A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray Read online

  One morning Bone and I were eating our fabulous chicken breakfasts when I realized that Matthias’s hand was resting on my back. His other hand was resting on Bone’s back. I was startled, but not so startled that I couldn’t finish the chicken.

  The following morning, Matthias stroked our heads while we ate.

  And then one morning he pulled me into his lap. I struggled at first, but Matthias kept patting me and murmuring, “You’re such a good puppy. The best puppy ever. Good puppy, good puppy.” He pulled Bone into his lap next, and Bone growled, but he didn’t struggle too much.

  After that, I waited every morning for Matthias to come to the shed. Sometimes Bone waited, too, sometimes he didn’t. Matthias always brought chicken, and sometimes he brought a ball or a toy. I would eat the chicken and then I would sit in Matthias’s lap. Or we would play in the grass behind the shed. I noticed that Matthias was as careful to stay out of sight of his house as Bone and I were.

  At the height of summer, something of fall was already in the air — although I didn’t realize it then, didn’t know that the days would turn short and cold and that food would become hard to find. It was during this time that Bone and I saw the man with the gun again. And one evening we heard a blast from the rifle.

  Bone stayed awake all the rest of that night. I had seen him do this on other nights, had watched as he woke from a deep sleep, sat up, and listened to the coyotes in the hills or to voices from the Merrions’ porch. My brother was becoming restless. I loved our summer days — being greeted by Yellow Man in the morning, hunting or going to the garbage heap with Bone, waiting for Matthias, romping in the woods. But Bone was tiring of our days. And he was becoming suspicious. He eyed the Merrions, even Matthias, more warily than ever. He growled when he saw the man with the gun. And on the morning after the rifle blast, he decided to leave our home in the country.

  Very early on the morning after the shotgun blast, when the nighttime creatures were going to sleep and the humans hadn’t awakened yet, Bone rolled off of our burlap bed, touched my nose with his, then slipped through the open door of the shed and out into the quiet. I stood in the doorway watching him and saw that he looked at me over his shoulder from time to time. He trotted along the row of bushes and paused at the garbage pile, but when he kept going, I knew he was leaving for good.

  I turned and looked behind me at the shed. I looked at the nesting boxes sheltering Yellow Man and the other sleeping cats and kittens, at the wheelbarrow that had been my first nest, at the mice and their hiding places. I looked around at it all, glowing a bit in the rising sun. The shed was my home. It was everything I knew.

  But Bone was leaving.

  So I ran after him.

  I was too young then to wonder what would happen at the shed that day without us. But now I think I know. Yellow Man would rise and stretch, creep out of his box, and sniff the air. He would wait for me, wait to rub his head under my chin, but our nest would be empty and I wouldn’t come tumbling back from the woods or the garbage heap, so finally he would prowl around outside alone. He would look for me off and on for many days and then he would forget about me.

  The shed mice would forget about us almost immediately. They would register that Bone and I were gone, and then they would continue with their foraging and eating and running about as if we had never lived in the shed in the first place.

  Matthias would never forget. I am fairly certain of that. I imagine that Matthias searched his yard for us for more days than Yellow Man did. He must have searched quietly, holding out his chicken and toys; searched the entire property, and then maybe even ventured off the property. And knowing what I have learned about emotions, I think he was probably sad for a very long time.

  If I had imagined these things when I was a puppy, though — if I had imagined Yellow Man waiting and Matthias searching — I would still have run after Bone. The shed might have been my home, and Yellow Man and Matthias might have been my companions, but without Mother, Bone was my world. I could not be separated from him.

  So I ran after my brother. I ran hard, yipping to let him know I was coming. Bone heard me, and waited for me to catch up. Then we trotted along shoulder to shoulder until I realized I was as far from the shed as I had ever been. Behind me I could see the Merrions’ house, its chimneys and roofs among the tallest tree branches, swallows swooping by the attic windows. We hurried on. The next time I looked behind me, I could see only the chimney tops. The third time I looked, the house was gone.

