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From Bird Dog To Shelter Dog

I have not always been a helper dog. Before I went to the Shelter I hunted birds with a human called Dan. I found the birds. Dan knocked them out of the air with a long stick that made noise, and I got them and brought them back to Dan. When we were not hunting birds, Dan would take me on walks, let me ride in the truck with him and sometimes take me to places with water and throw balls in the water for me to go get and bring back. It was a good life for a bird dog.

But one day something really bad happened. On that day another human I had never seen went with us to hunt birds. This human wore funny clothes and had a big shiny killing stick that smelled like it had never been pointed at a bird. When we got to the tall grass, I picked up the smell of a bird not far from the truck. I stopped when I got really close to the bird to let Dan come closer like we always did. I was between Dan and the bird and the other human was behind Dan. I moved toward the bird and made it fly in the air. It flew very low to the ground.

I heard the sound of a killing stick but the bird just kept flying. This happened sometime and I headed back toward Dan but I didn’t see him. The other human was yelling “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry”. About that time I saw Dan down on the ground in the tall grass. I ran over to him. He was trying to get up but he couldn’t. The other human pulled a little box out of his coat and was talking to it real fast and loud. Then he went back toward where we had left the truck. I sat down and stayed with Dan, licking him, thinking that would make him get up.

This was all smelling really bad with Dan trying to get up for a long time. He finally stopped trying and just laid in the grass. It was like the last bird we killed on the hunt before this one. It kept trying to get up and fly and finally gave up. I watched it struggle and finally picked it up by the neck, shook it and took it to Dan. I don’t know why I thought about this, but I did.

And I felt sorry for the bird.

Then a lot of humans came with trucks with strange lights and sounds coming out of them. One of the trucks had a big box on the back. Some humans picked Dan up and put him in the box. Other humans got in the box with him. I tried to get in but some humans with shiny things on their shirts put a rope on my neck and held me back. I never saw Dan again after that.

The humans put me in another truck with a box on the back. The truck was moving for a long time and they finally let me out at a place called a shelter. I heard the humans saying words like he lived alone and there is no place for the dog to go. I felt like I never wanted to hunt birds again, ever. And I wanted to be in that big box on the other truck with Dan.

The humans at the shelter were really nice to me. They talked to me, petted me and gave me some treats. When we got inside, they put me in a big box that had sticks on the front so I could see out.

There were a lot of other dogs there, all barking at me and some cats who were sneering and hissing at me. I was not afraid. I just wondered what would happen to me. I told the cats they were the ugliest animals I had ever seen and that I had been brought there to bite their tails off during their sleep. No more sneering from them. I told the other dogs I was brought there by police humans because I had been killing their police dogs for fun and I was ready to have some fun with all of them. They backed off. So I settled in for whatever would happen.

It was a noisy night. Some of the dogs talked all night for no reason. I have seen some humans do the same thing. The next morning the shelter humans put some food in my bowl and one of them said I was a good dog. I don’t know how they knew whether I was or not; I think they just thought I looked good. Humans sometimes decide whether animals are good or bad just by the way they look. This can cause them to lose a couple of fingers or to miss knowing a really good dog.

After I finished the food, a male and female human came and looked at me. The female said I was too big and would eat them out of house and home. I don’t know how she thought I could eat a house. She said my teeth were too big and I would hurt their human puppy. They shook their heads and went on down the rows of cages. They ended up taking one of the small dogs out of her cage and carrying her out of the room. I heard her barking on the outside and figured she was going to live with them. I hope they weren’t expecting her to hunt birds because I don’t think she had it in her.

At The Shelter

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.

PEANUT

ADOPTED

One day a tall male human came to my cage and looked at me. He asked the shelter human where I came from. She told him I was a trained hunting dog whose owner had been killed in a hunting accident. The tall human said his name was Ronnie and asked if he could take me for a walk. The shelter human said that would be okay. I didn’t smell any treats in his pocket but I went along anyway.

I thought he might be a circus human like I saw at Dan’s house on the moving picture box where animals did tricks because he asked me to sit, stay, lay down, heel and other things. I did everything he asked. The circus animals I saw were not happy. I thought the shelter looked a lot better. But I waited to see what would happen.

When we got back to the shelter, Ronnie asked the shelter human more about me. She said I was a good dog and asked Ronnie how he would take care of me. Ronnie said he was a forest ranger and I would be a helper dog for him. He said the rangers had a cabin in the woods in the mountains. That sounded a lot better than a circus.

