Angel Dog

2 🐾 Freedom

"You've got it. Just lift up your paw and-"

"I'm trying!" Gypsy whined. She'd been trying for nearly an hour. She was at her witt's end, and didn't have her heart in the hope that this would work any longer.

Then, after lifting one of her toes instead of the whole paw, she saw the U-lock of the kennel door flip upward. The door swung free.

Gypsy dropped back onto all fours, her shoulder-muscles burning. With a profound excitement, she shook off the pain and slipped through the kennel door.

It was weird not to have shiny mesh wires in front of her eyes. However, they quickly adjusted. The dog wagged it's tail. Her first impulse was to make it outside. She hadn't been outside in a few days.

Forgetting her water bowl, her food bowl her kennel even Ace- the white Pitbull mix wagged her way over to the only window.

There was no light emitting from it because it was dark outside. Gypsy could see the reflection of the table lamp shining on the glass panel.

"How do I open this?" The she-dog asked, and the man tried to take a few steps towards the window.

His footsteps took him nowhere. He stayed stuck in place, like walking on a treadmill.

"Shoot, I can't walk. Umm..." The middle-aged man searched his pockets with a pat.

"Oh, don't have a phone either. 'Cause I'm dead. I think. Maybe?" He shook his head, and the white Pittie once again thought it was weird how the nameless human could speak dog.

"Well, I'm not having a vision about the window. But, by looking at it I'd say it's your typical push-and-open kind of basement window. It looks unlocked. All you need to do is push your weight against the bottom half of it, an-"

Gypsy didn't need to be told anymore. She climbed atop a wooden chair to then reach the filing cabinet below the window. Impatiently, she shoved her shoulder and head against the window pane's lower half. It was a slow turn, but the window shifted gradually, moving faster and throwing the white she-dog off-balance.

She tumbled through the slab of an opening , bumping her outstretched hips along the way. As Gypsy inhaled the scent of fresh grass and wet, peaty earth she forgot all about her grazed hips.

Ghost was calling to her through the window. His voice was faint now that he was behind the thin opening. "-still can't walk! I'll try to have a vision about, it, though," The man yelled mischievously. Briefly Gypsy wondered if this all really was a sly trick of the human's witts. But then, she was outside now... and he wasn't.

Outside. The sacred world of a dog... if they were lucky enough to spend more time there than away from it.

Of course Gypsy hadn't. She was three years old. She had lived nearly her whole life in either a shelter or a home.

Though she wasn't an old dog by any means, she was not young enough to still be in the "boundlessly optimistic" stage of canine life. Her ears flicked to and fro as she listened to the crickets. Naturally, Gypsy had a new and wild instinct flow into her mind. But she was calm throughout. Her eyes surveyed the bushes, a few scattered trees and dark buildings laid out before her.

Run. Just run far away from here... It'll be fun! She reminded herself she wasn't a puppy, but stamped her feet and took off with a wagging tail anyways.

Gypsy kept running into the night until she could hardly breathe. She passed factory buildings and skirted dirt roads, trekked through a farm property and into the edges of a rural town. At one point she found a stream and drank eagerly from it.