  Bone and I made our way down a steep hill, stumbling through dense, dark woods. Then we walked along flatter terrain; walked and walked until I began to feel hungry, and I thought of the garbage pile, and of fat rodents. I was thirsty, too, and presently Bone and I came to a stream and stood at the edge and took long drinks. Then we waded in. We were hot and the water was cold, and we could see small dark shapes darting back and forth just below the surface. Bone stared at the fish for a moment, then pounced on one with a large splash. I pounced, too. We didn’t catch anything, but pouncing was fun. And it made Bone frisky. He turned and ran at me, chasing me up the stream as far as a small waterfall. At the waterfall we waded to the bank and continued through the woods.

  We kept the sun first at our fronts, then at our backs, as it moved through the sky. By the time the day’s heat was fading and the shadows felt cooler, our stomachs were rumbling, so we hunted. Then we rested. And then abruptly Bone stood up and trotted off.

  I followed him.

  This time Bone and I walked and walked until the trees became fewer and we could see their separate shadows, and the shadows were long. Finally there were no more trees, and we were walking through a field, and then I heard a swishing noise that reminded me of the sound of cars on the road to the Merrions’ house.

  Bone heard the noise, too, and he stopped. He froze in place and his ears stood up stiffly as he listened.

  The noise meant cars, I was sure of it, even though the whooshes weren’t exactly the same as the ones at the Merrions’. They were louder and quicker. WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH.

  I watched Bone. He began to walk again, more slowly. We saw an abandoned tractor in the field and made a wide circle around it. We saw a rabbit and Bone ran at it, but the rabbit disappeared.

  WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH. Where were all those cars I could hear?

  Bone, panting from his chase, stopped to catch his breath, and it was then that we saw the house. It was smaller than the Merrions’, and sat at the edge of the field, tidy and somehow friendly looking, but Bone and I turned away from it and walked in the other direction. We walked until the field came to an end and in front of us was a road, a highway. And there were the whooshes. One car after another zipped along the road. The cars went by so fast they looked blurry, and even when Bone and I retreated to the edge of the field, each car blew our ears back with a rush of hot wind as it sped by.

  I squinted my eyes against the dust and the wind and turned around. We could creep through the field again, avoid the house, and return to the woods where we could hunt. I was partway along a row of tall, scratchy plants when I realized that Bone wasn’t with me. He was still standing at the side of the road. And he was sniffing the air. An odor came to my nose. I sniffed, too.

  Chicken — just like Matthias would bring us. The odor was coming from across the road. I ran back to Bone, strained to see past the rushing cars, and when there was a little break in the traffic, I saw a paper bag lying on its side.

  There was chicken in that bag, and Bone and I knew it. My mouth started to water and I drooled as I stood at the edge of the field, separated from the chicken by two lanes of cars.

  Bone took a step forward, then another. I was right behind him, but when a truck whizzed by me, I jumped back, yelping. Bone glanced at me, then faced the traffic again. He looked as though he were getting ready to run — to bolt across the road and hope for the best — when suddenly one of the cars that had just sped by pulled to the side of the road and screeched t
o a stop. Other drivers honked their horns, but the people who had stopped, a woman and a man, ignored them. They jumped out of the car and ran to Bone and me. Bone still had his eyes on that bag of chicken, but I was watching the people, and I wanted to get away from them. I couldn’t leave Bone, though.

  I let out a warning bark.

  Too late. The man scooped Bone into his arms, and the woman scooped me into her arms.

  “Look, they’re just puppies,” the woman exclaimed. “What are they doing way out here?”

  The man looked sternly at Bone. “You guys could have gotten yourselves killed,” he said. “This is a dangerous highway.”

  “Well, honey, they don’t know any better,” said the woman. “They’re little. They must have gotten lost.”

  “Do they have any collars or tags?” asked the man, feeling around Bone’s neck.

  Bone stiffened, jerked his head over his shoulder, and snapped at the man.

