Patch's Adventures in Puppy School

chapter 4: Shelter 17

The truck stopped after what felt like an eternity and they were all let go. The human men were talking and looked to Patch before they let him go. There was an older male dog who had a red studded collar and was taking a nap as another day went by and he hadn't been adopted.

"Oh, put him in with that mutt," The owner of the shelter said pointing to the older male dog. "He's not been adopted, he can keep the pup company while you take those other dogs to one of the other shelters."

The dog-catcher gave Patch to a fat man that worked at the shelter, his name was Olaf. He then brought Patch over to the older male dog. Patch sighed as he tried to get comfortable and he felt very miserable. This had to be the worst day of his life.

"Hey kid," the older dog seemed awake now and greeted him. "Feeling a little down in the muzzle?"

"*Sighs* You don't know the half of it," Patch said. "This day has just not been the happiest day for me."

"Ah, it's not so bad," the older dog coaxed. "Welcome to Shelter 17 though, the best pet shelter there is. They call me Lucky by the way, on account of my great good fortune."

"I have a brother named Lucky..." Patch said. "Amber named him that because he almost died at birth, but her uncle revived him... He also has a horse shoe spot on his back..."

"Well, your brother sounds like the adventurous one," Lucky chuckled. "And what do they call you?"

"M-My name is Patch," the Dalmatian puppy said, hoping that the word hadn't been spread about what happened and lucky for him, the news of what happened hadn't been spread to the dogs and hopefully not to any of the other animals. "And by the way, what makes this pet shelter the best? It looks exactly like every other pet shelter." he said, looking around to see if he could find the reason why this shelter was said to be the best.

"That's 'cuz you're only seeing it from the topside." Lucky informed him.

Patch looked curious. "Topside?" he asked. "Um... What's the other side then?"

"Funny you should ask..." Lucky said before giving a whistle to the other dogs in the shelter.

They other dogs tugged on certain things to make it look like they were there while they were going down secret passageways, unbeknownst to the humans.

"What on Earth!?" Patch flipped out.

"After you." Lucky gestured his paw to a hole in the ground.

"Um, okay." Patch said before looking down the hole to see where it would lead and then jumped down the hole.

When Patch ended up underground, he saw various dogs together and looking actually happy to be living in the pound. There were boxes filled with baseballs, sticks, fire hydrants, and bones.

Lucky came down and decided to show Patch around. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"You got that right," Patch said, amazed with how everything looked. He then noticed there was a dog with a headset, then looked back up to the older dog. "You guys can talk to humans too?"

"Well, only when they don't know it," Lucky replied. "And only when absolutely necessary."

"Wait, you're the Pound Puppies! I thought you guys were just a legend." Patch said out of amazement, which meant that he was at where he was going anyways.

"Oh, no, we're real all right," Lucky assured him with a smile. "If a dog needs a home, we're the guys to find him one... No matter how much the humans mess things up."

Patch smiled and went to follow this dog, feeling a fatherly bond with him, but accidentally ran into a female boxer, who made him fall back down. "Oh... I-I'm so sorry... Excuse me."