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Title: 10. Belun Speaks Notes: Written as a present to my beloved Laura, Wolfens, who rescued and kept an injured pit bull puppy. Warnings: Romance, schmoop A prez for Wolfen Hey, hey, hey... You human folks... Hey, hey, hey... Mind if I kiss you? Oh, you taste good! Who had chicken for dinner? Mmmm So anyway, I was hanging out with Spooky, my sidekick, today. We were watching our humans. You know them, Mulder, Alex, and Walter. They smell pretty good too. I'm not sure what they do when they go into the big bed place, but they always smell good and raunchy when they come out. Scuse me. Damn flea bit me. Alex forgot to put my Advantage on and the fleas are bad this year. Pluto and Mars think it's undignified to scratch. I got to say, those dogs take themselves too seriously. A dog can work and still be a dog. So anyway, me and the Spook were having a good session with our Kongs when the Spook said something that caught my attention like a good meaty bone. Spook said that all of the 'Gone to the Dogs' stories that star us are told by our humans. All very well, but you know, sometimes they miss the whole picture. You got to sniff deeper sometimes. You heard the story of how Pluto got lost and how I got found? The way Alex tells it, it was all accidents and then Walter, our alpha, decided to save me from the doggie jail. There wasn't any accident about the way I came to join my family. I sniffed a good thing when I smelled it and Alex was a good thing. I don't remember much about my Mom. She was a good old girl, mostly German Shepherd dog although she had a little rough collie and Labrador retriever in her heritage. She spoke wistfully of our father when I was with my litter. He was very romantic, she said, Russian nobility that escaped from the estate up the road when she was fragrant. He spoke Russian to her and she wouldn't let any of the other dogs tie with her. They dragged him away before he could marry her. Nine weeks later, there were only three of us pups that lived. Mom's humans weren't the good kind although she worshipped them. Had they been responsible, Mom would have been neutered as I am. No pups, no me. They didn't feed her nearly enough and out of a litter of six, half of us pups died. I was the biggest and the one the kids like best. I got the most milk when we were nursing.When I was old enough to eat food, the boy shared his peanut butter sandwiches with me. The boy... I really loved that kid. I thought I would stay with him, but one day a family showed up with two little girls and I was put in a box. I cried and yelped. My Mom ran down the road after me until her and the boy sat down together and cried. I never knew what happened to my sister and brother. I just hope for the best for them. As for me, the two little girls put me in doll clothes and carried me around. The dog food I ate was the cheapest, but I didn't know any better so it was fine by me. I was a happy puppy and tried to please my girls. However, they weren't old enough to train me and their mother was tired and overworked. There was no dad and the human woman had to work hard all day then come home and take care of the kids. I don't know why the human woman thought she could add a dog to her already too busy life. It didn't work out and eventually I ended up on a chain in the backyard. My girls spent less and less time with me. I was bored and miserable on that chain. As I grew bigger, I found that if I pulled hard that I could pull the tie out stake out of the dirt. Then off I would run, deliriously happy. I always went to the school where my girls spent the day. I had such a great time playing with the kids until the mean old teachers called the dog police. I was a career criminal by the time I was seven months old. I thought I knew the drill. Break loose, go play, a trip to the pound where I got a flea bath at least, and then the woman would come and take me home to start all over again. Well, I was wrong. This time, no woman. No home to my girls. Day after day, people looked at me and walked on by. I heard people say I was homely. They said I was just a mutt, a big brown dog. I didn't care. I just wanted to play and jumped around the cage every time someone stopped to look. A couple times, someone was interested enough to take me out of the cage and meet me. I was so happy to be out that I jumped up to lick their faces. I guess I knocked them down. I didn't mean to. No one ever taught me to do anything differently. People thought that was cute when I was a pup. My keepers had sad voices when they talked about me. Something about his days were going to be up. What did that mean? I thought maybe I was going to get to go home after all, but I