  The man almost dropped him. “Hey!” he shouted. “You little brat! Don’t do that again.” He gave Bone a shake.

  “George, I just told you, they don’t know any better,” said the woman. “Come on, let’s get back in the car. It’s not safe standing out here.”

  I squirmed. The woman’s hands around my body were not gentle, as Matthias’s had been. She held me too tightly, and it was hard to breathe. I looked desperately at Bone, who was struggling and twisting and growling as the man, George, held him at arm’s length.

  “They’re scrappy,” said the woman brightly.

  “They’re a pain in the neck,” George replied. He tucked Bone under one arm while he opened the car door. “Stick them in the back, Marcy,” he said. “That way they won’t pee on us.” He paused. “What are we going to do with them, anyway?”

  “Keep them! They’re cute. They’ll settle down. They’re probably just scared.”

  This was true. Bone and I were petrified. We huddled on the floor of the car behind George and Marcy. I whimpered and whined, and the movement of the car made my stomach roll.

  “Here we are!” Marcy said presently.

  The car turned a corner and I threw up.

  “Blasted creatures,” said George. “Now the car is going to stink to high heaven.”

  “I’ll clean it up,” said Marcy. She peered over the seat at Bone and me. “Welcome to your new home.”

  I didn’t want a new home. I wanted the shed. I wanted Mother. I wanted the garbage heap. I wanted Yellow Man and the mice and Matthias. I wanted Bone and me curled up on our burlap nest. When Bone had walked away from our shed that morning, I hadn’t thought about why. Was it to escape a place he felt was dangerous? Was it to search for a safe new home? I wouldn’t have left, but Bone had chosen to. Maybe he had a reason, maybe not. It didn’t matter, because here were George and Marcy carrying us to their house and they were making the choices now.

  Marcy unlocked the door to our new home. The house was smaller than the Merrions’ and bigger than the little one at the edge of the field, but with hardly any space between it and the house on either side. And all along the road were houses, houses, and more houses, each with a flat yard in front, planted with spindly trees.

  Marcy opened the door, stepped into a cool dark room, and placed me on the floor. “There you go,” she said to me. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  I licked at the foam around my mouth as George carried Bone inside and set him on the floor next to me. I looked miserably at Bone. My stomach was sloshing around like the stream we had played in, and I needed to pee. In our shed home, we were careful not to pee in our nest (we rarely even peed in the shed), so I stepped delicately off of the rug Bone and I were standing on, squatted, and peed on the floor by the door.

  “Hey!” shouted George. “Bad dog! Bad dog! Stop that!” He grabbed me up, pee dribbling from between my legs, shoved the front door open, and tossed me onto the steps.

  From inside I could hear Bone let out a high-pitched angry bark, and Marcy say, “George, calm down.”

  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do out there on the steps. I had finished peeing, and I wanted to get away from George and Marcy, but Bone was still in the house. So I sat trembling before the door until Marcy opened it and brought me inside again.

  “Now, look here,” she said as she herded Bone and me into a large room with a table in the center and no rug on the floor. “You can’t pee indoors. Do you understand? No peeing!”

  “Marcy, for heaven’s sake, they don’t know what you’re saying,” George called. He was in the other room, swishing a rag over the puddle I had made. “And they’re not housebroken. I hope you realize that. They’re not housebroken. Do you really want the job of housebreaking two puppies?”

  “How difficult can it be?” Marcy called back to him. “They’re young. This is when you’re supposed to teach them.”

  She looked down and saw Bone lifting his leg against a wooden chair, saw me pooping in a corner of the room, and quietly swatted each of us on our bottoms. Then she hissed, “Bad dogs!” in a voice not loud enough for George to hear, and cleaned up our messes quickly.

  Bone and I retreated under the table and hid among a maze of chair legs. After Marcy had finished cleaning up, she said, “Okay! Suppertime!” and fished under the table for us. Bone let out a long low growl, while I backed away from her.

  “Go ahead, growl if you want,” said Marcy, wounded. She stood up. “You’ll come out when I offer you food.”

