Short Story by Janet
Yung
Ugly Dog
The ugliest dog Gwendolyn Beckerle ever
saw was sitting in the middle of her front porch looking up at
the doorknob as if it knew exactly where it was -- home. Leaning
on the sofa, Gwendolyn peered through the window hoping the mutt
wouldn't spot her staring at it. It had to belong to somebody.
People in this neighborhood weren't in the habit of abandoning
pets.
"It's awfully cold," she said
to the glass and pulled back suddenly when the dog looked up
as if it heard a familiar voice. Its tail swished across the
concrete, brushing fallen leaves across the surface and off into
the dormant flower beds.
"What should I do with it?" Gwendolyn
was on the phone with her mother who asked if it had a collar.
"I couldn't see anything," Gwendolyn
replied. Why couldn't it follow some kid down the street who'd
know how to handle a stray, taking it home insisting it had followed
him? Her brother tried that once with some furry little dog whose
pedigree escaped her at the moment.
When Martin came through the door, clutching
the willing captive, her mother demanded to know where he'd found
it.
"He followed me home," Martin
explained, a sad expression on his face, the dog wagging its
tail.
"That dog belongs to somebody,"
was her mother's immediate response and digging through the dog's
fur, found a tag attached to a collar.
Martin was devastated when the rightful
owner showed up, grateful for Muffin's safe return. It didn't
help Martin's cause that a neighbor spotted him coaxing the dog
down the street, and when it looked as if the dog would go no
further, scooped it up in his arms, running the rest of the way
home.
"Where's Martin when I need him?"
Gwendolyn said. The dog was curled up on the welcome mat, the
late afternoon sun beating down on its fur. The last of the early
October mild weather. The weather was set to turn nasty in a
couple days according to the weatherman.
"Martin doesn't need a dog,"
her mother said.
Gwendolyn lamented the fact it was Saturday.
Any weekday, she'd be at work and the dog would probably have
trotted past her house. But she'd had the misfortune of coming
in with a load of groceries when the dog, on the other side of
the street, spotted her and came running towards her, wagging
its tail furiously and barking. At first, she'd been startled
by the action and about to panic as she raced for the door, the
dog running circles around her, jumping up and down, drooling
at the bags.
"It must've been the food," her
mother said.
"I guess," Gwendolyn agreed and
added, "Do you think I should try to feed it." The
dog was scratching the back of its neck with its hind paw and
Gwendolyn immediately thought "fleas."
"Do you have anything in the house?"
"Nothing," was Gwendolyn's reply.
With a lull in the conversation, Gwendolyn
decided to make a trip to the pet store for some supplies. "Maybe
I can put an ad in the paper and check the classifieds for lost
dogs and if nothing turns up, take it to the Humane Society next
week."
Gwendolyn slipped out to the garage where
she'd managed to park her car once she'd unloaded her bags, dancing
around the dog.
Driving down the alley, she glanced in
the rear view mirror, worried it might have heard movement in
the back of the house and tried to follow her, but there was
nothing. With any luck, the dog would be gone when she returned.
Thirty minutes later, she was back. A couple
kids were shooting hoops down the alley and stopped when they
spotted her car and started up again once her garage door was
raised. "Well, the dog didn't find them," she groused
popping open the trunk and gathering her purchases.
"You might want to have the dog checked
out by a vet," the clerk said, while offering her suggestions
on the best types of food along with the care and treatment of
strays. "There are organizations that handle that sort of
thing," he said and Gwendolyn nodded, thinking it might
be the best solution.
She was barely in the back door when she
heard barking at the front. "Great," she grumbled on
her way to the door. Now, the neighbors would be certain it belonged
to her.
"Okay," Gwendolyn opened the
door and the mutt rushed in before she could stop it. It raced
around the living room and circled through the dining room, finally
heading for the kitchen. Each room looked substantially smaller
as it charged from room to room, Gwendolyn certain it was about
to knock something over or pounce on her freshly laundered slipcovers.
It stood in the middle of the kitchen floor
and started barking and jumping up and down.
"Calm down." Gwendolyn tore open
the package of dry food, pouring the recommended amount in a
dog dish she'd been cajoled into purchasing along with a water
dish. She'd stopped short of the bed, thinking the dog could
sleep in the backyard or in the basement on a pile of old blankets
if the weather turned too cold.
She watched as it gobbled up the dish's
contents and slurped up water, moving the dish along her clean
floor till it was licked dry. Looking up for more, Gwendolyn
was tempted to say "no, that's all for now," but the
dog's sides looked slightly caved in, making her wonder when
it had eaten last. "You could have rabies for all I know,"
she told it, adding food to its dish.
Satisfied, it walked to the back door and
barked; door opened, it flew onto the grass. Gwendolyn watched
as the mutt headed for the shrubs along the garage and did its
business, thinking it was nice to know the dog was trained and
at the same time now she'd have one more household chore -- scooping
poop.
Wednesday, Gwendolyn found a dog bed. The
pile of blankets at the foot of Gwendolyn's bed looked messy
and not very comfortable, although the dog didn't complain.
"This is your new bed for now,"
Gwendolyn explained carefully as she replaced the old blankets.
The dog curled dutifully in it while Gwendolyn sat in bed reading.
Once the bed side lamp was switched off, the dog pounced on Gwendolyn's
bed with a thud, turning and pawing at the covers till she was
comfortable. Snoring followed.
A week later, the dog was comfortably ensconced
in its new routine. "Did you have any luck with lost and
found?" her mother asked, the dog barking.
"No." Gwendolyn had been disappointed
with the negative results. There'd been no response to her "found"
ad placed in the classifieds. And, no one was advertising, "Lost:
Ugliest dog you've ever seen." Maybe they were glad to be
rid of her, but she seemed to be agreeable, even during the sound
scrubbing Gwendolyn gave her on Sunday afternoon.
"What do you plan on doing with her?"
Gwendolyn's mother asked.
Gwendolyn shrugged. She didn't have the
heart to boot the dog out. "I don't know. Keep looking for
her owner, I suppose." She'd been thinking about names.
"It looks like that dog has found
its owner," her mother said and hung up before Gwendolyn
could protest.
"I think we'll call you Snuffy...for
now."
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