Puppy Paws

Wherever We Are

The humans walk solemnly down the room, stopping at each cage with a dog in it. The roar of the dogs dies down to a few whimpers. I frantically yip at Mama.
"Go to the back of your cage! Humans are coming!"
Rogo and Carazo scooch to the very back of their containers. I do too. I can only hope the others are doing the same. There are a lot of dogs at the end of the room where the humans are. I know because at almost every cage, the humans stop and look inside. As they make their way down the room, the number of looked at cages dwindles. They must have put us all far away from the other dogs because we came from the woods. Finally, the humans reach Mama, the closest to them. One of them kneels down on his legs to peer into her cage. I can't tear my eyes away. I hear a low growl. It's Mama's growl. Yes, I think. You show them, Mama. The human on the ground stands up and says something to the others. They leave Mama and go to a cage below Carazo. The first human peeks through the bars. I can't see what's going on after that because of my cage, but I hear a low growl and a loud bark. Larry may be sleepy but he's not a coward. The human murmurs to the others and they nod. Then he stands on his tiptoes to look into Carazo's cage. Carazo doesn't do anything, much to my shock. I can clearly see the humans face as it peers into Carazo's cage right next to me. It's serious, very serious. His eyes are cold and hard, much like the cages.
When it's my turn to be inspected, I stay hunched up in the far corner of the cage. The human looks at me. His eyes drift over my body and face. One hand grips the bars. The human's other hand starts to drift into the cage through the bars and I growl loudly and back up even further, curling into a ball. The human sighs and turns away.
After we have all been looked at, the humans walk swiftly out of the long room. The door slams shut behind them.
The racket starts up again. One dog's voice rises above the others.
"I want out! I want out! I need food!" the dog howls.
I take a shaky breath and uncurl. I make my way to the front of the cage, stretching my stiff legs, and look out. Rogo is peeking out of his cage too.
"I need to run around," I say to him.
"I'm hungry," he says back.
"I'm thirsty," I realize, licking my dry nose.
"I need to pee," states Rogo.
"I need to go home," declares Carazo. I look over at him in surprise. His head is up.
"Hey," I say. "You're up."
"Wow!" yips Skitter. "This place is awful! I hate it! Wow!"
"I'm so sorry," I say to Carazo, hanging my head. "This is all my fault."
"We've never been in this situation, but we can get out of it. It's not your fault, Paws. It really isn't."
"Do they feed us here?" Larry asks.
"Why don't we ask the other dogs?" suggests Alice. I nod. I haven't really thought about them at all.
"Mama," I bark down at her. She comes to the front of her cage. "Can you ask the other dogs if they feed us or let us out here?"
She nods.
"Excuse me," she says, directing her head at a cage on the ground diagonal from her. "Excuse me?"
There is no answer.
"Hey!" she barks forcefully. Apparently the dog in that cage looks up because Mama says, "Do the humans here feed us or let us out to do our business?"
There is a low rumble.
"Oh, ok," says Mama. She turns her head back to look up at me.
"We get let out twice a day for a little while, and fed and watered once. There's a bulldog in there."
I report it back to the Carazo and the message relays from dog to dog. A new hope of being let out to see each other settles in my head. The noise of the dogs melts into the background and I lay down to sleep on the cold bottom of the cage. I have nightmares about the humans finding us in the den with flashing lights and darts. The slam of a door jolts me awake. I blink sleepily, looking for Mama's side to cuddle up to. My nose presses against a cold, thin, straight rod. I jerk my head up. I'm pushed against the side of the cage, intertwined with the bars. I hear footsteps echo on the ground. The humans are coming. To let us out? I get to my paws. My fur is matted from lying on it in the cage, so I shake. The clanging of cages sounds from down the long room and I pad to the front of the cage to stick my nose between the bars. The humans are bent over near the door. One of them stands up with a cage in its hand. In the cage is a dog. The human leaves the room with the dog and comes back a few seconds later empty handed. This keeps happening until they reach Mama. One of them slides her cage out. She's hunched in the corner of it, her once glossy coat rumpled and dirty. She gives me a nervous stare as she is carried down the room and out the door. I whimper, my heart thudding. One by one, we are taken. I am the last one to go. A human with big, dark, cloth hands grabs the top of my cage. I swing around in the human's grip as it carried me down the room. Only empty cages are left on the walls. The human opens the door. We are in a large open room with humans sitting on benches around it. The humans turn their pale faces to look at me as the human carrying my cage silently walks to a big door at the end of the room. That door opens into the cold day and the sun, low in the sky and peeking through the bars of the cage doesn't give off much warmth. I shiver and whine a little. The human turns right. The building we came out of is red and brown. It's small. I don't see the woods anywhere, instead we are surrounded by smaller colorful buildings close together. Finally the cage stops swinging and the human fiddles with a gate in front of it. The gate opens and we head into a small fenced-in grassy space right next to the building. I see cages stacked up in a corner of it, with humans milling around. The human closest to me shouts something, and finally, finally, my cage opens! I jump out, feeling the sparse grass beneath my feet. The snow hasn't reached here, I guess, because all there is is a little frost. The other cages open and the dogs pour out, barking in joy. I rush over and look for Mama and everybody else in the pack.
"Mama!" I bark frantically.
"Paws!" I hear her voice call out through the mess of dogs. Then I see her. We rush toward each other and rub noses. I bury my head in her scruff.
"I missed you!" I say. My voice is muffled by her fur.
"I missed you too," she murmurs.
I feel a tap on the rump and turn around. The rest of the dogs are there with Alice in the front. We bark and whine and cuddle and yip and wag and sniff, so much that for a second I forget that we are captives. The smell of this place, wherever we are, is musty and dirty. It smells like dog pee and poop and a human's tangy scent.
Wherever we are, it smells bad.
Wherever we are, it's not wild like the clearing or even cozy like Jamie's home. It's dirty and cagey and disgusting and frustrating.
I hate it.