smelled sadness on the nicest of my keepers. The other thing was once a week, dogs who had been at the dog jail longest were dragged or carried to a room in the back. They never came back and I smelled their fear on the clothes of the keepers. The keepers cried a lot on that day. I heard them say my day was going to be tomorrow. I was kind of getting the idea that the home I would go to was not the one with my little girls. The day before my time was up, something wonderful happened. Alex happened. You know Alex. He's my human. I picked him out myself. He needed me as much as I needed him. I knew he was the one the minute I smelled him. Alex smelled like love. I feel sorry for humans. They can't smell love the way us dogs do. Alex smelled sad too. He smelled like some of the dogs that didn't get adopted. They were the ones brought in and put in cages all alone. They told sad strange tales of being made to fight for their people. They were torn and scarred. They never were adopted. I don't know why Alex smelled like that, but I've mostly licked that sad smell off him. He smells like love and happy now most of the time. Okay, maybe Walter and Mulder had something to do with that also. They did lick Alex a lot. You never saw such licking humans as our humans! Anyway, I decided I would go home with Alex the minute I smelled him. The other dogs he spent time with loved him too, but they went off with other people one by one. Ginger was the first to go, with nary a glance behind her. She left with two people and the ghost of an old Golden Retriever dog telling her how to take care of them. Ginger's fluffy tail was held high and wagging hard. Then quickly, Brownie was picked out. He was going to be the companion of a human boy who was in a wheelchair. I heard he was even going to school. I tried to warn him that the mean teachers would send him back here, but he told me I was a fool. He was going to a special dog school and after that, no one could send him home. I don't know. Seemed hinky to me. After that, Girl was chosen. She was picked by two ladies who held hands as they walked her from the shelter. She was even going to keep her name. Something about it being just right for the women who fell in love with her. I hardly even got to know Poncho and Buddy before they went home with someone. They were going to be working dogs, Alex said. I didn't care. I had my sights set on one human. I knew what I wanted and nothing short of the Rainbow Bridge could stop me. I remember the day Alex sat down and pressed his head to my side. The keepers were talking about my Day again. Alex told me to remember all the things he taught me when the next people came to look at me. I wanted to please Alex. I decided that I would go home with the people he picked if they smelled right. Only, they didn't smell right at all. They smelled...picky. I pulled on the leash. I play bowed to them and tilted my head to make my floppy ear fall over my eye. I even jumped on them. Alex smelled sadder and sadder but then... I smelled alpha. The men I smelled on Alex came to look at me. The one who smelled alpha pointed at me and barked a bunch of human words. I didn't speak as much human as I do now so I can't say what it was he said. All I know is that I never smelled Alex happier. Alex jumped on the big man and hugged the one who smelled like curiosity on two legs. No one even swatted Alex with newspaper for jumping...but then Alex didn't hit me with papers anyway. He always just made me sit when I was excited. After a while, they brought Pluto and Mars to meet me. It was in a grassy place. You don't know how good that grass smelled when you hadn't smelled it in more than a month. I saw Pluto that first time and I thought he was wonderful. I immediately play bowed and he play bowed back. We romped until we were exhausted. After that, Mars told me the rules and mounted me just to set me in my place. Walter was his human, Mars reminded me. I could have a pat, but Mars was the one who sat at his feet. That was fine with me. My human was Alex although I did think Walter had wonderfully smelly feet which was why I chewed up his boot that time. Mulder pretended not to like me, but when Alex wasn't looking, he sneakily gave me treats and petted me for a long time, telling me about his sister, Samantha. I miss my sister and brother sometimes too. Someday, when I can speak enough human, I'm going to tell Alex to search for them. Until that day, hey hey hey or I guess it sounds more like woof woof woof to you. Oh, I should tell you that the reason I'm telling this story is for a special lady who rescued a lovely puppy twice over. The End Kisses to you from Belun and Ursula
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