Puppy Paws

Taken

After our outside time and food we are taken back inside. As I pad around my cage, bored out of my mind, I notice that the room is oddly quiet. It is bright and cold and silent. Carazo is sleeping in the cage next to me and Rogo is dozing too. I give a frustrated sigh. Secretly I wonder if the rest of the pack has given up hope of being free dogs again.
Suddenly a noise outside of the door breaks through the eerie quiet. A big, rattling, stomping sound like a lot of humans walking and talking. The noise in our room starts up again, barking and yipping and whining and scratching. The door to the room swings open and strange humans pour in. I poke my nose through the bars in my cage. Why did the different humans come back? Didn't they leave before we went out this morning? This place is confusing. Carazo stirs in his cage and gets to his paws.
"More humans?" he says to me with a disapproving grunt.
"I don't know what they're back here for!" I exclaim, shaking my fur out. Just a little while since I've been outside to stretch and I'm already getting stiff.
The humans spread out in the room until the cage before Mama. I wonder why they aren't down here. The rushing noise of the humans soothes me somehow, and I yawn and lie down for a rest.
After a while I hear the door open again and I glance up from my doze. There are less humans sprinkled around the room. A white coated human is strolling through the door. Maybe he will make the other humans leave like last time. I watch with interest.
"Visiting hours are almost over, please start to make your way to the exit," the white coat says in a loud voice. "If you are interested in adoption come see me at the front desk."
Adoption? What is adoption?
The humans file out and soon the room is quiet again. I turn to face Rogo in the cage across from me.
"Adoption?" I ask.
"I don't know what that is either," answers Rogo.
I sigh. I hate being clueless.
The peace in the room is only for a little while. Soon, a white coated human walks back in with a different human, one that I recognize as the one who stayed late before we went out. The one who crouched in front of the cage with the happy dog. They stand in the room for a while, talking. Finally, just as I'm about to give up on anything exciting happening, the white coat heads to the left wall of cages. The other human shakes his head. The white coat runs down the line of left wall cages until Mama, where he turns to face the right wall. Then he walks down that wall. He stops at a cage on the bottom. The other human says something and the white coat fumbles around for a little while before finally sliding the cage out of the line up. The dog inside barks a little. The white coat reaches inside its clothing and pulls something out, and to my shock, opens the cage door! The dog rushes out but before she can get far the white coat attaches a rope to her neck. She whines and the other human who has been standing there the whole time says something soothing. I've never seen a dog out in the long room before. This is strange. The white coat hands the rope to the other human and they walk with the dog to the door. She flashes one happy look back at the rest of us before they disappear out the door.
What?
A dog is gone. Taken by a human. And she seemed excited.
The noise in the room is deafening. I guess the other dogs are shaken up too.
Finally one dog speaks up out of the roar.
"Quiet down, guys. It's happened before."
I am confused. It's happened before?
"What has?" I find myself asking. There are a few murmurs, and then the dog talks again.
"A human or a few of them together come in here and pick a dog to take with them," says the dog ... almost wistfully, I think. "We all hope to be picked someday."
So that's what that event was! A dog being taken by a human, and it had happened before.
Like I was taken to "Master."
I suddenly feel sick.
What if one of the pack is chosen?
What if we are separated?