Buddy's Diary - January 12 (Part 4) - Puppy Rescue Story in English
Improve your English with cute, heartwarming puppy stories told by a rescue dog
Food everywhere – But not for me
The engine growls steadily. Girl’s warm hands pet my head and back. I am on her lap. At first, I am very still. It was all too much for me. So many changes. So many sights and sounds and emotions. So many places. My heartbeat slows. I look up at Girl. She is looking down at me with a mixture of concern and warmth.
“I’ll find her a home within a few days. She’ll only stay for a couple of days with me,” she tells the woman in the front.
I don’t understand any of what they’re saying. But I do understand one thing: I’m no longer alone on the street. That means that I’m safe. That means… my eyelids grow heavy. My exhaustion overcomes me. I fall asleep.
A while later, I wake up again. The dark growling thing we’re sitting in has stopped. Girl picks me up and takes me outside briefly, then into a shiny large place… FULL of food! Fresh meat lies all around me. Oozing juice. Glistening under the fluorescent lights. Exuding delicious smells. Winking teasingly up at me. Luring me. Enticing me. Chicken. Fish. Beef. All just lying there. For the taking. Waiting for me.
But I don’t dare. Somehow, I know it’s not mine. Girl holds me firmly. Men in white walk around talking to her. A sack of meat is filled and handed to her. It passes right by my famished little nose. It smells DELICIOUS. But still… I don’t dare reach for it or try to grab a bite. I don’t even whine or beg. I don’t know where I stand yet in her life and in this world. I don’t want to do something wrong. Misbehave. Break some unspoken human rule of conduct. I don’t know what the rules are yet. What is forbidden or allowed. What might annoy her… and cause her to toss me back out on the street to die of hunger all alone.
So I say nothing. I do nothing. Nothing at all. I don’t even sniff the air. I just hang limp and quiet and very, very still. If I do nothing… then surely I can do nothing wrong, right?
“What a well-behaved dog!” one woman remarks, looking at me in surprise and admiration.
Ha! See? Just as I thought.
I lick my lips once—just quickly, I can’t help myself—but I keep my mouth shut. I watch, I study their faces, their expressions, and I keep to myself and stay quiet.
Back into the car. Grrrr. Rumble. Then stop again. Doors slam. Girl leaves. I start crying. Girl returns. This is all too much. So many people all around. So many sounds and places. Big rustly white bags fill the car.
Girl puts me back on her lap, but I’m suddenly overcome by a new fear. A timidity. A tightening in my chest. I wriggle out of her grasp and curl up at the far corner of the backseat. Looking at her. Eyeing her. I don’t stop looking at her. But I don’t want to come closer again.
I realize… who is this human really? This one I chose for life. Will she… be good to me? Is she kind as I hope? Is she nice? Will she keep me? She reaches for me again, beckoning, but I keep my distance. The reality of the life-changing choice I made now presses down on me. I chose her on the spur of the moment. We hardly know each other. No, I’m not ready for cuddles.
Before, I was desperate, scared, crying, alone, frightened. I needed love, from anyone! Pets. Hugs. And a warm, safe face that said, “I’m yours now.” But now that all that terror is passing, evaporating from my little body, I feel tired, deeply tired… and shy. I need my space. And a little time to get to know her first, before I decide if I’m comfortable cuddling with her.
She understands and leaves me be. She even takes off her sweater and puts it all around me. I burrow into it, curled up tight. But I don’t sleep. I’m still not sure I’m safe yet. I keep watching her. Trying to figure her out. Read her. And most of all, assure myself if I really made the right choice or not.
We enter a big, big, dark, hot place. Full of fruits and vegetables everywhere. She’s holding me, but I’m really tired by now. I just want to curl up in a dark corner in my new home and sleep. But we’re never getting home! Just one place after another. Full of noise. Strangers. Loud voices. And nowhere for me to hide and stay safe.
I wriggle. While trying to fish out her money and hold me, she puts me down for a second. Good! I dart into a tight, dark cubby full of old pails and smelly garbage and cower down in the furthest, darkest corner.
“Where is he?” I hear an anxious voice calling. Three pairs of footsteps all around. An old lady’s head appears in my sight, peeking into my safe, quiet, dark hiding place.
“Here!” she calls.
Girl comes. She calls to me. I press myself harder against the back of this place. My mind swirls with images of my familiar, sunlight garden where I was born and grew up. Of my loving Mommy licking my face and smiling down at me with her big, kind, warm, loving brown eyes. “I want my Mommy!” I whimper, suddenly overcome by a wild tremble. “Where is my Mommy?”
Girl crawls down and pulls me out.
She holds me under her arm.
I can’t stop shaking. “Mommy,” I sob. “Mommy.”
