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.