Ronnie told the shelter people he would take me home with him. I was OK with that because I didn’t smell anything bad about Ronnie. He smelled strong and good. Dogs can tell whether a human is good or bad. I didn’t know what a forest ranger was but I could tell Ronnie was a good human.

I was beginning to feel pretty good about all of this. Then I looked up and saw Peanut and Daisy looking at us from their cages. They smelled happy and sad at the same time. Peanut said he hoped I would find lots of trees to pee on in the mountains. Daisy just said she would miss me. I had never been missed before and I didn’t know what to do with that. I told them they were good dogs and that someone like Ronnie, maybe even with treats, would come some day and take them home. Ronnie had to tell me three times to come to get me away from their cages so he could take me out. I don’t think he understood.

When we got outside Ronnie took me to a big truck that had a picture of a tree on the side. I like trucks and I like trees. He opened the door and said up. I jumped in all the way to the seat. Ronnie seemed to like that. When he got in I noticed he had a picture of the same tree on his shirt. I figured it was some famous tree. Its name was US. Ronnie had a bag of treats in the truck and he gave me one. I was liking him better all the time. He made the window go down in the door and I stuck my head out.

There was a box in the truck that human barks came through while we were driving. Ronnie talked back to them even though we couldn’t see them. While I was looking around the truck, i saw a hunting stick like the one Dan used. I was worried for a minute because I really didn’t want to hunt birds anymore after the bad thing happened, but I didn’t see any of the other stuff Dan had in the truck when we went hunting. And Ronnie didn’t have the kind of clothes Dan wore when we went to kill birds.

I really liked the picture of the tree named US on Ronnie’s shirt. And it smelled like Ronnie had something else in mind. Something good. I settled in to see what would happen.

Becoming A Helper

Ronnie took us to a little human house in the mountains. I figured it was the Ranger’s cabin he told the shelter lady about. Sure enough, he told me it was our cabin and showed me a dog bed. The cabin had a dog door and it was getting dark so I decided to use it and look around outside. Ronnie told me to stay close and be careful. I smelled some big animals out in the woods, so I think he was telling me to not get eaten. I did not intend to get eaten.

There were a lot of trees around the cabin which looked like US. I think Ronnie liked them and that’s why he had their picture on his truck and shirt. I sniffed around for awhile and did my stuff and went back inside. Ronnie gave me a treat and some food. It tasted like chicken. After we went to bed, I heard some coyotes hunting for their food in the woods. I don’t like coyotes. They kill helpless little animals and then yell and scream all night about how brave and tough they are.

When Dan and me were hunting birds one time in the tall grass I saw a pack of them kill a baby antelope. Its mother had gone to find food and had to leave it hidden by a little bush in the grass. The coyotes smelled it out and killed it. Baby antelope can’t run or fight or even walk but the coyotes seemed to think they had done something really big by killing it as it lay there.

Dan and me never killed baby birds. And he never pointed his killing stick at a bird on the ground or sitting on the water. The birds always had a chance to get away. And many of them did. For some reason that seems different to me from what the coyotes did to the baby antelope. But I don’t know whether it is or not because I am just a dog. When I saw what the coyotes did I was in the truck and couldn’t get out. I do know if I could have I would have gone out and broke the coyotes necks just like they did to the baby antelope.

There were lots of other sounds in the woods that night and I knew it was going to be a good place to live and be a helper dog, whatever that was. I even accepted the coyote sounds as just another sound in the woods with animals and birds just being what they are. And they don’t have a good human putting food in a bowl for them to eat. When it was light again and I woke up I began to get a feel for what a helper dog is. Ronnie talked to me a lot. He showed me things and told me what they were in human words. As time went on, I learned many things.

The woods we were in were called the Rocky Mountains. There were more animals and birds in the mountains than I had ever seen. It was a rough place but it looked and sounded and smelled really good.

The long killing stick Ronnie had in his truck that looked like Dan’s is called a gun. Ronnie had a small one he could hold in his hand. He sometimes carried the little one on his belt. I noticed when we were out in the woods we saw many birds and Ronnie didn’t kill any of them. I don’t think he liked to eat birds.

We sniffed around in the woods almost every day. Sometimes we walked. Sometimes we went in the truck and sometimes in a little truck Ronnie called ATV. Almost every day we saw humans. Ronnie talked to some of them and just watched other ones with two little bottles he held up to his eyes.

