Nome, 1925, a dark grey husky/wolf cross was walking up the main road on a leash, the man holding the leash tugged as he stopped to sniff a step leading to the corner shop, they carried on down the street toward a large encampment, the husky pulled toward a red husky wearing a red bandanna, he panted and tried to pull toward her,

"C'mon you damn mutt", the man groaned, he dragged the husky toward a tent with a sign hung up above it, the sign read 'trade tent', the husky tilted his head looking at it wondering what it meant. The man tied him to a post and went inside, he watched the man line up behind a row of other people, he watched for a few more seconds before sitting down, he heard the race team finish in town, he wished he could go see what was going on, he stood up and tugged on the leash a bit, no point even trying, he sighed and sat back down, he decided to listen, see if he figure out what was going on, heard the man talking to someone,

" He's a good dog, I swear, he ran rings around my team", he remembered that, it was funny, those dogs thought they were fast, he decided to show them how slow they were, he ran alongside the lead dog, then infront of him and ran around barking, teasing them, it was great fun until the man riding on the sled, who he hadn't yet noticed, shot him with a tranqulizer,

"He's half wolf, no way", the man behind a desk argued with the musher,

"That's what makes him fast, he's a good dog, you wanted fast and that's what I brought you, deal or no deal?", the musher argued back, the man behind the desk sighed,

"Show me this dog", the musher led him outside and they both stood infront of the husky, he looked up at them, the desk man stroked his head, checked his teeth, looked at his paws and patted his back,

"Alright, I'll take him", he finally announced, the men traded money then the musher walked off, a new man then untied the husky and dragged him into a crate, it was smelly inside, he noticed another dog in a crate next to him, he shuffled toward the dog and to his surprise it growled,

"Back off junior", it growled,

"My name's Dante, moron", he scuffed back, the dog bared his teeth and turned away.

Next morning the dogs were loaded onto a ship and taken on a long journey, Dante wasn't happy, it was boring in the crate and all he was fed were scraps the people didn't want, he often teased the large, grumpy dog but that soon got boring aswell, the movement of the ship made him feel uneasy on his feet so he spent most of his time laying down, after a good few days the ship sailed into port and the crates were unloaded, the dogs were then put on a truck,

"More travelling?", he sighed, the truck travelled a long way, it took two days to reach it's destination, when they arrived the crates were unloaded and the dogs were taken out of the crates one by one, Dante was the last dog to be let out, as soon as the side of the crate fell open he bolted out,

"Whoa! we got a fiesty one here, eh?", a young man laughed to another,

"Just grab him", a woman complained, the men put a rope around his neck and pulled him into a large building, all along the walls were small cages, he passed the grumpy dog along the way, at the farthest end of the corridor the men pushed him into a cage too,

"Kennels full Ma'am", one of them shouted back, there was no response but the men seemed content anyways, Dante sniffed around his new home, it smelt of old dog food and...death, he didn't like this place, a rat ran along the corridor and into a room half way along, Dante sighed, when his mother told him he would one day go on a long journey to a distant place this wasn't what he had in mind, he flicked a pebble about with his paw and rolled an old chew toy around, after a few hours the two strange men shoved a metal bowl full of bad smelling meat through the cage,

"Enjoy", one of them laughed, Dante sniffed it and stuck out his tongue, it didn't smell remotely edible. After a few days of watching the people go back and forth the two men came to take him out, he couldn't wait, his fur was getting messy and his claws uncomfortable from being stuck in the cage for so long, he'd seen the other dogs being taken out for a few days now, they went through the door the rat had run under, it led outside, Dante enjoyed the smell of fresher air, the woman was standing in the centre of a large rectangle of sand, he looked at her wondering why on earth she was just standing there, the men dragged him into the centre of the grounds and handed him to the woman,

"Let's see how smart you are", she cackled,

"Sit!", she commanded, he'd heard the musher say that, dogs were supposed to sit down when a person said that, but Dante didn't like this woman's attitude, he sat up on his hind legs and barked, he heard the two men laughing, the woman sighed in frustration,

