2 FREE CHAPTERS

Copyright 2002 Ilona Benzel
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, stored or distributed in any form or by any means- except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the author.

ISBN 978-1-4357-0840-2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

To every foster and rescue I’ve had the pleasure of meeting
To every homeless dog
&
To Ted, Sam, Kai, Candy, Zoe, Zack & Chili

Chapter 1

“Come on puppy, breathe,” Risa pursed her lips and whispered one more tiny breath into the puppy’s nose. He was eerily still as she cupped him in the piece of towel meant to keep him warm. She placed her index finger on his chest to feel his fragile rib cage for a heartbeat. The lack of sleep and her tears made it hard to focus.
At her desk since the animal shelter closed at 7 p.m., Risa was struggling to keep this solitary puppy alive. Her desk light illuminated the puppy, and not much else.
“Come on,” she sighed and wiped the tear trails from her cheek with the softly frayed sleeve of her denim shirt. She would have gone home after her shift ended but the puppy was so young, and doing so poorly, she didn’t think he’d survive the night. She didn’t want the half hour drive home to traumatize him and felt more comfortable remaining at the shelter where she had access to an incubator, syringes and medications; as if they had been of any use.
From the paperwork on her desk she knew the original three pups were dropped off on Wednesday afternoon, one of her days off. She sat at her desk the previous night holding this pup’s two siblings as well, allowing her heart to break, yet again. She had to pick and choose her battles and she’d lost too many of them. Twinges gripped her weekly when she had to put healthy dogs to sleep; but this was different. The pups were so young, so vulnerable; she had to give the little lives a bigger chance. She had wanted so desperately to win the fight for this last puppy but knew at the outset odds were against them, puppies this young without a mother had a very slim chance of survival.
How does it come to this? Why would someone drop three pups off at only six days old? Even more difficult to understand, who would do this?
She softly blew another warm breath into the button black nose, and then rubbed him vigorously. Nothing seemed to work. He’d probably died ten minutes before but since she still felt his little body in her hands she had a need to do something. Anything. Giving up too easily on such a little babywas like admitting to herself that she was in a position over life she didn’t deserve.
Her forefinger drifted against the pup’s silky brown coat ruffling it up. She watched as it slowly flicked back into place. His tiny muzzle was closed; his tongue was resting on his lips, hanging out just a tiny bit. His eyes had never opened. She suddenly realized he had never seen anything at all. Tears fell on the paperwork beneath her elbows as she lifted him up and put his chest against her ear to listen for a heartbeat. Having his fur against her cheek she felt his body was cooler than it should be.
She heard a muffled bark from the kennels but no heartbeat from the pup. She closed the towel and tenderly placed his body on the dog crate to the right of her desk. He looked so little on the expanse of the white crate top. From a quick glance she saw the wall clock over her door read 1 a.m. She snapped off the light, folded her arms beneath her head and closed her eyes, tears formed in the corners and drifted slowly over her cheeks.
The tiny office she occupied at the shelter was crammed with donations of towels, dog toys, bags of cat litter, animal food cans and old newspapers. Her file cabinet was to her left. Crates were stacked in a corner behind her and the one beside her desk housed her dog, Casey, a bloodhound-mix adoption she kept. He slept and gently snored in a relaxing rhythm lulling her eyes closed.
Around three a.m. she stirred in the semi-darkness, the only light in her office now coming above her through the high window in the wall separating her room from the lit entry next door. The light in the entry, where unwanted dogs were dropped off during most afternoons, was always kept on.
She peered over her arm and looked at the towel, yearning to see movement, yet aware she wouldn’t.
“Why?” She whispered.
Within seconds the fluorescent lights in the entry flickered. Surprised, she lifted her head from her arms a bit and forced her heavy eyelids open wider. The lights continued unsteadily for a moment then a soft buzzing filled the air around her. It sounded as if a refrigerator went on, but there was no refrigerator. With her chin nooked in her arms she glanced at the ceiling, then surveyed the dimness of her office from wall to wall but saw nothing that would cause a buzzing noise. She never heard the noise before and cloaked in her drowsiness wasn’t certain she was hearing anything at all.
Her spoken word, why drifted in the thick air above her, wrapped itself in the buzzing, hovered in the stillness for a moment before echoing in circles around her like water rings, outward, upward, finally becoming lost into the chilly night.
The buzzing stopped.
A brief flutter of paper caught her eye; she looked up at the small flyer hanging over her desk. The words seemed illuminated for a brief second.
She hadn’t read that for a long time, she thought, not since she taped it to the painted cement wall when she first occupied the office. She read it wondering who believed in heaven for people, let alone a puppy.
The Rainbow Bridge (sic)
Just this side of heaven is a place called the Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills so they can run and play. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and they are warm and comfortable.
Animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; each one misses someone very special, someone who was left behind.
All the animals run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.
You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart. Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together. Author unknown

