Buddy Says I Do

Buddy started out life as “that runty puppy”, the one with the weird orange patch on an otherwise silky black ear. He had seven sisters and a brother. In the crush, his mother, a sharp-nosed terrier of an indiscriminate tan color, was too overwhelmed to take notice of the smallest member of her litter. Buddy struggled to suckle because the others crawled over him and nudged him off the teat. If he could see himself, he would have realized he looked a little crazy. He had a lazy left eye. His right ear sat up high while his other ear flopped. His spindly tail had a kink, and a bald patch. His oddest feature was an extra roll of fur on his pudgy puppy forehead which gave the appearance of a permanent frown. He looked sad. To some eyes, he was not just runty but plain ugly. Nonetheless, a little human girl chose him ahead of all the others.

“I want that one dad,” she said in a soft, hopeful voice. Her dad grunted and if Buddy had understood he would have felt some foreboding. The big male human seemed disappointed, but the small girl human seemed nice. Her little hand on his head was gentle, so when he was picked up and shut in a box he felt a funny mix of relief and terror. When he was taken out of his box, he found his new place to live was like a super-sized kennel but high up off the street. The little human girl seemed withdrawn and Buddy spent a lot of his time huddled in a corner, not able to shake a feeling of apprehension. The humans took him out for two walks the first full day he lived there but after that they yelled at him when he had to pee. The big male human was angry all the time and sometimes yelled at the large female human, and sometimes at the little girl human. Buddy felt sorry for the little girl human and one time tried to lick her wet, salty face but she grabbed him around his tummy so hard his breath was knocked right out of him and he had to wriggle away. She looked at him a little suspicious after that.

About a week in, all the humans went out. This was normal but this time no one had taken Buddy to the ground level of the high-rise kennel before they left and he found he had to poop. He knew by now that wasn’t a good thing. It took him a while but he found a spot under the window, behind some hanging fabric. He figured this was the perfect location but when the big male human got home he chased Buddy around the room making angry sounds. Buddy couldn’t translate the sounds but he heard “disgusting little flea bag” and “stupid little bastard”. The big male human landed a foot on Buddy’s backside, which made him squeal. He fled behind the couch but the big male human grabbed him and shook him then threw him back behind the couch where he skid to a halt next to his pile of poop. When the big female human and little female human got home the yelling seemed to go on all night. The next day, the humans put him in a kennel that moved. After quite a while the kennel stopped moving and they pushed him out onto a big patch of green grass. Oh, boy, it smelt great. Buddy ran nose down following trails of smells that clashed and collided. He peed on them all and pooped, too, and when he had done his business he turned around to see where the little girl human was. But the moving kennel was gone.

Buddy sat and waited for ages but after a while he realized the little human girl wasn’t coming back. So he ran. Moving kennels zoomed by making a scary whoosh sound but Buddy kept running. When he could run no more, he ducked under a scraggly tree, exhausted. He was hungry but there was no food. When the sun went down he heard himself whimper, then the rain came, lashing down in great big curtains of steel. Buddy made himself small against the tree but there was no escape. When morning came he was too weak to move. He put his head on his paws and cried, then stiffened. He was no longer alone. A monster dog with flattened ears and patchy fur walked into view. It bared its teeth and rumbled a long growl, then it leapt. Buddy felt sharp teeth sink into his neck and passed out. When he woke up, the dog was sitting in front of him, assessing him. “What are you – two months old? Look, I’m sorry I bit you. That was wrong of me. But you can’t stay here. There’s not enough food. You better get going, before the others come.” When Buddy didn’t move, the big dog stood over him – “get going, now!” Buddy found he could run some more after all and found a slow rhythm, keeping his head down and trying to ignore the zooming kennels whizzing past him. There were more of them than ever. Every now and then, a missile whistled past him and he heard humans laughing. “I think I got it,” a voice yelled when a red can bounced off his head. By the time the next darkness came Buddy had arrived at a big white structure with a flat ground made of the same hard, white material. There were cracks where plants were growing through. Buddy could smell other creatures had been there, lots of them, but he was too tired and weak to care so he edged into a corner and cried himself to sleep.

He woke to more human voices. “I think he’s over there,” one said. “Here, puppy, do you want some food?” Buddy heard a sound, like tin tapping on tin, then smelt something delicious on the wind. He dragged himself to his feet and stood swaying. There was food a few yards in front of him, but humans were there, too. The smell went all the way up Buddy’s nostrils. He tottered forward, hardly flinching as the big net came down on top of him.  

Before long, Buddy was locked in a metal cage, listening to barking and howling all around him. There were lots of others like him, though he couldn’t see them. Boy, were they making a racket. More humans appeared at the front of his cage. “What are we going to call you, little guy?” said a female human. “You look kind of like a Buddy. Have we got any other Buddy’s in at the moment?” “Just two, I think,” said another human. “Okay, now it’s three,” said the first. “He’s cute, don’t you think? Someone will take him.”

No one took him. Days turned to weeks and months. At six months old, he had taken to pacing around and around his cell. His blankets were always wet and smelled of urine and his feces got wedged in his paws. Some of the humans were kind but he didn’t know how to react to kindness so he growled and barked and snapped. They tried to take him to the watery place they had taken him to right at the start, where they drenched him in bubbles and an awful sweet scent, but he snarled and jerked, so they let him be. Sometimes random humans walked by, pointing and staring, and one day he noticed an old female human standing outside his cage watching him. She stayed a while and talked to him in words he couldn’t understand, then left. But she came back, day after day. She babbled on and Buddy found he didn’t mind much because, for one, she didn’t smell so bad for a human. That soapy smell wasn’t strong on her. “How are you today, Buddy?” she would ask. One day, they opened the cage and the old female human came right inside. Buddy was taken aback so he snapped at her. His teeth made contact with her hand. What was she thinking? He’d been starting to trust her but the last time he’d trusted a human he’d ended up in here. He licked his lips. Her blood tasted tangy. He watched a look of alarm cross her face, but it was followed by another look, as well, one he couldn’t work out. He pressed back against the rear of the cage and she backed out the front.

She was back the next day. “Hey there Buddy, it’s okay sweetheart. I know you didn’t mean it yesterday. I know I frightened you. Here, I’ve got something for you.” The chewy thing she pushed through the bars was delicious, he had to admit that. Whenever the old human came back, she had another chewy thing for him. She didn’t come inside the cage again but she would drop it into the cage. She took to sitting on a little stool she brought along and while he didn’t know the topic, she regaled him with stories about the times she nearly got married. The first time, her beau had run off with her sister, but now she looked back, well, that was a lucky escape. The second time, her heart was broken because she was very much in love with Tom from Accounts but he had fled before the wedding, telling her some time later that he was gay. There were two more times she was left at the altar which she told Buddy all about. Each time she stopped by to talk, he would tilt his head and listen.  One day, when she pushed the chewy thing through the bars of his cage he walked forward and took it from her hand. She looked so pleased. “Do you know, honey, there are tons of dogs along this row and around the corner, and I’ve made friends with a few of them – and, by the way, none of them bit me – but I keep coming back to you. I see some kind of yearning in your eyes. I think we’d get on pretty good - do you want to come home with me, Buddy?” Buddy hadn’t a clue what that pleading tone in her voice meant but was surprised to find his tail moving from side to side of its own accord. The old female human clapped her hands. “Oh, my, I think your tail is saying ‘I do.’”