem like it's every other story about a dog and their life on this earth. However, in my opinion at least mine has been pretty special. I was born in Queensville, ON. My family was the Brookes, and they own a 97 acre farm. Up until I was born, they were breeders. They gave dozens of families the perfect additions to their homes. That all stopped after my parents had my litter. There were seven of us. The oldest was my brother, Romeo, the 5 middle pups were all girls named Olive, Rose, Delilah, Daisy and Zina. Then of course there was me, little Elijah. The smallest one. Always fighting to latch onto mom and being the last one to open my eyes.

You're probably wondering why the Brookes stopped breeding. Both my parents were getting to be older and my mom was getting tired of having babies. My dad was going to be sold to another breeder nearby who needed a stud, as he was still a couple years younger than my mom. Six weeks had passed now since I had been born. I was now in a new space. It smelled funny. It was much smaller than the big red building I was staying in. It was much cleaner too. The floors were so slippery I could barely keep my balance. They put me and my siblings into this weird white metal thing. It was made of all these weird white lines, crisscrossing either way and I couldn't see too clearly through the little gaps. All of a sudden there were tons of new smells around me again. It was loud, and there were a bunch of people I had never seen before looking down at me and my siblings. My brother was picked up by this strange looking lady. She was wearing all pink and had a very loud voice. "He's absolutely adorable." One by one each of my siblings kept getting picked up by all these strangers. I stayed on the ground. I was confused as to why I was the only one not being picked.

A few hours went by and everyone had left. Mr. Brookes kept saying the word "adopted". He said it about every last one of my siblings, but I never heard my name. "I hope we're not too late!" The front screen door swung open. More people, more strange smells. I curled up in the corner of the cage and snuggled up with my mom. Suddenly I heard a voice. It was a lot softer and higher pitched that most of the ones I had heard that day. My little ears flung backwards. I slowly picked up my head and turned it to the back. That was when I saw her. This was the smallest human I had seen, at least compared to the two others standing on either side of her, and all the others I had met that day. I walked over to her. She put one of her little fingers in one of the holes of the cage. I started to sniff her. She smelt good. Her skin was so soft. I began to place little kisses on the tip of her index finger. It must've tickled because she started to laugh. "I want this one mom." I had finally been picked.

Two weeks had gone past. I was eight weeks old now. Each day, I watched all of my siblings get taken home by their new families. I was the last one to go. I sat outside with my mom and Mr. Brookes. I hard the sound of gravel being squished underneath big tires. Mr. Brookes owned a tractor and I would always hear him every morning going out back to the corn field they had. That's when I saw a big red truck pull up to the front steps. It was Emily. She came running up the stairs straight to me. My little tail started wagging so much, my legs could barely keep me standing. Emily picked me up and told me how much she missed me. I placed a bunch of kisses all over her face. Her dad, John walked up behind her and gave me a scratch behind the ear. "Hey little fella. You ready to come home?" I had no clue what he was talking about but everyone was so excited so I was too. Her mom, Amelia came up and walked around to Emily's side. "This is for you little one." It was a blue circle. She put it around my neck and said, "This is your new collar buddy." I had never had one of these before. It tickled a little bit at first and felt kind of tight. It had a small piece of metalon the front. It was a bit cold, but it had my name in bold letters. Emily gave me a kiss on the head and put me back down on the porch to say goodbye to my mom. I nibbled on her chin a little bit. Mr. Brookes then picked me up. "You're going to have a wonderful life big guy." He always called me that. Probably to make me feel better about being so tiny. I was going to miss this place. It was huge and quiet and familiar, but I was so excited to see what my new life with my new family was going to be like.