I didn't last one day on the streets.
For a wild couple of hours I was running, searching the streets and coursing with the excitement that I might be able to find my way back home. I might be able to find Danielle as I had promised her. I was in the fur of a new dog; for just a moment during that flying morning. The laughter of god boomed at me from someplace across the alley way. A moment.
"Welcome to the pound." Some mutt said, nosing out a huge steel bowl of small biscuits. The cage was spread with newspapers, and the first curious, bloodshot interest was upon me.
"No need to fear," said a black dog through the bars, unable to stop a smile.
"Never go hungry, dear," said the only dog that I was sharing a cage with, who was trying to sympathetically sweeten up my situation. She was the fattest dog I had ever seen, so I believed her on that.
"No need to fear," said the black dog again.
"Plenty of food, dear." The fat dog slid the biscuits around the bowl. "There's so much."
"Sometimes too much for a street dog to handle." A different dog said from his own cage. The fat dog smirked at me and nearly had me jumping out of my coat.
"We're just messing with ya'," she said to a uniform groan of the others. "The food tastes like moulded sand," she said through a disgusted mouthful. "But it's all you get."
"Prison food," an old dog spat.
"They're a gift," some dog murmured. "And you don't go bad mouthing a gift."
The fat and black one raised their eyebrows at one another.
"You don't look a gift horse in the mouth," said the fat one, playing along, quoting from somewhere or other.
"Yeah," said the old dog, laughing. "You send it to the knackers before in can tread on your paw."
There was snickering at that, and I noticed that one of the old dog's paws looked squashed and deformed.
"What part of town you from, dear?" The fat dog cocked her mattered head at me as she asked. I just stood still, too bewildered still by my capture to think fast enough to keep up with the unclear mockery shooting between the panting prisoners.
"I was only loose for a day." I looked to my paws to check they were still there, everything was swaying and I starting to wonder if I was catching these dog's madness. I heard the questions float about; then why is she so starved? I realised that my last good meal had been at Jim Dears. The old lady just had trouble enough feeding her own self, let alone me, the little ankle following dog, muted with the sadness of betrayal.
Abused at home than? Terrible times, she's still just a pup. At least she might have a chance at being claimed.
Humans came to the pound and got their heart swept away with the pups. Grown dogs might as well knock at the warden's hatch and ask him if they can get an express to the afterlife and save them having to deal with this horrid queuing he had going on.
"Not a true stray then," some dog growled. That raised a few tails and dropped a few lips. The fat dog just shook her head calmly at the idea.
"No girl, stray and stray alike, we're all in this pound together."
In the night dogs howled to the boulevard shine that broke through the gaps and gasps of the walls. Some wild mongrels chanted along with their imaginings and sounds drift through the dark, detailing what you couldn't see. That was when the pound revealed its true filthy nature. The whining of pain, growl of threats, muffled cry, angry bark, grinding of hips, outbreak of claws scrapping across the concrete floors and the bullying duty that came with earning respect and keeping it.
I learned of life and death, of all the rotting and disgusting bits of living in-between that no parent wants to divulge their pup to.
With the fat dog sleeping close beside me, sharing her fleas, I have to remind myself that no matter how sad or grotty it was, I was still glad for the steady breathing that sounded through the night, it promised protection and warmth- that sound. It retells me of times in a plush basket in a heated laundry that shelters me from the cold that scraps at me now. I am supposed to be encased in warmth, of the clunking climate system but also of the warmth of love, of family.
I am scared for my litter, what terrible place have they been handed off to? How are they surviving the new world that is now revealing itself to be rawer and blunter then a flat broke and drugged hooker? Because I now know what they are; I cast a look to a swollen eyed terrier that is busy curling her tail in a teasing game to the leery that drool and press against the bars. Where is the heart beat that should be pounding in my ear, young and excited to breathe and be and encase me?
