I was surprised when Darling dropped me half of her toast. I was even more surprised that it was sweet with berry jam and fluffy in the centre. We never got passed the good bits off their human bowls. Angel was quite envious of me when I told her later as we followed Darling around the house as the busy human dusted stills and fluffed up pillows. But we are good friends and soon forgot the injustice of the toast in favour of chasing each other's tail around the sitting room.
Jim Dear had been out during the early morning with a full kit of cardboard and brushes, in the front garden, kneeling down into the dewy grass that sparkled in the newborn Sun. He spread paint around and formed human scratches. Father and I stretched out on the paved path and watched the man go about his work.
"This is sniffing up to be," father said "a swapping of masters." I tilted by silky head; what did he mean? Before I could ask, Father gave me a thoughtful look and tapped off back into our home. To find Mother I guess, she would probably be basking in the sunlight coming through the window in the dining room. That's where she usually spends her mornings.
Jim Dear nailed his work to our picket fence, and hollered for his pack to come. Darling and Baby managed their way out of the house, through the gate and onto the sidewalk. They stood back and looked at the sign in wonder. I worried about humans sometimes. They were now comforting Baby who was tearing up in awe of the cardboard that had been painted with human scratches.
I felt Scamp rush up beside me, his lively pink tongue lolled right out the side of his chomps, and his breathe gushed in and out.
"Annette! Did you notice what was in our bowels?" I farrowed my brows and noticed for the first time that the Angel and Danielle, who had been sniffing the night smells of raccoons and owls, had folded inside, a last glimpse of tail disappearing as I scanned over.
"Bones, bones, you're going to be left out!" Now he was off, clawed up blades of grass flying in his wake and I pounced up after him, howling 'wacko!'. Even as we minced up the lawn and sprang across the house's wooden deck, my brother still barked.
"…A great cow hoof and two pig ears, plenty of bloody meat still stuck onto them…"
Left, right, ahead of you, we reached the laundry were our beds and dishes lived. My pack was not a greedy haunt; I did not worry about being left the gritty dabs. They had nosed the bones out equally, everyone getting a great pile.
It was a fair way to start the day. You'd think we were professional bone carvers, the way we went about concentrating on the task. Collette's pampered coat was becoming stained, but she took no mind, she just drew her lips back even more as she slowly sanded away at a dried ear. Father broke away from his thick hip joint to mutter his daughter some advice in how to better chew down on the thin, flat piece of stiff cartilage.
Angel and Scamp where sharing a large bone, cutting away at the fatty meat that grouped around it with their fangs. Danielle was nearly choking on her hoof; she clamped it between her claws and was slowly breaking it apart. I watched Mother over my own bone; she seemed to be distant despite the excitement. Perhaps it was because of what Father had gone to tell her.
Scamp must have heard Jim Dear's clomping shoes, because he was watching the door expectantly before Jim Dear appeared, shadow casting, coat fluttering and all that man managed to do without realising his impressiveness. The Master scooped up the spare bones, my there was a lot, and took them away with him. A lot of us were curious as to what was going on, or didn't want the bounty to be taken out of our sights, so Father, Daniele and Collette gathered their bones up in their lips and padded after Jim Dear. I stayed behind with Angel, Scamp and Mother.
It wasn't long before Mother ambled away in her daze and lost in thought, and it wasn't too long after that in which I started to feel uncomfortable about staying. Angel and Scamp had started to laugh together and lick the blood of one another's muzzles. I didn't have enough education to know what it was exactly, but I could understand that this wasn't a game which you liked others to watch you play.
I set out with the thought of burying my new bone alongside my other, mangled and dithering, one. I glanced back with fright when I heard Angel scream, to see the two frolicking, pinning each other down and rolling about. I quickly shook my head to dislodge the scene and started my way out to the front.
I could smell the trail that the bundle of bones had left about the air which they had passed through. I realised that Jim Dear had been taking them outside, and hurried my pace in curiosity. As I jumped through the flap and out into the summer morning, I was greeted my Baby and Darling, who were having Breakfast outside on the deck.
I could smell the salty streaks that Baby's tears had left on his cheeks, and paused in a moment of concern. But Darling was rocking the child in her lap, he was her pup, I didn't need to drop my bone. Besides, I trotted on down the stairs, Baby was having a privileged morning just like us; I could smell the sugar from the treats that were on the table and the tang of fried egg, these were all Baby's favourite foods.
I saw the rest of the pack and Jim Dear over near the thin cage of yesterday. I didn't diverge from my route, and continued across the springy and lush lawn to the dense garden. Disappearing under the foliage I searched out my hiding spot. Searching and digging kept my blood cool, it eased the itch which I slept and woke with. I could recognise all the smells, their owners and meanings puckered at me and I sneezed back at them. I loved to smell. I loved to find and notice. I loved to feel the easy, giving leaf littered floor split open for me. Mother always said that I was more attuned than the other pups to the stink of the world.