Some of the humans who came to the mountains were good like Peanut and Daisy. Others were bad like the brown dog called Rex at the shelter. I could smell the difference and I think Ronnie could too. He had a good nose for a human. I could tell Ronnie did not like the bad humans. I don’t know why he didn’t just shoot them. He had lots of guns and he could shoot them really good.

Anyway, I could tell he was trying to keep the bad humans from hurting the mountains without shooting them. I think shooting them would have been a lot easier but that was up to Ronnie. When Ronnie was talking to a bad human, he always had me sitting by him. The bad humans kept looking at me and just for fun I sometimes showed my teeth. This always made them take a step backwards. This was fun for me and I think it helped Ronnie. He probably told them that I wanted to eat them but we was giving them another chance to be good. I was with Ronnie when he talked to good humans too. I would sit and Ronnie would pet me while he was talking. If they had human puppies, Ronnie and me would let the human pups pet me. That felt good as long as they didn’t pull my ears. Even if they did, I didn’t say anything, I understood they were just puppies.

Ronnie taught me a game called find. It was a little like finding birds but different. He would let me smell some human clothes and I had to go find more of the same one in the woods. He must have got the clothes from another human because they didn’t smell like Ronnie. The first clothes I did this with was called a sock. It was a lot easier finding the sock in the woods than finding a bird in the tall grass. The sock didn’t move around or hide like the birds did. It just laid there.

Then the socks got smarter. I would find a place where the smell was strong but it had run away and I found it farther in the woods. I could smell Ronnie along the way and I think he was moving the sock around to make the game more fun for me. Anyway, I learned to find socks, shoes, shirts and other human clothes in the woods, starting from the truck or ATV. I even learned to find human things in the woods without smelling them first. Ronnie would tell me to find sock and I would hunt until I found a human smell in the woods. If that wasn’t the one he wanted I would keep hunting. It was a fun game and it made Ronnie happy when I found the things. And the treats he gave me when I found them were good too. Later on, I learned how this could be a really good thing to do, finding socks and shirts on humans that were really scared or hurt when I got to them. And we did this for bad humans as well as good ones.

Another thing I learned was to bark when I smelled smoke and to take Ronnie to the place where it came from. He seemed really happy about this. He always put water and dirt on the fires and made them stop smoking or burning. We sometimes did this at places he called campsites. I could smell other humans had been there and I didn’t understand why they didn’t put out their own fire instead of me and Ronnie having to do it. I always smelled smoke before Ronnie did because as I had said we have really good noses. And we hate smoke. It was hard to go toward a fire and I didn’t do it unless Ronnie was there. Later on, I would lead Ronnie to some fires that were so big he couldn’t put them out. When we found those fires we had to run away and Ronnie called other humans on the truck’s talking box to help put the fire out. I always worried about the other animals left in the woods with those fires. They didn’t have a human like Ronnie to help them get out. And I always hoped no good humans were left in the fires. I figured the bad humans were probably the ones who started the fires and Ronnie should have shot them before they started a fire anyway. I guess I still didn’t want them to burn up in the fires. I didn’t understand these two feelings coming together at the same time but I guess that is because I am just a dog.

Lost Boys

Ronnie had a little talking box like the one in the truck where he could talk to other humans without them being there. He sometimes wore the little one on his belt or even in his pocket. One day the little box made a sound and Ronnie started talking on it in a way that made him seem worried. He put the box on his belt and told me to come with him in the truck. He made the truck go pretty fast to a place deep in the woods where the road stopped. We met a lady human there and she started talking to Ronnie saying words really fast.

She said her son and his friend had left home early that morning to hike to Lost Lake and catch fish. They said they would be back before now and she was worried about them. She tried to talk to them on a little box like Ronnie’s and they didn’t talk to her. There was a little truck there on the road and she said it was theirs. Ronnie told her the trail to Lost Lake had been closed because of rock slides but we would go up there and try to find them.

Ronnie told the scared human lady to stay there, that he had called some other helper humans to come stay with her and they would be there soon. Back at the truck talking on the little box, he told the other helper humans that the boys should not have tried to go to the lake when the trail was closed and that they could be lost or hurt. He said he had me with him and we would go up and see what we could find. I saw that it would be getting dark soon which could be a real bother for lost humans in the mountains.

At the beginning of the trail Ronnie told me to “find sock” and we started out, Ronnie a little behind me. I picked up a human smell and knew some humans were up there. The trail had lots of animal smells, deer, rabbits, coyote and others. None of the animal smells surprised or bothered me. Then we came to a rock slide. The human smells got harder to follow and it smelled like they were trying to go around the slide. I was able to follow their trail up to a place near the top of the slide with big rock walls. There was no trail there and I wondered what they were doing.

