Scout

I don’t remember much from before she found me, but I remember being cold. It was two days before Christmas (though I was too young to know that’s what it was called at the time), and I was taken from my mother to be left alone in the snow in a field. I had never been alone before and my paws ached. My entire body shivered and my big ears flapped in the wind. I cried out for my mother, for the people who took me from her, for anyone at all that might help me out of the cold. My heart beat quickly in my chest and I didn't understand what I had done wrong. I wandered in the snow until I could no longer mover and began to wail as loudly as I could.

And then she came, bundled up in pajamas and a housecoat, into the deep snow I had been left in. “What are you doing out here?” 

I had no idea what she was saying, and I was wary of anyone with opposable thumbs. She crouched down into the snow and leaned back on her boots to wait for me to approach her, and eventually, I did. She gently, way more gently than the other humans, picked me up and then tucked me into the warmth of her housecoat. I cried the whole time she carried me back to the warmth of her den. Wait, it’s called a house. 

I was sad that my mother wasn’t in the house, and I missed my siblings terribly. I had always had something to eat and someone to play with, but this house was empty. This house was too clean and too quiet. The human settled me on a blanket on the couch and brought me a stinky, warm thing that reeked of rubber. I kind of liked how it smelled and it warmed me greatly. 

It took the human a couple of days to figure out what to do with me, but I knew what was coming. She’d been making phone calls to try to find where I came from, so I was sure she didn’t want me. She picked me up, just as the other humans did, and took me into her car. I whined all the way across town, cried as she picked me up and walked me over to the cement building, and wailed as she put me on the cold, stone floor. 

“Oh my goodness, she’s so cute, how old is she?” A man in a blue shirt asked, and the human who had been taking care of me shrugged. 

“I’m not sure.” The man crouched down and opened my mouth. Primates do the strangest things.

“She’s got to be about two months, based on the teeth. What kind is she?” he continued to pester. 

“Uh, I don’t know.” 

“Well, she’s going to be big, look at the size of her paws!” he gushed and my human smiled at him, then at me. I liked her best when she was smiling. She bought a thing called a leash and connected it to my new collar before we walked together around the store. She put all kinds of neat things into the cart. Things that made my mouth water, colourful, round things, and all kinds of stuff I’d never seen before. My favourite thing she put in the cart, though, was the big bag of food. 

I chased her ankles all the way up to the cash, tripping over my large paws all the while. A woman put our things into bags. 

“She’s adorable, what’s her name?” she asked and my human looked down at me. 

“I… haven’t picked one yet.”

“We have a promotion going on where if you buy a collar, you get a name tag for free. It ends tomorrow.” My human crouched down on the ground again and gazed at me. I looked right back and the entire back half of my body wiggled because I was so happy she wasn’t going to leave me behind. 

“I think I’ll call her Scout,” she decided. I didn’t know what they meant with calling me anything, yet, but I liked the sound of her quiet voice and how she gently petted my ears. 

“Scout? Like a ranger?” the cashier asked.

“No, Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird.” The cashier didn’t seem to get it, but I sure did. I loved birds! She fastened a tiny, metal clip to my collar and I became endlessly distracted by the jingling that sounded from below my neck. “Come on, Scout. Let’s go home.”

And we did. We went back to her house, where she set up my new bed, organized food and water bowls for me, and dumped a pile of stuff on the floor. It took me a while to learn that they were toys and that I shouldn’t try to bite her hands, or nip at her ankles as she walked passed. For a while, I thought my name was Oops, which she would say every time I bit her before she would walk away for thirty seconds. It was just thirty seconds, but to me, it felt like an eternity because there was nobody else in the quiet house and all I wanted to do was play with her. I learned to only bite my toys and was rewarded. “Good girl, Scout!” 

“Oops,” she’d say if I chewed on a shoe instead of a bone. If I chewed on the coffee table instead of a bone. If I chewed on her books instead of my bone. I learned I was only allowed to chew on my bones and she gushed at me when I did. “Good job, Scout!” 

“Oops,” she’d say every time I tugged on the leash. No matter how hard I tugged or struggled toward the interesting smells or the cats in the street, she would not move if I tugged on the leash. I learned that if I walked beside her, I could get to where I wanted to go much faster. “Good girl, Scout!”

“Oops,” she’d say when I would pee in the house before she would pick me up and run me outside into the snow, where I would finish my business. She gave me treats if I peed outside, so I learned to pee outside. Still, my bladder was small and I was just a puppy at the time, so I woke in the night crying to let her know I wanted to pee outside for a treat instead of in my bed. She never gave up on me, and I did my best to make her happy. Sometimes I’d wake up to her crying too, and on those nights she’d let me sleep in her bed. I wondered if she missed her family as much as I missed mine; she didn’t seem to have one. “I love you, Scout.”

I loved her, too. I could be her family. I would be the best family ever! I got big fast, and it didn’t take long for me to reach above her waist. If she sat next to me, which she often did, I was bigger than her. My life became a routine of being let out for a pee before the sun was even up, then she would be gone. I missed her every. Single. Day. I would lay in my bed and wait for her to come home, or, very rarely, I would wander the house and find something that smelled like her to lay with. 

When she got home though, boy did we have fun! I took her for adventures and pointed out all the parts of our neighborhood that were stinkiest, those were my favourite parts, but she never wanted to smell them. I wondered if she could smell at all. It sure didn’t seem like it. I made sure she but her books down every once in a while to play with me, and she was a good player. She’d tug on the other end of my rope just as hard as I did but I was careful to avoid her hands, just like she taught me. She taught me all kinds of things, easy things, like sitting down and staying, or how to play dead, and I taught her, too. I taught her how to smile. 

Now I’m two years old, so I know how the world works. I know she’ll get up in the morning and let me out for a pee before she leaves for work. I wish every day could be the weekend. I have no idea what she does when she’s gone so long, it seems pointless to me. Why leave when she could stay home and play with me all day? Today is a workday, I know her schedule by heart, but she isn’t getting up. I nudge her hand with my nose and she grumbles at me. Sometimes she likes to try to stay in bed so I nudge her again. It’s my job to make sure she gets up.

“Scout, there’s no work today. Let me sleep in.” No work? No work!? Who would want to sleep in on a day with no work!? I can feel my tail wagging behind me and I lick her face in my excitement. “Okay, okay, we’ll get up.” I fly down the stairs at twice the speed I normally do and wait for her at the bottom. 

She laughs at my exuberance but I don’t care, I love it when she laughs. I run around in a tight circle, but my tail (which I swear has a mind of its own) knocks a couple of her books off of the coffee table. “Oops,” she says and she picks them up, but now I know that my name isn’t Oops. Oops is for accidents, and I am a Scout, not an accident, but a happy surprise! 

“What am I going to do today?” she asks me as if I could talk. I can’t, so I just think really hard at her and hope she understands. Walkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalk! She doesn’t. “Good time for cleaning, I guess.” UGH! 

I sneeze at her to tell her I want to play instead, and she laughs. She likes to tease me. 

“What’s that? You want to take a bath?” NO! Anything but a bath! She chuckles at me again. I walk over to our back door and sit down. She puts on her shoes and we walk together into the back yard. Outside, the field is covered in snow, just as it had been when I was abandoned there, but I don’t feel cold. How could I with all the warmth I’d found? 

I’m free to roam around here, there are no neighbors and no other Scouts. My human surprises me with a ball and we chase it around in the snow together until we are both too tired to run anymore. She’s the best thrower in the world and I am the best fetcher. She taught me to be, and no matter how far she throws it, no matter what kind of distractions there are, I always go home to her.