My thoughts blur. Memories collide and overlap. Mommy. Moffus. Mippy. Yip jumping merrily at a pink flower in our yard. Yip howling, chasing the motorbike. Yap sobbing in the crate beside me. I can’t take it. I want to get away from everything and everyone. Just be alone. And mourn. In silence.
I struggle to get out of her grip, but she holds me tighter. I give up.
I blink. The present returns. My little heart races, but I remember: I’m going home. To a new home. It might be worse, might be better. But it’s my one shot right now. I mustn’t ruin it. I go back to being completely docile. As limp as a wet sock. Girl talks softly to me, smiles at me, pets me. But I don’t react. I don’t react to anything.
Finally, finally! At long last, the trip is over. Up, up, up shiny white things we go. A door opens. We enter a home… of sorts. It’s not a house; it’s a house in a house. Above and under others. Unfamiliar. Full of foreign smells. Nothing of mine here. Not even a small wet pee puddle. I make one.
“Where do I put you?” Girl mutters. She looks at me. I am covered in wet and dry sewage from the gutters I tumbled through. Earth from the park. Old grime from my old yard (Momma Dog washed us daily with her tongue, but we kept getting dirty faster than she could clean us). And lots and lots of sticky green things from the bushes glued all over me.
“You’ll have to be contained until I wash you,” Girl says.
She puts a little bowl with water inside a hot, stuffy, dusty room with brooms, mops, and a big machine. She places a small towel next to it. And lastly, she gives me some cheese. The cheese is nice! “Soon you’ll get proper food!” she promises me.
“MORE!” I scream, suddenly realizing how absolutely famished I am. She gives me another slice. I inhale it. Another.
“Okay, that’s it,” she says. “Soon, lunch.”
“I’m starving!” I whine.
Then… she gently pushes me into the room and closes the door, leaving it only open a crack. Darkness envelops me. There is no way out. Just the thin beam of light from the crack in the door. I go berserk. I cry pitifully; I beg to be let out. Then I claw frantically at it and start screaming my head off. She comes to the door, touches my nose-tip and paw that I managed to squeeze through the crack, says things in a soft voice, and gives me another shred of cheese. I devour it and then keep on begging and pleading to be let out.
“Don’t doom me to a life in HERE! That’s not what I fought to live for!” I wail. “That’s not a life worth living! Don’t leave me here!”
I spend two lifetimes in that dark, hot room, sobbing and fighting for my freedom. Finally, it is granted. The door creaks open a touch, and two heads peer in on me. One is a woman all in green. The other is the Girl.
“Ooh, a dog?” Ms. Green says in surprise, gazing down at me with big eyes.
“We have to wash him,” Girl says.
I dash for my freedom but am caught halfway through the door. Ms. Green has big, sticky green plastic hands. She smiles and picks me up. The two walk into the bathroom. There, a hissing metal snake spews out a stream of warm water into a white bucket. Foul-smelling powder and white liquid are poured into the bucket. Ms. Green holds me and soaps me. Girl helps, passing the hissy metal snake over me, showering me with warm water. Soap froths all around me.
I don’t move. I don’t even twitch a toe. They’re doing something to me, and I think it’s for my good. Whatever reason they’re doing it, I’ll just let them go on doing it. I don’t like it one bit, but I still prefer it to the street. Anything but being all alone again. Soap burns my eyes. I close them, I blink, but I don’t cry. I don’t move. I am like a lifeless bag of beans.
Girl peers between my legs. “A boy,” she says.
“What will you call him?” Ms. Green asks.
“Buddy,” Girl says without a second thought. “It means friend in English.”
More soap. More water.
“Look how dirty he was!” Ms. Greene laughs as she empties the bucket of brown water and refills it.
“What shall we do about those thorns?” Girl asks, inspecting some of the dozens of itchy things stuck all over me.
“They’re not coming out,” Ms. Green says with a frown.
“Can’t we cut them?” Girl asks.
“No, look, they’re stuck to her skin itself. Like ticks. If we cut, we’ll cut her skin off!” Ms. Green explains. “They’ll simply have to be pulled off,” she insists.
Girl cringes. “Won’t… it hurt him?”
“Needs to be done,” Ms. Green shrugs. Girl agrees reluctantly.
Ms. Green digs her nails tight around them and yanks. One by one, they come out with bits of my fur attached. Girl studies my face. “What… is wrong with him?” she asks, concerned. “He isn’t flinching, isn’t twitching, isn’t even crying! Surely it must hurt him? Do you think he can’t feel?”
“He’s just a good boy,” Ms. Green chuckles as she flicks another green prickle away.
I do feel it. Of course I do. But I’m determined to be so good they’ll never want to throw me out. Even if it means suffering through being plucked and pinched. I won’t show it hurts. I won’t show fear. I won’t resist. I’ll be so good… that surely, surely, they’ll let me stay this time… for good?