About this time, I smelled a big cat. It was a strong, bad smell. Ronnie had said those big cats were called mountain lions during one of his presentations. He had told the people they were a problem for any big animal or human they found if they were hungry. And they were almost always hungry. From what he said, I didn’t think dogs or humans were their favorite foods, but if they were hungry enough they would eat you. I stopped at this smell to warn Ronnie but I didn’t think he understood. I kept looking back at him to be sure the lion wasn’t creeping up behind him. That’s what Ronnie had said they do or they jump on you from a tree or rock.

I kept on the trail of the human pups even though I knew the lion was there because it would be better if we found them before the lion did. Ronnie was following me pretty close now. The lion smell and the human smell were not in the same dirt, but I could tell the lion was staying close to them. Then the lion went off to the side of the humans and up on the rocks. The human pups had not been on a real trail for a long time now, they were just walking through the woods going from side to side like they didn’t know where they were. And there was some afraid smells in their tracks. They would stop sometimes and then start going again in another direction or in circles. Humans do this when they don’t stay on the trail and go off trying to find their own way. Dogs can do this without getting lost; I don’ think humans can.

The human tracks went up a steep place and I could tell one of them had slipped and fell because I smelled blood on some of the rocks. I was thinking this was really bad because if I could smell it so could the lion. When animals who kill other animals smell blood, they get even more hungry. Besides the lion, I could smell that a pack of coyotes had been on the slope not too long before. I was feeling like this was not a good place for human pups to be. I wasn’t even sure about me and Ronnie.

A little past where I first smelled the blood, they circled back trying to go down the steep slope. Sometimes going down a slope is harder than going up. They stopped about halfway down, turned and headed down a strange little dry trail where water used to be but wasn’t anymore. I have heard Ronnie call these dry creeks. They were really smelling lost now. The blood smell was still there but not as strong.

I could still smell the lion. He had been following us for a long time now. We had not seen him but I was sure he had been watching us.

I was going as fast as I could because it was beginning to get dark. The human pups were moving slower and stopping a lot. As we came into an open place with some big rocks, I saw them sitting on one and barked. They started yelling and we ran over to them. I got to them first. They were really scared. One of them had a hurt arm and that’s where the blood I smelled was coming from. Ronnie looked at the hurt arm and did something to it with some things he pulled out of a little sack he was carrying on his back. One of the pups told Ronnie they were sorry they had tried to go down a trail that was closed and that they were lost and couldn’t find their way out of the woods. I wanted Ronnie to tell them that me and him knew this and that the rock they were sitting on was smarter than them. But he just shook his head and told them we needed to get down off the mountain as soon as we could.

Then he did some things with his little talking box, pushing on it with his paws. He told the pups he had GPS and it would show us the shortest way back to the trail. I figured his little box had a pretty good nose if it could do that. It was really getting dark now and Ronnie pulled out a light from his sack and put it on his head. He kept looking at his little talking box and we were all walking pretty close together. I think the little box was telling him which way to go. We had to go slow because we were not on a trail.

I was still smelling the lion but he was not as close as he was before. I didn’t think he would try to eat us because there were so many of us now. They don’t like a fair fight. But you never know. If an animal is hungry enough he will do almost anything to get food. I wonder if humans are the same way.

We finally got back to the rock slide and I picked up the trail again and got in front of Ronnie. About this time there was a big light in the sky that helped us see and we were able to go pretty fast.

When we got back to the truck there were lots of humans there and another truck just like Ronnie’s. The lady we had met at the trail that day ran over and put her paws around the boy with the hurt arm. Then some other people did something to his arm, a lot like what Ronnie did only more. He told the lady human he was sorry for getting lost. She said she was glad we found him but that he would be on the ground for a month. He didn’t seem happy about that. I don’t know or care how long a month is but I figured having to live on the ground for a while would help him remember to not be so stupid. I wished I could have told him how close he was to being eaten by a lion.

The other pup went over to two other humans who had come to the trail and told them he was sorry for getting lost too. I guessed they were his mother and daddy because they put their paws around him and kept telling Ronnie thank you thank you. The pup was pretty happy until the daddy told him he would be living on the ground for a while too.