The fat dog and I share our wraithlike cage while others are crowded and pushed against the gates in their own. Why is that? I find out later (like I do with everything) that it's because we are soft and too kind to be left with the others. I because, when the warden hooked me up by my scruff I had dissolved and mellowed into his hold as if he was the centre of gravity, diffidently not a street dog move. Her because, when it is dark but slowly streaking awake with colour, she huffs and silently yelps and tells me the babies are coming in an acidy and calm voice as she squeezes her eyes tight.
"From the vet?" I ask her, because even after all this education on the pounds part I still do not understand pups and sexual roles to the bottom of their depths.
"No you foolish thing- from my gut." I brushed off the insult, she was in shrieking pain, but pups coming from her gut- had she eaten them and they are now climbing their way back out? What horror, sure she was weedy and has that desperate rattle to her bark, but I never through this…I circle around her in panic as she collapses and eases to her side like a rolled furniture wagon. The fat dog stretches her paw out and presses it to my leg, it is like she's stroking me, reassuring me, but I can smell, dear god I smell everything and more these days, now that I know what most of the swirling stinks mean. Pheromones and hormones and blood and cells and everything that I can smell are starting to be identified and I am learning to listen to them during these contemptible days.
She is not reaching out to reassure me, she is reaching out for an anchor as she gets plummeted amongst the stormy waves. I creep up beside her and bury my muzzle into her oily coat. I breathe steady and let my lungful's puff over her teeth torn ears and soon she starts to live in synch with my rhythm.
The babies come, well, to her they squeeze, to me they splat and to others they slide. It is instinct now, which is to care for the wet, squirming, bundles and get them clean. I rain my attention on the first and then move on to the second and the third… I work my tongue over them and clean their bodies of funny bags and skin that shouldn't be there. Sometimes my mind slips and I am back in the yard, on ice cream soil, under fragrant shade and losing myself into dreams as I care for my bone; except I cannot stop to sink my teeth into this one and rejuvenate my tastebuds on the sour, addictive marrow that seethes out. No, this one is precious, living with new life and has just been born into a pitiful, pitiful morning that reveals a hideous hole of dog gone disappear.
Later, days later, after time has passed enough for me to have fussed and helped just as eager as any pack sister and grow just as in love as any auntie- my old lady arrives with her wheeling walker and a young, medicine smelling escort. There is shock, but also happiness when I am saved into her every shaking hands, there is also horror when I am pulled away and I realise, they are not coming with me, fat dog and her pups are all to their own.
"Go on Annette, you shouldn't hold yourself back for us. Besides, they are sure to be rescued" They sure are, tiny and cute and fumbling about; but her? Swallow from past hunger and tick ridden seasons? But all I can do in the end is resign to my bitter sweet rescue and ignore the punishing nature of everything.
There was a dog with me, a little spaniel, where is she?
Please don't move too much, you're horribly weak and need these fluids.
My Daffodil, is she alright? What's happening? Stop poking me you silly quack! Where is that bubble headed girl from before?
You daughter left to make the arrangements so you can be moved to a nursing home and I'm afraid pets aren't allowed in a place like that Ma'am.
But my dear Daffodil, she saved my life!
Did she now?
Yes, she was acting all anxious so I took my blue pills that morning instead of at night like I usually do, because I thought that I won't have time to do it later if she was upset because she smelt some fire or intruder. Lucky I did or I wouldn't have survived that fall!
Is that so? Well… you may not be able to keep this smart dog of yours, but I know of a good home for her.
Really?
Yes Ma'am, have you ever hear of Alert dogs?
Diffidently not, a funny name for a breed though, if you ask me about it.
It's not a breed; it's a type of service dog. It's a rather new concept so they don't have much funding or dogs to work with, I'm sure they will love to take in your precious spaniel.
And so, not a day after the rescue I am given away once more.
I promise myself, I will find my litter mates; I will make sure that they never have to experience a night too long in the pound, ticks or fleas or the sadness of a birth with no lover there to shield them through the pain.