Over the next few days I began to make friends with some of the animals. A little brown and white dog named Peanut was in the cage next to mine and I really liked him. He was quiet but I liked what he had to say when he did talk. He had been there a long time because no humans wanted to take him home with them. I don’t know why; he was a really good dog. Mutt must be another human word for good dog because that’s what the humans who looked at him called him.
Across from me was a sweet old female named Daisy. She told me she had lived with a female human for a long time. They were good friends. Her human got sick and died and some other humans came and brought her to the shelter. She missed her old human friend a lot. Like Peanut, she had been there a long time because no humans wanted to take her home with them. I heard some humans call her a senior dog. They said they didn’t want to take her home because they were afraid she would get sick and die. She was a good dog and the shelter humans were kind to her.
Sometimes nice humans called volunteers would come and take a bunch of us for walks. One of the dogs who lived a few food bowls from Peanut never got to go on the group walks because he was so mean. I heard some of the shelter humans say he had tried to bite some of the other dogs the first time they tried to take him on the walks. And most of the humans were afraid of him. He would growl and bark when anyone, dog or human walked past his cage. He missed out on a lot of fun because he was so quick to show his teeth. He was a big brown dog with pointy ears called Rex. He was really mean to Peanut, telling him he was an ugly mutt and that he would bite his face off if he could get out of his cage.
Now Peanut was a little dog but he wasn’t afraid of anything. Just because a dog looks weak doesn’t mean he is. Peanut told Rex he would open the cage himself if he could. If Peanut had done this, I think he would have needed some back up and I would have been ready. But it never happened.
Rex never threatened me. Dogs like him don’t pick on anyone they think is as strong as them. I don’t know what made Rex the way he was. I heard some of the shelter humans say maybe he was abused by humans when he was a puppy. I don’t know about that but it is true that we remember things that have happened to us. All of us have been kicked by something or someone at one time or another. But most of us can still keep our teeth inside our mouth unless there is a real reason to bring them out. I think some dogs just like being mean. The only way to run with them is to stay out of their way or be meaner than they are. It is funny how if they think you are meaner than them they get nice real quick. And they don’t know how to have fun. Sometimes when Peanut went by Rex’s cage on the way to our walks, he would stop and lift his leg like he was going to pee in the cage. This made Rex go crazy while the rest of us were laughing our tails off.
One day a big loud man came in to look at the dogs and took Rex home with him. The man smelled pretty mean himself to me. I told Peanut and Daisy I hoped they bit each other’s tails off. I don’t understand why any human would take a dog like Rex home with them and leave good dogs like Peanut and Daisy behind. But instead of getting mad about it, I decided that Peanut and Daisy and the other good dogs were in a better place at the shelter with the nice shelter humans than they would be with that bad smelling human who took Rex.
Daisy always walked slower than the rest of us on the group walks. Peanut and I tried to tell the volunteers that we wanted to walk with Daisy but they didn’t understand and kept us going fast with the other dogs. One day Peanut found a way to make the volunteers understand. He laid down and wouldn’t get up until Daisy caught up with him. Then he got up and walked along slowly with her. After he did this twice the volunteers understood and let us walk with Daisy all the time. Oh, I forgot to say that Peanut told me what he was going to do and I went along with it. After this happened, Daisy told me and Peanut she loved us. And that was one of the best smells I ever had.
The volunteers were nice about it when they understood what we were trying to do. They just didn’t understand at first and kept pulling at us. I think understanding each other is a good thing because after they did, they gave me and Peanut extra treats and lots of pets. I figure understanding is like hunting birds. Sometimes it takes a while to find it but you just keep trying until you sniff it out. But I may not know because I am just a dog.