  “What are you going to feed them?” asked George. He entered the room with a fistful of soggy paper towels.

  Marcy was opening and closing cabinets. “Well, I’ll get them some dog food tomorrow. For now they can eat —”

  I didn’t hear what Marcy was going to suggest, because at that moment George lifted the lid on a garbage pail, and Bone shot out from under the table, knocked the pail over, and pounced on the food scraps.

  I forgot about my misery when I smelled all those familiar odors — eggs and bologna and cookie crumbs and apple peelings. I forgot about my stomach, too. I was hungry, I was starving, and here was another garbage heap. I snatched at a piece of turkey, and Bone whisked a stale piece of bread — a whole piece! — under the table and ate it in big gulps, growling all the while.

  “No, no, NO!” George shouted. “Marcy, will you look at this mess.”

  Marcy yanked the can upright and tried to gather the spilled garbage into a heap, while Bone and I kept darting out from under the table to grab at more bits of food.

  “No!” Marcy yelled again and again. “Bad dogs!”

  Bone and I didn’t settle down until we were full of food scraps. Then we fell asleep under the table.

  I knew that at some point Marcy slid my brother and me out from under the table. She did this gently, saying, “Oh, tired puppies, tired puppies. Look how sleepy you are.”

  I knew she and George sat on the kitchen floor for a long time, Bone in her lap, I in George’s.

  I knew these things, and Bone knew these things, but after our day of traveling we were suddenly so tired we couldn’t even open our eyes.

  “Tired puppies,” Marcy murmured again, stroking Bone’s back.

  George stroked my back and now his hand — the one that had flung me out the door — felt more like Matthias’s.

  “How old do you think they are?” Marcy whispered to George.

  George continued stroking my back. “I don’t know. They must be several months old at least. I don’t think they’re baby babies. Maybe five months?”

  “Still pretty young,” said Marcy. “We’ll have to get them to the vet soon. We don’t even know if they’re boys or girls.” She paused. “I wonder what they’re doing on their own.”

  “They’re probably feral, you know,” George replied. “I don’t think they’ve lived with people before.”

  I fell sound asleep then. I didn’t waken until I felt myself being lifted up and carried somewhere. I opened my eyes and found that George and Marcy were s
ettling Bone and me in a large box in that room with no rug. The box was lined with newspapers.

  “This will be your bed tonight,” said Marcy. She patted us on our heads. “Tomorrow we’ll get you something better. Good night, puppies.”

  The room went dark and I could hear footsteps trail up and away from us. For a long time I tried to nestle into Bone, to curl into him and pretend we were safely tucked into our burlap bed. But I needed to pee and I missed the rustling of the mice and the soft sighs and mews of Yellow Man and the cats. I listened hard for anything familiar, for owls or even coyotes. I thought I heard some faint cricket songs, but that was all.

  I edged away from Bone. I had to pee desperately now, but I didn’t want to go in our bed. Bone was restless, too, and probably needed to pee just as desperately as I did.

  I let out a whimper. Bone let out a louder whimper. I whined. And then Bone started to howl. I joined him, and we howled and cried until suddenly the room grew bright and there stood Marcy, her hands on her hips.

  “What on earth is wrong?” she exclaimed. “For heaven’s sake, be quiet, puppies.”

  Bone and I stood up, resting our front feet against the sides of the box. We jumped and yipped and whimpered.

  Marcy glanced over her shoulder. “It is two o’clock in the morning,” she said fiercely. “Please. You have to be quiet.”

  My bladder was about to burst. I barked sharply.

  “Okay. That does it.” Marcy dragged the box out of the room, down a short hallway, and into a small space. “If you can’t be quiet, you’ll have to spend the night here in the laundry room.” I heard a click, the room became dark, and Marcy left, slamming the door behind her.

  Bone and I cried some more, and then I finally peed in a corner of our box. Bone peed where I had peed. Now our box was wet and it was smelly, but we were exhausted again, so at last we fell asleep.