Read Online One Good Dog by Susan Wilson - Free Book Online

beautiful, evocative scents were on his hand, as if he’d scooped up whole handfuls of the air and brick and pavement and garbage that made up the world beyond my eyesight. That, plus the very interesting odor of fish chowder. I knew what the guy had had for lunch. Which made me realize I was inordinately hungry and thirsty.
    Okay. Take it off.
    The man carefully slid the noose from around my neck. Patted my head and slid the pole under a Dumpster without getting out of his crouch. He put his head down again and instantly went back to whatever state it was he’d been in before his companion woke him.
    Thanks.
I lolled my tongue in gratitude.
    No problem.
The bitch snuggled back down beside the man and curled her fluffy tail over her nose.
    I sloped off in search of sustenance.
    All I had to do was follow my nose. I found pizza crusts and an empty ice-cream cone, the dregs of melted ice cream within the cone adhering to my long tongue as I slid it into the conical wafer. Mmmm. Wandering along neighborhood streets, I came across improperly fitted trash can lids, flipped them off with barely a nudge. Within these cylindrical buffets, a host of treats, including, but not limited to, steak tips, french fries, an actual half chicken. And, best of all, a ham bone the likes of which my kind will commit murder to get.
    Needless to say, I chucked it all up an hour later, but then I consumed that. Waste not, want not when you’re a dog on the street.
    Water was a little harder to come by. There was the fountain in the park, but that meant getting too close to people. It hadn’t rained in a long time, so puddles were out of the question. A backyard hose with a drip helped. I lapped at it like a gerbil, then went off to find a safe place to bunk down. I wasn’t yet streetwise, but I had pretty good instincts. If my objective was to stay out of the hands of people, then I needed to stay out of sight. On the other paw, as it were, I needed what the people had to offer in the way of food and water. Although strong-jawed, I knew hunting wasn’t ever going to be my strong suit and that a life beyond the city, in the less populated hills, was out of the question. I needed a little advice.
    That there were others loose on the streets was evident on every street corner and against every brick building. I just needed to track a likely mentor down. It wouldn’t be hard. The trace left by one male in particular suggested that he’d been on the streets for some time, which meant he knew the ropes, which meant, if I could catch up to him, he might be susceptible to obsequiousness and help me out.
    By this time, and it had been since before dawn, I was wrung out. Instead of taking the time to try to find my hoped-for guide, I found a fairly protected niche in the low-growing bushes of the city park. It bore no sign of previous habitation, no circled-down foliage, no nesting, no scent of any other creature within those underslung branches. Like I say, I was a neophyte. I thought that if I couldn’t see out, they couldn’t see in. It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes, just as I was entering that dream sleep we all need, when the sound of soft yelpsstartled me awake. There was a moment of confusion, when I thought I was back in my cage and my siblings were begging for lunch. The yelps turned into a low, oddly compelling howling.
    Apparently, I’d chosen a bush situated behind a very popular human mating area, and suddenly, I was eye-to-eye with a humping human, both of us openmouthed with surprise. I dashed out of my imperfect hidey-hole; he stood up, genitals dangling, and grabbed his pants. I do believe he thought I was going to attack him, the way he yanked his mate up and fled almost as fast in the opposite direction from that of my own flight. Okay, bushes in the park, no good. Another lesson.
    Only slightly refreshed, I trotted a zigzag out of the city park and back onto the streets. I had to keep up a steady quickstep, although the