I am not a Rescue Dog, but I have been Rescued

Tonight my new family came to get me from the gangster called Evil Steve. As soon as they walked in the door, I knew they belonged to me, and nobody else. The Lady told Evil Steve they had decided to take one of the “little girls” but I am so much cuter than my sisters. Even though I didn’t feel very well, I did my best to put on a good show, hopping all over their feet and standing on my brothers and sisters to get the people to pick me up so I could lick their face as vigorously as possible, and chew on The Lady’s cotton candy hair. The Man kept saying to The Lady, “Look at his face. Just look at his face.” Whenever they were holding my considerably less cute sisters, I stared at them intently from the floor, hypnotizing them, persuading them to change their minds.

This is a bad place and I was desperate to get away. My parents both live with Wicked Wanda, Evil Steve’s twin sister. My father is a big strapping Saint Bernard, and my mother is very pretty black and tan Australian Shepherd. Wanda was too interested in painting her eyes to look like a cat’s and teasing her slippery long hair to take care of us. She was disappointed when we were born and just wanted to drown us in the river in a burlap bag. Evil Steve said "Don't be stupid." He decided to put an ad on Craigslist and sell us to pay for new rims for his stupid souped-up Honda he uses for street racing, something he does instead of having a real job. Wicked Wanda just examined the tiny charms dangling from the ends of her hot pink fingernails and said, “Whatever.” Evil Steve didn’t want to actually take care of us either , just sell us, so he made us sleep outside on cement in December, never cuddled us, or played with us, or brushed us, or cleaned up after us, and never took us to the vet to make sure we were all ok.

And the truth was, we weren’t ok. Evil Steve took us away from our mother too soon, and gave us low-grade puppy food that endorses cannibalism, long before we were ready to eat such nasty rough stuff. His ad on CraigsList said we were eight weeks old, but he lied. He wanted the money right away and was trying to speed things along. Really we were just barely six weeks old, but nobody could know that for sure except Evil Steve and Wanda. But you know, that wasn’t even the start of it.

So of course I melted the Lady’s heart like butter in July, and I went home with the family I picked out. My very own People! I was so happy to be carried across the yard and away from that terrible place. I knew I’d miss my brothers and sisters, but I had a sense of foreboding about them anyway. Technically I am not a rescue dog, but I knew for certain that I had just been rescued.

My first car ride was kind of fun, sitting in the back seat (on a humiliating pink blanket) next to the Boy. He petted me a lot, which was a new sensation, and whispered that I was his new Best Friend. I think the blanket was supposed to be for one of my sisters, but I didn’t care. It was so soft and smelled nice. I, on the other hand, didn’t smell so good. Quite stinky actually. I succeeded in making such bad smells, one after the other, each worse than the last, that the Man said he was going to have to reupholster his truck. They were all chuckling, but every time I’d make another Stinky, they started howling in the most interesting way. Even though it was December, we had to ride down the Los Angeles freeway with the windows wide open so my People didn’t gag and asphyxiate.

As exciting as I found my first car ride, by the time we got home, I just wanted to lie down, I felt so bad. At first, My People thought I was just tired, but my head ached in the worst way, and my innards were twisting and cramping like a hamster was trying to find it’s way out. I could barely keep my head up, and had an accident of the very worst messiest kind in my new bed, and then another all over the kitchen floor, vomiting at the same time, over and over. Finally I just wedged myself under a cabinet with my face to the wall and waited for it to be over.

At 11:45 pm, my first night at my new home, I was put back into the car taken to the Emergency Room. The Man made a phone call, described what was happening, and My People were told to rush me to the hospital right away. I rode on The Lady’s lap, wrapped up in the pink blanket, while she stroked my head and whispered to me. I wasn’t really conscious, and was slipping away to a place where my head didn’t ache so bad.

Soon it was bright lights that hurt my eyes when the Vet pulled them open, a steel table that was too cold, and something pointy inserted into my bottom. The Vet’s voice was very serious and she said I had to spend the night at the hospital. My People kissed me on the head and that’s the last thing I remember.

I don’t even have a name.