Sheepdog

When you’re a sheepdog, you’re born to work with mud between your toes, running through a dense, cold fog on a farm. Nights are supposed to be spent sleeping between heavy green hills kissed by spring. The moon is supposed to listen to the hymns of your howls as you chase stars like they’re clear raindrops falling from the sky for you to catch. Your breath is meant to billow before your snout as you run with the sheep you protect. You are meant to live with soil-soaked fur and nowhere to go but forward.

Instead, I live in an apartment.

I have to take an elevator to pee. There are chevron backsplashes and vinyl wood flooring. Ice comes out of my fridge, and there’s a walk-in closet. And no sheep to herd.

So I’ve started chewing rugs. Arms off couches. Toes off shoes. I gnaw, pace, and sleep. Something grows violently within me, and I can’t tell what. Each night, I sit at the door, scratching at the keyhole, hoping to see through the other side. My owners throw morsels of salted food, “poor thing,” they say. I dig my canines into their thighs, and I wait for them to mark me with an open hand.

A violent dog I am. A sick animal in need, I am. I show them my soft underbelly in hopes for them to see under the layers of frailty, I am only a dog.

Just the other night, as I lay next to the door, a slow, frigid draft swept through the seams. It bloomed within my nose, traveled through my body like a familiar voice. It was earthly, old—like it had traveled across mountains, fields, along rivers, and down canyons. It tangled in my fur, and I slept curled up in its tendrils.

The smell would bleed through the keyhole, seep through the vents, and escape between closed windows. I became frantic following the smell. The humans moved furniture to cover the scratch marks. At first, they bought sprays, then bitter-tasting strips. But I chewed anyway. Gnawed at the latches, barked at the cracks in the wall, clawed at the door.

They wrapped a sharp collar around my neck. Tugged on it when they were mad. I began sleeping behind the couch, curled beside the toilet, squeezed underneath the bed. The smell hadn’t stopped. But neither did the humans.

I awoke from a dream one night, vivid and rich, full of color. It was all alive. The green fields, the stretching sky, the smell of fruit becoming fruit, the dense moving shadows of trees and all their branches—I ran through it like I had never run before. As I opened my eyes, a small patch of moss lay by my paws. Damp. Soft. I slept beside the moss. It smelled just like the wind blowing through the front door.

The next day, the moss had shriveled up dry. It turned a dusty amber and crumpled when I nudged it with my nose. That night, I dreamed of an early morning, before the sun could crest above the trees. It smelled of raw mud and pollen. Bugs roamed and danced above the grass. The sound of muffled barks from other distant ranch dogs. I chased cars driving down the main road. I awoke to my paws coated in dirt—the tips of my fur brown and caked in mud. I tracked the soil through the apartment. The humans tugged at my collar again.

The wind—the feel of it, the sound, the smell—still swirled through the apartment. It whistled through the keyhole. It carried a haunting scent of wet stone, lambs wool, manure, pollen, and dirt. I dreamed again and again. Awaking to hay tangled in my coat, the taste of grass on my tongue, my paws sore and worn from running.

I clawed at the base of the front door. My nails cracked and teeth tattered. The more I ate away, the stronger, fuller, louder—like a demand- the scent became. It howled along with me, like a greeting from an old friend.

The humans locked me in the bathroom. Closed the door and left the light on. I curled up next to the cold porcelain. Quietly whining—my nose still filled with the scent, the voice, the call of the wind.

And on the seventh night, a storm gathered as the humans slept. The wind, stronger than it had ever been before, pushed up against the windows, shaking the building like someone was pushing it, demanding to get in.

I howled at the bathroom door. A low, mournful sound. The lock rattled faintly. I stared at the knob, waiting for it to turn.

The lock clicked open. Softly, as if something ancient, powerful was finally saying yes to an overasked question.

I leapt through the bathroom. My paws skidded against the vinyl floor, scraping past the overturned dining chair and fallen coat rack.

The front door creaked. Just enough for the latch to lift from its place.

And there—fields.

Rolling hills, wet with early morning dew. Dirt paths marked with hoofprints and tire ruts. A broken fence covered in moss. Sheep! Distant in the pasture, huddled together. The air was alive, saturated with sunlight and wind. The hum of tractors and plows collecting harvests.

I ran.

Nothing hesitated. Not a single limb. They knew the ground—I remembered. The push off the hind legs, the stretch of my chest, the feeling of the grass under my nails. I rolled in the mud. Licked a puddle—it tasted like every good thing I had dreamed of. I sprinted down the paths, weaving between sheep, who looked to me with mild interest. Like I had always been there.

I howled at the sun. I listened for the sound of my hymn to carry into the sky—no echo off concrete walls.

I slept that night beneath the moon, curled in straw and dirt. I had no urge to bite, gnaw, or pace. Everything was slow. Steady. My blood felt soft. The wind cold.

And in the morning, when the sun broke through the clouds, I awoke not as a bad dog, a sick dog, or a violent one.

I awoke as a sheepdog.

And I ran.