When the humans—my new pack members, it seems—open the car door, I jump in and sit in the seat next to Mr. Victor. I understand that he is the one who needs me, not Micah. But Micah frowns and says, “Nope. Into the backseat, Daisy.” I hang my head and crawl into the cramped, dark back of the car. It smells like old milk.
Luckily, the journey home is glorious. The humans, Mr. Victor and Micah, open up the glass on the car as we ride in it. The air is spiced with autumn leaves and rain. It is such a different scent from the desperation and loneliness I was used to smelling at the shelter. I can’t resist sticking my head outside as we speed along, even though it isn’t very dignified of me. I even allow my tongue to loll about a time or two, when the humans aren’t looking. Lollolllllollllolll. Slobber isn’t respectable, but it usually signals fun.
Micah sees me. Grins. Sticks his head out the window, too.
Is he making fun of me? I pull my head inside. He pouts like a lemon and does, too.
When we reach the humans’ home, Mr. Victor tugs on the leash that the Awkward One, tagged Alex, hung around my neck. I follow Mr. Victor inside. I have no choice, because I AM ON A GODFORSAKEN LEASH.
Leashes. They go against everything a civilized dog stands for. They are an indignity.
Inside, an Adult Female with a Crying Baby on her hip stubs out a cigarette. “Oh! You’re home already! That was fast.” The smell of cigarettes feels like long-ago burns on my skin from a horrible human. I decide to withhold judgment on this person, but it’s not looking good. I hope she’s not like my first pack.
“Anna,” Mr. Victor says, his voice sharp knives. “You were smoking around the baby again.”
Anna tosses her hair. The shadows on her face shift into defiance. She leans toward Mr. Victor to give him a kiss. He turns away.
Anna sighs. Stoops over me. “And you are?” Her voice is hard to picture. It disappears quickly.
“This is Miss Daisy,” Mr. Victor says. I sit a little taller, because one should always strive to make a good first impression. Even if Anna’s was less than stellar.
The Baby cries like metal cars crunching together. It is hard to listen to anything other than that.
Mr. Victor’s face twitches. He notices, too.
“You’re a gator pit,” Anna says to me over the crying. Her face softens a bit. And her voice. Anna’s. It’s steam. There and gone.
“A what?” Micah asks. He looks at me as if I’m a surprise slice of bacon.
“A gator pit. A pit bull mix. My abuelo used to raise them. The brindle color, the bow legs, the pointed jaw, the big head . . .”
Pardon me?
“. . . she’s a prize one, this girl. My grandfather would’ve loved her.”
The thing about steam? It’s warm and clean, if temporary. I lift my nose. Prize. I like that.
Mr. Victor drops the leash. I take this as my invitation to explore.
There are cardboard boxes everywhere. They smell like another place, one far from here, with different trees and foreign dirt. I wonder if one of the boxes will be my bed. Cardboard isn’t very comfortable, but with the right garbage inside, a box can be pleasant.
The one tagged Anna watches me, her face shadows shifting into worry. Worry smells like too-old meat. “I just don’t know, Victor,” she says, bouncing the crying baby on her hip. “One more thing to take care of? And the money . . .”
“The dog is paid for by the VA. I told you. Training for ten weeks, then everything else after that, if she passes her tests.”
That sounds horrible: tests. It sounds like poking and prodding.
“If she passes?” Anna looks at me like I’m a floating fish.
“She’ll pass.”
“Yeah, but the food and the vet bills.”
“Anna, my therapist says this is the best thing for PTSD.” Mr. Victor’s voice sounds growly, and my own neck hairs prickle at it. If he’s on the defense, so am I. I know to protect the alpha dog. “Do you want me to work on this or not?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Micah’s face shadows shift into worry, too. He looks at me like a small green bud poking through the soil in spring.
I lower my nose to the worn, stained carpet and sniff deeply.
It doesn’t smell like these humans. This pack. My pack.
I sniff around some more. No, these humans are definitely new here. In this den.
There is also . . . something. A fishy, scaly something nearby. Perhaps these humans had tuna for dinner.
A few more sniffs and, yep! Just as I suspected. The other humans who were here before had a dog. A dachshund. Twelve years old. With a bladder infection.
This pack doesn’t seem at all concerned that the other pack could return, try to reclaim this den. I need to make certain that dachshund knows my pack lives here now.
I know what needs to be done. I need to take drastic measures. I wouldn’t normally do this, here, but pack dynamics are everything. And I need to prove myself useful to this new pack.
I squat.
I mark our territory. My new pack will be so happy to know I’m protecting us right away!
