The sand was soft. Within a few moments Red’s nose appeared under the fence. More dirt flew and splattered the shrubs, and he had made a hole deep enough for him to squeeze through.
When he stood up on my side of the fence, he kind of grunted and stretched. “Man, I’m getting too old for all that hard work.”
Red didn’t look quite the way I had pictured him from my view through the crack in the fence. He wasn’t nearly as tall as me, but he was still sleek and trim. He had long red hair, except for the tufts around his forehead and whiskers. There his coat was beginning to turn white with age.
He moaned again and wiggled so the sand would fall off his belly. After that, he sniffed me all over. Then he explored my yard and came back to sniff me again.
He folded his tail to the side and sat down on one hip. “Well,” he announced after his inspection. “You’re no coward. You’re big, but you’re just as gentle as you said you were.” He cocked a red ear. “You’re not stupid, either—but you sure are mixed up.”
I tilted my head to the side. “You can tell all that from sniffing?”
“Listen, pup. When you get to be my age you learn to tell a lot about dogs—and people—from a good sniff.”
A shudder made the hair on my back bristle as I looked at the hole Red had left under my fence. “We should hide,” I whimpered. “I’m in trouble already. When my master sees the hole you made”—I swallowed and shook all over—“I’ll probably get sent to the pound. I don’t want you to get sent there, too.”
“Every time you mention the pound, your smell of fear hurts my nose,” Red snorted. “My master’s not gonna send me to the pound.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Red yawned. “Long time ago I was running in the pasture with him and his boy. We found this pond, and I jumped in. I love the water. Only thing Irish setters love more than running is swimming. Anyway, his boy—dumb kid—decides to jump in with me. Idiot didn’t know how to swim.
“Well, he started flopping around and screaming, so I paddled over to see what his problem was. Little rascal latched on to my tail. Only thing for me to do was paddle for the bank. Either that or let the kid drown both of us. My master got there just as I was dragging his boy up on the bank. I guess he figured the kid fell in and I jumped in to save him—neither one of ’em was ever too bright. Anyway, since that day I’ve never had to worry about anything. I can dig in the dirt, I can wet on the carpet, I can even chew up the garden hose—he never gets mad at me. Thinks I’m the greatest dog that ever lived. So quit worrying about the hole. It’s not a problem. You’re the one with the problem.”
I nodded and sat down on my haunches to face him.
“You’re right,” I sighed. “I really do have a problem. This is my third master. The other two got mad at me and gave me away. My friend Scotty told me that he was on his third master—but when his master got mad at him, he didn’t give him away. He took him to the pound. Now my master’s mad at me and . . . and . . .” I sniffed. “And I don’t even know what I did wrong.”
Red flipped his tail to the side and rocked to his other hip.
“The guy you told me about, the one all dressed in black—that was a burglar. He must have taken things from your master’s house. That’s why all the cars with the red and blue lights showed up after your master got home. Why didn’t you stop the guy?”
“How?”
Red cocked his ears and tilted his head. “Bite him, you dunce! Take a chunk out of his leg. Growl at him. Chase him off.”
I fell to the ground and covered my head with my paws. “Oh, that’s a terrible idea,” I whimpered. “I can’t bite. That’s why my last master gave me away. I promised then that I’d never bite another living thing as long as I lived.”
Remembering made me hurt inside. My tail tucked under. My head hung low, and my ears drooped so tight against the sides of my face that I couldn’t even hear the desert wind.
Gently Red reached down with his nose and lifted one of my ears. “Calm down, pup,” he soothed. “It can’t be all that bad. Tell me about it. Start at the very beginning.”