I laid down while Ronnie talked to another Ranger. Ronnie told the other Ranger I had tracked the pups through some rough places. He said his GPS worked really well getting us back and that it was a good tool for the Rangers to have. They talked about people going on trails that were closed and how they could stop it. Ronnie said people who don’t do what the signs say in the mountains usually end up getting bitten. Then we got in the truck and went back to the cabin.

We were tired and went to sleep pretty fast. Before I went to sleep I thought about the human pups and wondered why they picked such a bad trail and got lost. They didn’t smell like bad puppies, just pups who thought they were bigger than they really were. And what would have happened if Ronnie and me hadn’t found them. From what I saw and smelled, the lion was stalking them and would have had them for dinner. It felt good to be a helper dog.

NO CAMPING

One morning me and Ronnie were going down a little road through the woods in the ATV when I smelled smoke. I barked and Ronnie stopped and let me out. I tracked the smoke smell to a rough little trail a little way off the road. At the beginning of the trail there was a post with human words on it. The trail had truck paw prints on it. Just as we passed the post I saw the smoke and I think Ronnie did too. We both started going faster, me on my paws and him in the ATV.

We came to a little open place and saw two humans sitting around a little fire. The truck that had made the paw prints was there and there was a human dog house on the ground not far from the truck. Ronnie did not seem too happy about all this. The two humans stood up when they saw us. We walked over to the fire and Ronnie started talking to them. He said they could not camp there and that a sign had said so. He said the Rangers were trying to take care of the plants and animals in this part of the forest and let them rest because humans had been hurting them. The humans smelled like they did not care about any of this. They smelled like bad humans from the beginning.

Ronnie kicked dirt on the fire and told them to pick up their stuff and leave. They were growling at Ronnie saying things like the campsites were full and they had a right to camp somewhere. One of them said it was pup lick land. They didn’t have any puppies with them so I don’t know what he meant by that. Ronnie told them they drove right past the no camping sign and they would have to pay the government humans some money for doing that. Ronnie was not growling but he was talking in a very low, strong bark. He gave them both a paper he had put some writing on.

One of them threw the paper down and moved toward Ronnie. He never got to Ronnie because I had his leg in my mouth before he took another step. He yelled and stepped back but I didn’t let go because being Ronnie’s helper dog was feeling pretty good at that point. Ronnie yelled off and stay so I let the leg go and sat down right in front of him staring at him with a low growl. The man was yelling he bit me he bit me. Ronnie told him he was lucky that was all I did and to pull up his pants leg so he could see if he was hurt. He was bleeding a little but not anything to howl about.

Ronnie told him he should thank me for keeping him from being charged with assault on a federal officer. He told him to pick up the paper and leave before he decided to arrest both of them. They said a bunch of words to each other as they were picking up their stuff and getting in the truck. When they were about to leave the one I bit yelled that he was going to shoe Ronnie. He said I’ll shoe you, I’ll shoe you. I guess he meant he was going to kick Ronnie. I don’t know why he didn’t just say so. Ronnie yelled back that he was more worried about his dog getting sick from biting his dirty leg than he was about getting shoed. Their truck made a loud noise when they left. Ronnie gave me a pet and picked up some things they had left on the ground. He put the things which were paper and metal things in a big green bag we carried on the ATV. Ronnie made sure their fire was out and then we left the way we came.

That night before I went to sleep, I remembered what Ronnie had said about letting the plants and animals in the woods rest because humans had been hurting them. Ronnie and I had picked up a lot of things in the woods that didn’t belong there. And we saw humans cut trees and bushes to make fires and left what they didn’t use just lying there. They walked and drove their trucks on flowers and plants that animals needed to eat and good humans might want to see. They threw things in the water that made it dirty and ugly and hard for the animals to drink. All the sounds they made scared animals and made them move from where they had been eating and sleeping. I don’t think the bad humans cared about any of this at all. Me and Ronnie did.

DEER

Sometimes Ronnie would go to a place where there was a lot of campsites called a campground and talk to other humans sitting around in a circle. He called these things presentations. There was usually a lot of human puppies at these talkings. If it was dark there would be a fire in the middle that Ronnie would stand around. The first time this happened, I barked at the fire like Ronnie had taught me to do, because there was a lot of smoke when the fire started. He gave me a pet and told me to sit and stay. After a little while, I realized that he wanted the fire to be there like the fires he made inside our cabin. To me, it was a fire, it was outside the cabin, and it needed to be barked at and put out, but I trusted Ronnie and let it go.

