White Cloud

23- Is This Crazy?

"His name is Virgo," Jayda tells as once we're at the animal shelter that weekend. "He's my favorite."

"Why is he here?" Dylan asks curiously. Jayda opens the chain link cage door and slides into the cage. The cages are too small for all of us to fit in so she goes in alone and we all stand in the hallway of the dog cages as she greets the large German Sheppard-looking mutt of a dog. He's very excited to see Jayda and she looks happy to see him too which is good since we're only here to make Jayda feel better about her crappy week.

"He was part of a hoarding raid," She explains to us as she pets the dog's head. "It was a nasty one too, but now he's really old so he probably won't get adopted. Not anytime soon anyway. It's a no-kill shelter so if anything, he'll just chill here for a while."

"He's gorgeous," Jane, Chuck's girlfriend who I've only met one time before, compliments the dog. The hallway is pretty cramped with me, Vincent, Dylan, Chuck, and Jane standing there so I start walking down the hallway area to look at all of the other dogs that are stuck here at the shelter and Vincent follows me.

"Did your dogs come from a shelter?" Vincent asks me. I see a large pit bull sleeping in his dog bed a few cages away from Virgo and the name tag on the cage reads Emmy as her name. I do love pit bulls.

"I don't think so," I say. "I don't really know where they came from, my parents just brought them home one day. I can't imagine how anybody could give up a dog like this, they're so perfect and cute."

"People can be really shitty sometimes," He reminds me, walking farther down the row of cages. When he stands in front of the next cage, the dog in there starts barking. It's a really high pitched bark so the dog must be pretty small.

"Yeah, I know. I just wish that I could adopt them all and give them the love that they deserve," I explain with a sad sigh. I do love dogs a whole lot but seeing them in cages like this is just really sad. It cheers Jayda up though, to be with these dogs that she volunteers with a lot. With her fight with Gavin and the run in with the cops at the protest, she really needs a picker upper and this is it.

After we leave the shelter, we're planning to go to the pier. The one that I had my first date with Vincent at so that'll be fun too, hopefully. I know that Jayda doesn't really like being outdoors but I'm hoping that being at the pier will be fun for her. For Vincent and I, it'll be a good reminder of that great night that we had together not too long ago.

For now though, Jayda just wants to spend some time with her dogs so we all just kind of walk around the shelter and pet the dogs and rabbits and the cats that they have in the cat room which is exactly what it sounds like. They have a big open room full of cat beds, cat toys, food and water dishes, and cats. They all roam freely in the room and people just go in there and play with all of the cats. There are some cats in cages, the sick ones or the mean ones, but there's at least fifteen cats in the open room to play with, even some kittens.

"So I've been thinking," I start out when it's just Vincent and I in the cat room. Vincent has made friends with a kitten who likes to chase a feather and bell combination that's stuck to the end of a stick. I sit beside Vincent while he plays with the kitten and pet a lazier cat who's just sitting in a cat bed enjoying being petted.

"Yeah? Good thinking or bad thinking?" He asks, still focusing on his new cat friend.

"Just thinking," I can't decide if it's good or bad. "I mean, when I had dinner with my parents, I dropped two pretty big bombs on them at once and I think that my mom is sort of malfunctioning about this modeling thing. She's still convinced that I'll start missing it and I'll change my mind."