The garden and house were one thing to sniff about in, one exhilarating thing. But what the wind carried from where it had flew from and what the walks held, those unknown smells like that were deeper into the mysteries then I knew. There was work for me. To a curious pup like me, those glints seemed like the whole bloody universe.
I was drawn out of my concealed world by the barks of my Father. A sheepdog was walking with his owner along our fence. When Mother barked to a passing dog, she was most pleasing.
"Why good day, what a lovely smelling owner you have there." But Father, it's as if he is convinced that every dog is plotting to take his home.
"Get out of here, don't you get any funny ideas, these teeth aren't just for talking."
I yawned and watch Father go about his Alpha duty, chest out, back straight, tail up, teeth barred. None of us pups cared much, Father scoffed at us for that. You kids live the good life, he says, you don't understand the way the dog world works. He goes on to say, it's a dog eat dog world, out there.
I ask him though, why does he let our neighbours, Trusty and Jock come into our garden and walk beside our fence. No one growls at them and reminds them to know that this is not their pack's territory. In fact, Mother was over their now, talking to them through the gaps in the fence posts.
I heave a sigh and shove the thoughts aside. Another time, none of this was important, and as far as I knew, none of it was real. We all have good homes and gardens, why would a dog fight and tear your muscles over such a granted thing?
I came over to the others, who were lying some meters away from the cage of yesterday, I could see the bones beside the cage and, fully intending on finding myself one with a lot of meat still on it, started over to the collection. But I pulled short in surprise when I realise that the bones are inside the cage where I can't get them. I sat down and thought about this problem, and Jim Dear seems to understand somehow what I wanted.
He scoops me up, lifts me over and puts me down inside the cage with the bones. But not before he removes my collar.
I see my Mother go cold from over across the yard, my Father barks softly as if he had been meaning to warm me about the fingers that were chewing away at my collar, but had been too slow. I hunker down in the grass to begin with, no sure what to do or feel. My neck feels so empty and undressed without my proof of being loved.
Insecurity is won over in the end, by the bones and denial. Bloody and grainy and my mouth is watering bones. Everything is perfect, Jim Dear is perfect, and life has always been perfect denial.
The badness in my gut eases as family joins me; amongst the bones we ignore our lack of license. Angel and Scamp have matching blue ribbons though, and something about that makes me think that maybe they are fixing our collars. Because surly they would get tired? The head biting down on the tail so that it won't slip over our ears, their teeth must have worn out of gums gotten sore.
We are lost in the bones and the feeling of each other's fur threaded in amongst our own coats, because this cage is small and we are quite a few. I glance up through me lashes and see Mother and Father watching us worriedly through the tiny bars. Darling threads her fingers through our parent's collars and then are tied up on chains across the yard. They are baying and trying to tell us something, but I can't hear.
I notice it now, it's only us puppies. Maybe we're getting our adult collars? A strike of wonder races up my spine. I couldn't possibly be grown enough, but yet at the same time…
Then other people come, humans, like all the others have been before them. I am still hanging onto the idea of our collars being changed; we are all still thinking up excuses, I am still spawning reasons in my mind. Even when Collette is lifted up into unfamiliar arms, even when she is carried from us, even when the gate is shut between us, even when she disappears from sight, we still are in forswearing.
Then Scamp and Angel, together, like their ribbons suggested. Now it's Danielle and I, now we are starting to wonder bad things. She stares at me in shock as she is chosen next, by a man with hands that look to have been worn down every day and then grown back tougher every night.
She goes and somehow, somehow I just squeak out an I'll find you promise before she gone as well.
And I'm left, and its dark now and the bones are filthy now, filthy with confusion and denial.
Mother and Father tell me all they had figured out, and it makes sense, painful sense. Painful because I never ever suspected, because Collette, the first to go, must think it was just her. Painful because Scamp and Angel are now gone, gone, gone. Painful because the only one that realised she wasn't coming back, Danielle, painful because the look on her face as she drifted away. Painful because it's just me and two lumbering parents, who are like bricks in the background to me down, because I've changed to tunnel vision and can't see outside my own horror at just what had happened.
Painful, because the next day, the sign was changed from "Pups for $25" to "Free Pup"; not that I could know, of course.
Painful because the old lady who eventual took me, probably coming across me on her way to buy some eggs at the market and thought "a puppy would be nice." As if I am just a carton of milk, just a nice change in the furniture, just a thing. Painful because her hands were cold and weak, heart beating a dangerous new tune to me and smelling of horrid, horrid smells.
Painful because when I looked back from where I was in the ladies trolley, my home, my territory, my pack, my birthplace, my world… it looked so unaffected, it disappeared and folded into the other houses around it so easily.
The only way I could tell it apart, was because it had two howling dogs sitting inside its gate.
People, masters, humans- what were they? A family was made up of dogs, never, never, never again, also of humans.