“Gross! Miss Daisy’s peeing!” Micah yells, his voice like a whack from a broomstick. He points at me. I’m embarrassed. Embarrassment tastes like raisins on an otherwise great pizza.
“Daisy!” Anna snaps. Her face shadows fall into a scowl. She doesn’t call me Miss. I tuck my tail.
Mr. Victor droops into a chair with a heavy sigh. His scent and his colors confuse me.
“We’ll see, okay, guys?” he says. “We’ll see. And if she doesn’t work out, we’ll find a different dog.”
A different dog.
He didn’t say another dog.
He said a different dog.
I understand the difference.
Mr. Victor and Anna and Micah forget I’m here. They go away separately. I decide to work on freeing myself from the leash, because I cannot tolerate such tyranny. The leash is leather, so not unpleasant to chew. It’s nice and gummy when Anna spots me.
“Daisy! Don’t chew your leash. Do you want me to take it off?” She crosses to me. My tail thumps. I’m usually not so dependent on humans, but leashes are an evil that requires thumbed assistance.
Mr. Victor snaps awake from his chair. “Don’t do that, Anna.” He groans to standing and grabs the stick he uses to walk. I don’t like sticks, but Mr. Victor doesn’t swing this one like some other sticks I’ve seen.
“Do what?” Anna says, her voice melting away.
“Take the leash off,” Micah yells from the other room. I can’t see him, but I can hear the shade in his voice. It’s anger, like red poison berries. Red is the color of things that burn and scar. Janie at the shelter used to tell people that dogs can’t see colors, but that’s not true. Colors are the tint of your instincts.
Micah appears in the doorway. “Alex says the leash has to stay on for thirty days,” he continues. “And no one but Dad can walk the dog, or let the dog out, or feed the dog, or even pet the thing.”
Thing? I sniff.
“What?” Anna says with a snort-laugh. “She has to wear a leash all the time?”
My heartbeat speeds. I look to Mr. Victor for confirmation of this horrible news.
“It’s only for thirty days.” This statement is a thorn.
“And we can’t pet her?” Anna looks at me with so much pity, I begin to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into with this pack.
“Alex says it will build a bond between us,” Mr. Victor says, “if I’m the only one who interacts with her.”
Micah rolls his eyes. “Only the handler—that’s Dad—can do those things. All good things must come from the handler. Alex the dog trainer said that. So much for getting a pet.” He sighs, and it feels like a knife slice.
If I’m not a pet, what am I?
“C’mon, Miss Daisy.” Mr. Victor says. “I’ll take you for a—ew. Gross,” he says, grabbing my slobbery leash. “Anna, will you hand me a—”
But Anna has already walked away. She is steam.
Mr. Victor sighs and grabs a paper towel. He also plucks a bright red fruit off a small tree in the kitchen.
When we get outside, I want to run, but I can’t, because I AM ATTACHED TO A GODFORSAKEN LEASH. I pull against it. My muscles are strong and I think I can break it if I keep trying. Mr. Victor will be proud of my strength if I can break through this thing.
“Stop that!” Mr. Victor says with a yank. His order is like walking on gravel. He snaps open the fruit and rubs it up and down the length of the leather. “This pepper will stop that chewing of yours.”
But I’m too panicked to try and puzzle out what that means because I AM ATTACHED TO A GODFORSAKEN LEASH! Thirty days of this? I will surely die a slow, graceless death, tied up like an animal. I grab the leather between my teeth and—
OH!
OH! HOT HOT FIRE HOT OH!
My tongue burns.
My nose burns.
My whole head burns.
I rub my paws over my face.
I drag my tongue and jaws across the grass.
I sneeze.
I sneeze again.
I tug Mr. Victor over to a puddle and I lap up water.
And then I stop.
Because above me, Mr. Victor’s face shadows slowly shift to point up, not down. He’s wheezing. His heart beats rapidly.
Is something wrong? Is he broken?
And then he bares his teeth.
My interaction with humans has been limited to one pack, but I do know that when a human bares his teeth, it isn’t a sign of aggression. No, for humans, showing teeth means yellow sunshine joy. It is a smile.
And Mr. Victor is awkward at it, this smiling thing. His shadows curve at unused angles. This expression of his is dusty. It occurs to me that it is the first time I’ve seen him do it. It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone in this pack do it. Even not-a-pet Micah, who now peers out the window, is scowling.
Come to think of it, this entire pack of humans is bad at it. Bad at smiling.
I vow to change that. This pack needs more yellow sunshine joy.