She sighed, a part of her wanted this sort of heaven to exist, if only for the innocent ones needing it, but basically, she thought that people who believed in god and heaven were people who believed in just about anything else; ghosts, UFOs, Nessie. Some people sated their curiosity about life with anything that filled the empty holes of their need. The only reason she’d stuck it on the wall was to comfort the distraught pet owners who came to the shelter to put their elderly or ill animals to sleep. It was on display for them, not her.
Everything around Risa was still, dark and quiet. The six-day old puppies had no past owner to greet at any bridge anyways, was her last thought before exhaustion carried her into a deep sleep.
At 6:30 a.m. Casey barked from the crate beside her desk and woke Risa when the shelter workers began arriving for the day coming in through the door of the entry.
She knew the weekend routine by heart after three years of employment. The workers would begin cleaning dog kennels and cat cages while some of the volunteers walked the dogs or let them play in the fenced area. Others arrived later with their children to socialize the cats in the adoption meeting rooms for a while. It was about to get very populated and she’d better get her ass home before word got back to Don that she’d spent the night, yet again, half-sleeping in her office. Don often asked why she bothered to rent an apartment. She wondered that herself on occasion.
Risa stood and stretched her thin frame to its full five feet four inches reaching her arms up into the stale air to ease away the stiffness in her back. She listened to the murmur of their conversations in the entry, the scuffling of shoes of the arriving crew, and then reached for the pup on the crate. She couldn’t leave him there. The towel covered the cool, fragile body. When she lifted him his head flopped to the right. “Sorry,” she whispered into to his folded ear.
Underneath the puppy was a manila envelope that hadn’t been there last night when she’d placed him on the crate. She tilted her head, her waist-long brown hair cascading to one side, as she pondered the envelope’s existence.
Well, I’m tired, but I know damn well that envelope wasn’t there last night. The door is locked, Don hadn’t come in, and he has the only spare key. If anyone entered the office and put that on the crate Casey would have barked and woken me.
She placed the pup on her desk, reached down and opened the crate door releasing her dog, Casey, so she could take him out for his morning constitutional. The nine year old shook himself, wagged his tail happily and nudged Risa’s thigh. Her hand drifted over his head lightly but her concentration focused on the envelope. It lay there teasing her. How did it get there?
She picked it up, turned it over and saw there wasn’t any writing on it anywhere. She held it up and noticed a faint scent of apples clung to the heavy envelope; either that or her morning hunger conjured up the aroma. She fumbled with the folded latch and drew out a thick book with a deep red velvet cover. The velvet was luxuriously soft, seemed new and untouched. She tossed the empty envelope in the garbage under her desk.
Impressed on the cover of the book was fancy gold script that read, Random Litter Report. Turning it over she saw the back was blank. She ran her hand over the furry velvet, shorter and smoother than the puppy’s coat. Knowing how sluggishly her brain was functioning, she didn’t want to get caught up in an all-day examination of a stupid book; she had to get home sometime today.
“Whatever,” she said aloud. “More paperwork for the overworked and underpaid. See ya later, book!” She flung it back on top of the crate. It bounced once and settled with a soft thud.
“C’mon Casey, out for a pee, then home. It’s Saturday. Two days off.” She grabbed his leather leash from the back of her chair flinging it around her neck and put on her windbreaker because the September mornings were becoming chilly. She flung her small purse over her shoulder and checked to be sure she had her keys then she picked up the pup to put him in the back room freezer with his littermates. The three babies would be taken away and cremated sometime during the week.
She tucked the small body close to her, wrapped well in the towel. She hid him gently under her jacket, so the volunteers wouldn’t see him. Some of the volunteers were very sensitive about animals and she didn’t want to inflict nightmares on anyone else. Nightmares originating at the shelter could be contagious.
Since it was Saturday, there would be only one shelter employee overseeing the other helpers who were all volunteers. No one would need access to her office, so when she left, she made sure the door was locked. Casey followed confidently along behind her.
At the end of the hallway she unlocked the clinic door on the right and left the keys dangling while she went in and headed straight for the freezer across the room. It was softly dark and quiet. The room gave an aura of grey metal. One wall was covered with mostly empty stainless steel cages for sick felines, a stainless steel table stood clean and primed in the middle of the room. Walking around it towards the freezer, she carefully placed the puppy beside his littermates. The other two pups had ice crystals around their eyes and nose, their coats looked perpetually combed and neat, their tiny paws were curled up near their muzzles. A warm tear started down her cheek, she brushed it off roughly and wiped the wetness on her faded jeans. Casey followed her back out of the clinic and wagged his rounded rear as a volunteer walked past them with a bucket and mop. Risa forced a smile for the woman’s benefit as the door clicked closed behind her. She pulled the keys from the lock.
