Read Online Alpha Dog by Jennifer Ziegler - Free Book Online Page A

hesitation: This little guy was meant to be with me. No way could I let him die.
    I could do this. In fact, this way might even be better. After all, Mom couldn’t argue that I wasn’t responsible enough for a dog if I’d been taking care of one all summer. Right?
    “Then I’ll take him now,” I said firmly. “Today.”

    Two minutes later we were in a different glass-walled office and I was looking over the information on “Tex,” as they called Seamus. According to their records, he was approximately ten months old and had been found abandoned in a strip center parking lot. He weighed eighteen pounds and was twenty-one inches long. In the box marked Breed, they had written, “Mixed,” but the man said he would guess Black Russian terrier mixed with something else. Schnauzer maybe, or Lhasa. “Something more hyper,” as he put it.
    “Do you have anything with your current address?” he asked as he filled out a form with lots of tiny print on it.
    “Yes. My student ID card,” I said, pulling the orange-bordered card from my wallet. “I’m starting classes there Monday,” I added, hoping it made me sound older.
Yup,
that’s me. A responsible, mature UT student. A worthy
caregiver for a homeless dog.
    He stopped writing and glanced up at me. “You rent?”
    “Yes.” I nodded. “A nice, big condo. Plenty of space.”
    “Do you have a note from the owner clearing you to have an animal there?”
    “Uh . . . not really,” I replied, my voice puny with sudden panic.
    The man sighed and set down his pen, his features sagging with disappointment.
    A heavy, tingly feeling trilled through my limbs. They wouldn’t let him die just because of a piece of paper, would they?
    “But my roommate has a note!” I added hastily. “Christine Hobbes. H-o-b-b-e-s. We live in the exact same condo. She has a letter from our landlady allowing her to have a pet.”
    “I’m sorry, but I’ll need one made out for you.”
    “But my landlady is out of town until next week! You said yourself, by then it will be too late.” For some reason, I was really losing it—lips quivering, eyes tearing up, voice like a cartoon mouse.
    The man shifted in his vinyl office chair and muttered a series of single-syllable nothing words. “Uh . . . well . . . um . . . hmmm.” He eyed the door behind me longingly.
    I leaned forward and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Please,” I croaked. “Just let me take him. Let me save his life.”

    “Well
that
was a major waste of time,” Christine said as she stalked out of the patient lady’s office. “Come on, Katie. Let’s get out of here and go find a Starbucks.”
    “Um . . . maybe we should go home first?”
    She looked down at Seamus, who was dancing around my feet, and came to a halt. “What’s that?”
    “A dog.”
    “I know that,” she snapped. “Why is it
with
you?”
    “I sort of . . . adopted him.”
    “
What?
Are you on dope? Why would you do that?”
    “Why not? I thought you loved dogs.”
    “Well, yeah. Of course I do.” Her voice grew defensive. “But that one seems like a real spaz.”
    By now Seamus was whirling around my legs, requiring me to step over his leash every few seconds to avoid being tripped. “No,” I protested. “He’s just excited. He’ll be fine. Seamus, this is Christine,” I called down toward my feet.
    “Shame, huh?” she asked.
    “Seamus. It’s Irish.”
    “Yeah, great.” She shook her head mournfully. “I can’t believe you actually adopted a dog!”
    I shrugged lamely and jumped over the leash again. “I know. Me either. But I had to. They were going to put him down.”
    She made a huffy noise and cocked one elbow while placing her weight on one of her scrawny, splayed legs, making her look like a giant letter R.
    “I don’t think it’s fair that you didn’t even consult me about this.”
    My heart started thrashing as I suddenly realized how much this depended on Christine. What if she told the shelter