One night Ronnie talked about the deer in the woods. One of the human puppies had brought a little black female dog that smelled pretty good and I was watching her close, but I still heard what Ronnie said. He said the humans would probably see deer in the woods called mule deer. They were called that because they had long ears that stood up like a mule’s ears. I had seen them and knew that they were pretty animals. They didn’t eat other animals or bother anything that I had seen.

Ronnie told them the males were called bucks and the females were called does. Bucks could be very big. In the time when the leaves change color and the snows begin, the bucks fight over who got to have puppies with the does. They fought pretty hard and some of the bucks were tired and hurt after the fights. Ronnie said some of them were so tired they didn’t live through the cold winter after the fights. The Rangers sometime got calls from humans who said they had seen a sick deer and it was one of these bucks that was struggling to get strong again and live through the winter.

I wondered why having these deer puppies was so important to them that they were willing to fight and die for it. About this time I wondered if the little black female and I had puppies if they would be grey since she was black and I am white. And if they were, would humans think our puppies was wolves and shoot them? And would I be willing to fight other dogs so I could be the one who had puppies with her? This was too many smells at the same time and I got back to listening to Ronnie.

He said the Does could have two puppies at the same time and they were called fawns. The mother hid them in a safe place so she could go eat. They were very little and couldn’t walk or do much for 10 days or so. After that, they could follow their mother around but they had to be careful because lions or coyotes were trying to find them and eat them every day from the very start. They only ate milk from their mother during this time. Ronnie said after 60 days or so they could begin to eat for themselves. Deer eat more than just grass. They eat leaves and twigs from little bushes in the woods which have more good stuff than just grass.

The bucks antlers fall off in the winter but they grow back even bigger and stronger. Ronnie said some humans kill the bucks to get their antlers and hang them up in their houses. He said humans could not kill deer every day but only on some days and that one of the things he did was to be sure they only killed deer on days when they were supposed to. It sounded like humans paid money to other humans called the state to be able to kill the deer. And they got a paper from the state that says they can kill the deer. Ronnie told them that humans who killed a deer had to show him they had the paper. They were in big trouble if they didn’t have the paper, or if they killed a deer on the wrong day. They would have to pay the state a lot of money to keep from going to a human shelter.

A lot of things humans do seems to be about this thing they call money. I’m still trying to figure out what it is and why it smells so good to them. Sounds like humans can do bad things and just give other humans money to keep from getting kicked or bitten even if they deserve it. I’m glad animals don’t have money, whatever it is.

Ronnie said the state humans allowed hunter humans to kill the deer so there wouldn’t be too many deer in the mountains. Sometimes they let them kill mama deer even though they don’t have antlers. I don’t know what they hang up in their houses from a mama deer. Anyway, Ronnie said too many deer in the mountains would be bad for the deer, other animals and humans too. I don’t think they asked the deer about this. I started to worry what if there were too many dogs? Would they kill some of us? And what if there were too many humans? What would happen then? This was all hard for me to track down.

Right after this Ronnie said it wasn’t just lions, coyotes wolves and humans looking for antlers killing deer but humans were killing them with their cars and trucks. He told them this happened lots of times on humans roads. He said this coming together of deer and cars and trucks was almost never good for the deer and sometimes the humans get hurt too. He called these coming togethers accidents. I had been with Ronnie to some of these. He tried to help the deer but most of the time he had to kill them if they were not already dead so they did not suffer and hurt. I could tell he did not like doing this but as I said before Ronnie was strong and good. And sometimes he had to help humans who were hurt in the accidents. I never saw him have to kill any of them. He told the humans around the fire to be careful and not let these deer accidents happen. He said humans should go slower in their cars and trucks when they were near where deer lived. And he said they should have their eyes watching for deer and not be on their cell bones. These cells must be really tasty animals because Ronnie said almost all humans had one of their bones all the time. I can see where if you were eating a bone you might not see a deer and run over it with your truck. All in all, it sounded like a pretty rough life for the deer.

Ronnie said there were not as many deer in the mountains as there used to be. One of the reasons is that humans are cutting down the trees and bushes, building human houses, roads and other human things which doesn’t leave much for the deer to eat or a place for them to live. And in some places there is less rain and snow than there used to be and that hurts all the animals including the deer. I was beginning to feel pretty good about being a dog instead of a deer.

Just as I was getting sad and angry about all this, I looked over at the little black female and she smiled at me. I decided I would fight other dogs to have puppies with her if I had the chance. And I would do my best to make it through the winter even if I was tired and hurt from the fighting. And if I did I would probably fight for her again when the leaves turned yellow.