She wheels her tiny rolling office chair, which really doesn’t seem like it should be able to support her, over to a big, blocky computer and starts click-clicking away at the keyboard with her plump, swollen fingers.
“Nope,” she says after about a minute. “There ain’t no dog in the computer here that fits her description. Why don’t I scan her to see if she has a microchip at all?”
The woman scans the dog with what looks like a barcode scanner, but there’s nothing there. She sighs and drops her shoulders and smiles.
“I’ll tell you what, honey, we just ain’t got no room here to take in another stray. We can’t do it. The only option you really have is to take her to animal control, but if no one claims her in the next three days, well, they really can’t keep her, either. You know what I mean?”
I nod. “Isn’t there any other option?”
She moves her jaw around like maybe she’s chewing on something, but I try not to think about what that could be.
“Would you be willing to foster her?” she finally asks. “We can put her on our website and try to get her adopted, if you’ll just let her stay with you until then. Seems like she likes you already.”
I glance down at the dog. Man, Sue Ellen’s gonna kill me if I agree to this. But, uh, there’s really no other choice, is there? I mean, I can’t let ’em kill her.
“Sure,” I tell her, my voice cracking a little. “Sure, I’ll do that.”
The woman tells me not to worry. She tells me it won’t take long to find a good home for the dog. She tells me it’s a great thing I’m doing. Then she scuttles off, saying she’s gonna go get the vet. I guess they gotta do a physical and some kinda behavioral testing on the dog. So the two of us are left in the waiting room.
I put the dog down and try looping my belt around her neck again. I crouch down about three feet away from her, holding the end of the belt and saying in a high-pitched voice, “Come on, dog. Come on… come here… it’s all right.”
The dog doesn’t move.
“Come on, dog. It’s all right. I’m not gonna hurt you. Come on, dog. Come on, Guitar Wolf.”
I say that last part just sort of joking, but then suddenly the dog wags her tail a click and walks the distance between us.
“Good dog,” I say, way too enthusiastic—rubbing her long ears. “Good girl.”
Walking another three feet away, I try it again.
Again she comes to me.
“Man,” I say. “Guitar Wolf… I mean, dog, you are such a smart girl. Come on….”
My hand pulls at the makeshift leash and then, amazingly—timidly—she starts walking with me. I mean, I’ve got her learning how to walk on a leash already. There’s this feeling like endorphins flooding my brain. By the time the woman from the front and the vet come back, I’m smiling so much it’s embarrassing.
On seeing the two of them, however, the dog immediately cowers behind my legs. Still, I’m able to lead her into the cold, sterile examining room, and the vet follows. At first the vet places a bowl of dog food in front of my dog. She starts eating immediately—frenzied—her eyes darting all around like maybe one of us is thinking about stealing it and she might have to take off a hand if someone so much as tries. She gulps the food down in record time and then goes on to drink a whole bowlful of water.
“Okay, now,” the doctor says to me, his voice sounding very bored. “Why don’t you lift her onto the table so I can take a look at her?”
I do what he tells me, and he starts poking and prodding the poor girl all over.
His first observation is that she’s definitely pregnant. His second observation is that he thinks she probably has a few different kinds of worms. He pulls out a syringe and leans over to take her blood. That’s when things really go wrong.
The dog starts growling deep and slow, lunging at his face very suddenly. Her lips curl back so her teeth look fucking savage as hell. Her eyes go black so they’re almost glowing. Not really knowing what to do, I just grab hold of her and try ’n’ keep her pinned down, and for some reason she doesn’t bite me or turn on me or anything. But that doctor, man, she won’t let that fucker anywhere near her. I mean, she will not back down.
The only way we can get her to finally calm down is for the doctor to leave and let us alone. Then, immediately, she goes quiet again, even licking my cheek a couple times.
Christ.
Not surprisingly, that’s the end of the Humane Society’s willingness to help get her adopted. In fact, they tell me straight-out I need to have her put down. She’s dangerous, they say, wild, untamable. Plus, she’s pregnant. The right thing to do is to kill her.
To tell you the truth, man, I think about it. I mean, these people are professionals. And seeing her go psycho like that was pretty scary. Hell if I know how to handle some crazy-ass, vicious feral dog. But to kill her? Just like that? I don’t know—I keep thinking about when I was on the streets. Maybe that’s stupid, but I really was like a wild fucking dog back then. And, yeah, I definitely bit the hand that fed me a whole bunch of times. But, still, I mean, after all that, there were a few people who never gave up on me. Maybe this dog deserves someone to look after her like that. Christ, she really reminds me of myself, for some reason. Besides, there’s gotta be another animal-rescue place that’ll help me get her adopted. She deserves a good life, this
