Evolution Part I: Chapter Four
By the time I was eighteen weeks old, the pen had become as much a home to me as anywhere else I'd been in my life and in many ways it was far superior to the now fuzzy memories of mother and her sweet milk. I was feeling more and more adult, and that...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Three
In my first month in my new home, I had little on my mind save annoying the other larger dogs the very best I could. I was little and knew little save my own impulses over which I was constantly building a shaky scaffolding of rules of conduct. The...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Five
It happened quickly and with not a lot of warning, but it could have been easily avoided had I been more careful and had a little more sense in my head. Unfortunately, at that time in my life, I was light in both of those areas. The day was warm,...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Thirteen
He was right, of course. Just as he'd been right about everything. I just wished that he hadn't been this one time. It took just over a week for the black lab's premonition to come true. It was about half an hour after breakfast and I was lying...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Twelve
He pulled this way and that, making up for my lack of mobility. it was fun and took my mind off of my aching stomach and other matters for a time. my brother grew bored after a while and dropped the rope to wander off.
Evolution Part I: Chapter Eighteen
It took more time to bring Pink Nose, Terrier-face and the shepherd-lab up to my level of understanding of language. During that time, life was busy but fairly uneventful save for another litter of male pups being delivered and three more dogs being...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Six
I didn't roughhouse for a week after I'd suffered my defeat at the fangs of the brown lab. As for my relationship with my antagonist, it was little different than how it was before. He held no grudge against me nor I him. I showed him deference when...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Twenty
The rain didn't stop through the rest of the night and continued as the sky began to lighten outside the concrete box. Although I'm sure that most of us would prefer to be dry, that wasn't going to stop the dogs of the yard going out to meander and...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Twenty-one
Lopside was going to be a long-term project. That much was clear almost from the start. It was a struggle to cross that gap as he seemed just as intent to teach me the meaning of his drawings as I did trying to get him to understand my alphabet of...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Nine
To this day, I still don't know what possessed that squirrel to land right in the middle of a pen filled with dogs. It might have just been looking for food, or it might have been suicidal. I harbor a secret suspicion that it's even possible a human...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Seventeen
A week after the shepherd-lab returned, Pink Nose and I were beginning to share simple conversations. He'd mastered the basics and was steadily gaining vocabulary. Watching him learn was probably the best thing for Terrier-face, Fatty and the...
Evolution Part I: Chapter Twenty-three
Not wanting to press Lopside too much at a time, I left him and decided to give myself some time to spend with my brother. He greeted me fondly with a "Hi Topsy!" and a pounce against my chest. He licked my face and I licked his head back. He whipped...