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Sometimes There's a Happy Ending.
The house was adequate and clean. There was just enough room for a family of three and a dog. The day was bright and clear, but the chill of winter still crept around the edges. The dog, a Maltese, dozed in a furry heap beneath the table in the living room. He was almost a year old, and in the brief time of his life he had seen much. Even now he dreamt of earlier days, for his sleep was punctuated with moaning and twitching.
He had been born at a puppy mill on a January morning eleven months ago. At first there had been a wonderful warmth and nesting of bodies that had eases the cold and the darkness. He was always hungry and there was always a nipple full of warm sweet milk. He and his brother and sister passed the first three days of their lives sucking and nuzzling, their eyes and ears tightly closed. This memory was painfully short-lived. On the fifth day of his life, he began to feel cold. He could not have understood, even if he'd been able to see the disaster going on about him. Hearing his mother crying and crying and not knowing why.
Except for his mother, he was all alone. His brother and sister had weakened and died, one by one. He had not heard their plaintive mewing; nor had he seen them lifted roughly from the nest and tossed into a box in the corner of the shed. All he could know was the dark and the cold. It made him cuddle even closer to the warm milk-giving comfort that was his mother. The milk continued in a nourishing stream, and his mother licked him and made him feel safe. Then on the eleventh day of his life, his eyes opened. He could see a dirty towel on which he lay, and the straw that stuck him painfully. He saw a small bowl of water, and a flat dish with dry crusted food, and large flies circling and landing on it. Then he saw his mother. She has been watching and waiting. Now she saw her one remaining puppy looking around. She licked him reassuringly and pulled him close.
The days passed. There were no new sights or sounds, because life in the barn shed stayed pretty much the same, day to day. Best of all the things in the puppy's life was his mother. She loved him, and played with him to learn, and his mother was a patient teacher. When he was four weeks old he learned to use his tongue to lap at the gruel. It was messy work, but his mother was there to clean him up afterwards. Even though his mother was very hungry she let him eat first. At night he would cuddle close to her, smelling the warm sweetness of her breathing; and the cold that came after dark would crawl away from him into a corner of the shed to wait.
During the fifth week of his life, he learned to growl. His mother responded in kind, and they played out a fierce pretend battle. They bounced at each other from the corners of the small pen, batting at each other with their paws. The puppy loved his mother very much and felt that life was good mainly because of her.
He was growing fast, and his mouth was full of baby teeth that felt good when he chewed. There was a sad urgency in his mother these days. When the man came she growled, not in fun but a real and scary growl. At night, even though he was big enough to sleep away from her, she wanted him close, and frequently rested a paw over him protectively.
One day in his seventh week of life, just as he was pouncing playfully over his mother, the man came. His mother grabbed him by his foot and tried to hide him behind her. The man just laughed and lifted him roughly by the hair on his neck and dropped him into a small box with bars in the sides. He could hear his mother barking and crying. All of a sudden, he was too scared to do anything but cower. When he finally looked out through the small barred windows, he saw other boxes and other frightened eyes. There was a big noise, and the boxes rocked and bumped against each other. It was cold and dark. He had so little room that, when he finally had to relieve himself, there was no way not to sit in it, adding to his general misery.
For a lone time the rocking and bumping continued. Finally, everything stopped. Bright lights hurt his eyes and he sat blinking, and smelling awful. The box he was in was lifted up and swung through the air. He heard voices, and barking, and many sounds he'd never heard before. When the box finally quite moving, the front of it opened, and a hand grabbed him and lifted him out. He was put down in a cold tub. He was attempting to squirm free when a stinging spay of water covered him. He cried out and tried to pull loose from the hands that held him. All that got him was a rough shaking that scared him and made him stop for breath. There was bubbles and foam everywhere. His eyes stung, and he felt as if he were drowning. Then the spray stopped. He was lifted out of the tub and put into another cage.
As he stood there, shaking with the cold, another wet, bedraggled puppy was put with him. Just as he started over towards the newcomer, a blast of hot air almost knocked him over. He tried to escape by squeezing into the corner. The new puppy was smaller than he, and cried out in fear. They huddled together, unable to escape the hot dry air. Finally it stopped. The cage door opened and two dishes were put in front of the puppies. Hungry and thirsty, they finished the contents in seconds. It was to be a long time before food and water were offered again, but to exhausted puppies, it didn't matter. They slept nearly, on top of each other, oblivious to the eyes that watched them.
When they finally woke up, the puppies found that they could see people coming and going. Hands reached for them, but could not touch them. Before they could figure out this new arrangement, the smallest of them was lifted out of the cage. The remaining puppy whimpered for a moment, before curling up into a tight ball in the farthest corner. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was with his mother again.
Waking to lights and sounds, he felt himself lifted up. Paper were changed. He drank and ate and he sat. A forlorn sight. He thought life to be strange and cruel. Why was he born at all, he wondered. Days passed and he began to lose interest in the bowls of food. He drank the water because the lights made him warm. One day, he was lifted up and carried out through the big door. All of a sudden he could see many others like himself that were in other cages behind the glass. Soft hands took him gently from the rough hands that held him. He lifted up his serious little face and saw two eyes filled with tears. A trembling but controlled voice said, "He's the one I want, poor baby." The hands held him close against warm, smooth skin. all the while making soft, comforting sounds. A tiny drop of salty water tickled his nose. He licked at it with his pink tongue. The hands stroked and soothed him. His little heart quieted and he began to lick the chin that lay against his muzzle. When the gentle hands finally release him, it was into a room full of sunshine that lay in great pools on the floor. The kind and loving sounds continued to reassure him.
A bowl of fresh water and a plate of good smelling food were placed near him. Hands gently scratched behind his ears. The loving voices made him feel warm and comfortable. Here was a new start for him--a kinder life than he had known up until now. He hoped somehow his mother knew that he had been given a second chance