Another day has gone by, another 24 hours of my life, wasted. Those words, the meaningless words, are still running through my head.
“Don’t worry, boy, you’ll find a great home.”
I feel my coat bristle in my anger. As if you care! How can you guarantee I’ll ever get out of here? You just dumped me here because you couldn’t be bothered anymore!
I take a deep breath to calm myself down, but I’m never going to forgive those traitors, the ones I once called a family.
“We can’t keep him, he’s just too big.” Too big? That’s what you get when you bring a Great Dane into your household.
A metallic clang sounds. That’s the door closing, telling us dogs to shut up, or else. Not that we need to be told to pipe down. Nobody really talks in here, not with the knowledge that a week will fly by, and then…
I close my eyes with the horror of it. The reality is that nobody wants a big dog like me. I growl under my breath, then rest my broad black muzzle on my golden-fawn legs in an attempt to sleep. Or rather, lie down with my eyes closed, like all the other dogs are doing.
I’ve lived in this “dog shelter” for a couple of days now, and it’s easily been the worst place I’ve ever been in. Not that I visit a lot of places, of course. I’m only just over a year old, or so the card on my kennel says. “Thunder, Male, Great Dane, 1 year old. Has some behavioural problems and will need a firm handler.”
Behavioural problems. By that they mean I am a typical under-exercised puppy. And I am big, so they couldn’t control me properly.
It’s not that I’m not looked after in this shelter, of course. I get fed twice a day, and I get to socialize with the other dogs in a big run with grass in it. But there’s a dark curtain which always blocks off the windows and doesn’t allow any light to come through. You cannot see this curtain, but you know it’s there, it’s in the mood of the shelter’s inhabitants.
And we’re only given a week to live. That knowledge is what the curtain’s fabric is made of.
Mornings are always the best time of the day. Why? Because breakfast is in the morning, and breakfast is always something to look forward to.
I think as long as the people in this shelter keep feeding me, I will keep myself together. Food has a great effect on one’s state of mind.
So, the next morning I was in high spirits while waiting for breakfast. My body was pressed right up to the wire door of my kennel, my ears were perked up and I was drooling. I can’t help it. Doggy reflex, you could say.
When the bowl of food finally landed in front of me, I wolfed it down as fast as I could. My record speed would be under 10 seconds. I’m quite proud of my fast-eating skills.
After breakfast, I was allowed out into the grassed run with a few other dogs. One was a Border Collie, two were chocolate-coloured Labradors, and one was a Schnauzer mix. I was quite well-acquainted with these dogs, considering I chased them up and down the run three times a day. Would that be considered another behavioural problem of mine? Yeah, dog aggression, you bet. I, along with the other “problem dogs” am always closely monitored during my free running time, which actually only lasts about 15 minutes. How cheap.
It’s a shame, really. Time flies when you’re having fun, and in no time at all I was shoved back into my dull, grey kennel again, where I was expected to fake-sleep until noon, when I would get the privilege of another free run. However, today was different. The sameness and boredom was broken by a human voice.
“Here he is, here’s Thunder.”
At the mention of my name, my head shot up. There were two people standing by my kennel, looking at me. One I recognized. She was a worker at the shelter, and she was sometimes the one who brought me my breakfast, so, as far as I was concerned, she was a good person.
The other was a man who I’d never seen before. He was apparently very happy to see me, though. He crouched down and stuck his hand through the wire mesh.
“Here, boy.” He said softly, waving his hand in an obvious attempt to entice me to come over to him. I am not an unfriendly dog, and so I wagged my tail and trotted over, licking his hand when I reached him. He stroked my neck, and I’ll admit I went a bit stupid after that. It had been so long since a human had patted me, or acted affectionately at all, for that matter. So I slouched to one side, and was perfectly content to just sit there and let him keep scruffing up the fur on my chin, or playing with my ears, or whatever he felt like doing. I wasn’t about to be picky.
While the man was patting me, he was also listening to the shelter worker rave on about how great I was. She obviously just wanted me out of the shelter, but I appreciated her effort. She said some pretty nice things, though I only picked up fragments of sentences.
“Friendly, playful, active… trainable… very loyal, he’d give his life to protect you…” She conveniently forgot to mention my “behavioural problems” which made me grin to myself.
After a while, the man stood up, and walked back down the corridor, smiling and chatting away to the shelter worker. I wasn’t focusing enough to pick up on what he was saying, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, things were starting to look up.