"Lay!", she commanded again, he'd heard that too, there was no way he was going to lay down for her, he sat, she had an angry look on her face,

"Roll over!", she barked, roll over? what did she think he was, a circus clown? he looked at her blankly and barked again,the woman stood up and stared at him,

"Take him back, we might be able to sell him to a circus", she ordered the two men, so she DID think he was a circus animal, the cheek of it! Dante decided he hadn't finished playing and ran off into a far corner, the two men chased after him, for a good hour or so the men chased him around the courtyard, Dante thought it was fantastic, he laughed to himself as he ran around the men ducking through their legs and dodging their attempts to grab him, he got tired and ran to the door, he sat infront of it and barked, the men walked over panting hard, he smiled to himself, they opened the door and he trotted to his cage, they closed the cage door behind him and locked it,

"Stupid, loser dog", one of them complained,

"Idiot, slow human", Dante scoffed, of course the man didn't understand him,

"He's mocking me bro!", the man moaned as they left the corridor. the next few weeks were almost the same, the dogs were routinely taken outside for an hour, the humans called it training, soon some dogs didn't come back, including the grumpy dog, on these days a large van with a picture of a sausage and a pig on the side drove into the compound and left a few hours later, Dante didn't know what this van was or why it came but he didn't like it. After 7 months of training and those dank, smelly cages a man came asking about Dante, he traded some money with the woman and Dante was taken away, he was put into a car and it drove through a city, Dante had never seen so many bright, flashing lights, the car stopped outside a huge red and yellow tent, an actual circus? Dante looked bemused at this new development, a man dressed in large red shoes, baggy yellow trousers with green spots, a white shirt, and funny hair with a face painted all red and white came and looked at Dante, "Sit down", he shouted, Dante again played silly and sat up and barked,

" I love him, he'll do!", the man smiled, he didn't get it, wasn't he supposed to be mad at him for not doing as he asked? Dante tilted his head and was yanked away to another cage, bigger than the last and on wheels with straw inside and all bright colours, once inside the door was locked and he was again stuck in a cage, to his right was a pair monkeys who threw peanut shells at him and screeched loudly and to his left a huge cat with a shaggy mane, he sat in the middle of his cage occasionally barking at the monkeys, who just chattered louder.

That night he had to go into the tent, the funnily dressed man put a silly looking thing around his neck and trotted out into a ring with Dante on a bright pink and blue leash, the man shouted commands to Dante who again disobeyed, the crowds laughed and this time the man did act angry, it was all very strange, afterward a porter took Dante back to his cage,

"Good work Figaro", he praised as he handed him a bowl of fresh meat before walking away,

"It's DANTE, not Figaro!", Dante exclaimed,

"No use dog, they always call us weird names, they call me Butch but it's really Linus, ok?", the large cat explained, now that he spoke Dante realised that he was actually rather old, Dante nodded in understanding but scoffed his food down unhappily, for the next week it was the same thing every night, it got really rather boring after a while, it was no fun doing the same thing over and over and the lights and loud music had given him a headache for the last couple of nights, the cat, who Dante now knew to be a lion, explained that he'd get used to it after some time, he heard how long Linus had been with the circus and was feeling very low, Linus was coming near to death now, that's why the manager had bought Dante, to be their new attraction, he didn't want to be a circus animal for the rest of his life like Linus, he wished he was back home in Alaska where there were no bright, flashing lights, no loud music, no cages, no circus, he missed home. The circus then started travelling, they went all over, Dante had no idea how far away from home he was or if he'd ever be able to get back at all, he'd never remember these long routes, even if he could he could never have swam all the way the ship did, he was beginning to lose hope, until one night at the circus, he noticed one man in the audience who did not laugh, not once, afterward he went back stage and argued with the manager,

"He's not happy here, let me buy him, I'll pay triple what you spent when you first bought him", he insisted, after a long debate the men traded money, by now Dante knew what that meant, he was off again, and sure enough the new man took him away, they travelled for a long time and the man finally stopped at a large log cabin in a forest,

"Rest my canine friend, long journey tomorrow", the man told him as he tied him outside a small wooden kennel,

"And that was