Before leaving for the day Risa wanted to visit a dog recently placed in the holding kennels. She walked towards the back kennels to the left of the clinic. She put Casey in a sit, stay and pushed the swinging door that opened into the center aisle lined with five cages on each side, only two were empty. It smelled of disinfectant, wet dog, urine and poop. The eight dogs waiting back there began barking or whining. Two leaned their chests up against the fencing.
The volunteers had started to clean the room, water spray echoed loudly from one of the outer aisles. The mixed breed dog she came to checkup on hid at the very back of his closed off area. If he could have run into the back part, he would have, but the door allowing access was closed for cleaning. Standing before his kennel she said, “I’ll see you on Monday, Beau, be a good boy.”
She blew him a kiss. Avoiding her eyes, he turned his face to the grey cement wall and tucked his thick tail between his legs. She studied his behavior; the tucked tail, lowered head, how his eyes avoided contact. If he didn’t perk up and adjust to his surroundings in a week or two he would be euthanized. It would be a devastating blow to Risa and Don to have to euthanize him. He was dumped in the middle of a highway one night and barely survived the traffic until an Animal Control officer picked him up and brought him to the shelter the next day.
She and Don had discussed the dog’s shyness believing it was an indication that he may bite in fear; or may never adjust to a new home; or he’d been so severely abused in his past home, he would never trust anyone again. She didn’t want to have to euthanize him. She closed her eyes and sent a mental message to him to hurry and adjust to his surroundings.
Once outside, she walked Casey loose on a path in the nearby woods, then she and the dog greeted a few shelter volunteers smoking outside in the parking lot. She attached Casey’s leash and let him lead her to her compact car.
The morning air was crisp; the sky was dotted with small puffy clouds that drifted by lazily. Leaves zigzagged down from nearby trees landing silently on the brown lawn. Once settled in the car, she pushed a button on the door arm and rolled down Casey’s passenger window a bit so he could stick his nose out and enjoy the breeze. At the highway she cranked the Boston radio station up enough to hear over the traffic noises coming through the window.
Risa preferred driving the thirty minutes of highway to her apartment rather than the shorter, slower route of busier city streets. She didn’t live in a fancy neighborhood, but it wasn’t a dangerous one. She’d lived in the small city of Manchester, NH most of her life. The route home passed the red brick wall of old mill buildings that stretched a mile along the east side of the Merrimack river which cut the city in half, east from west. She lived on the west side of town where the French Canadians, as mill laborers, had resided. Most of the refurbished mill structures on the east side were now rented to small businesses, each with identifying neon signs on the roof. The west side consisted of many low rent apartments, some of which allowed pets. The drive had become monotonous for Risa after three years of traveling back and forth between work and home.
At her apartment, after showering and changing clothes, Risa fed Casey a small breakfast of dried kibble in the kitchen and wrapped herself tightly in a knit wool blanket to keep the chill in the room from disturbing the warmth leftover from her shower. She shuffled into the living room about to sit on the couch, but stopped short.
She inhaled and exhaled a long, deep breath and tightened the blanket across her shoulders to stifle a shiver then stared at the heavy red velvet book on her maple coffee table. It was the book left behind at the shelter.
She couldn’t move. It was eerily quiet, the only sound, a soft ticking from her stupid wall clock in the kitchen. She sat on her dog-haired living room couch and stared at the inert book for a minute then closed her eyes. What the hell was going on? She must be very tired and hallucinating. When she reopened her eyes the book would be gone. Afraid to look, Risa peeked open one brown eye to check if it’d left yet.
Damn. Thing is still here. Crap.
“Casey, I’m crazy, for sure,” she said to the dog curled up beside her since finishing his snack.
She picked up the book afraid it would vanish from between her fingers. To her surprise it didn’t.
Random Litter Report, she wondered, what litter? Where’d this come from? Were hundreds of books going to appear every place she went? Did the book materialize from thin air? Get put there by invisible aliens? How the crap did it follow her home?
Turning it over she almost expected to find tiny legs or wings. Nothing.
“Ack!” She dropped it lightly on her lap and stared at it for what felt like a long time. Due to her exhaustion, her head felt light; her brain, scrambled. She couldn’t put the book into an understandable context.
The warmth under the blanket trickled through reminding her of her drowsiness. It won’t be here when I wake up, I know it’s a freaking hallucination. Ah, yes, punishment for too many sleepless nights. If I ignore it, it’ll go away. She closed her eyes, snuggled deeper into the soft couch cushions, stretched out her legs around the dog and rested her head on a pillow she plumped by shifting it around and tucking a hand beneath it.
Just before she drifted to sleep she felt the imaginary book softly slip off her thighs. It made no noise if it landed anywhere. Of course dreams don’t have any weight, she thought before sleep took over.
The phone, on a table beside the couch, rang loudly two hours later. She looked over the back of the couch at the round kitchen wall clock before answering. It was noon.
“Hello?” She pushed herself up into a sitting position.
“Hi. You spent the night in the office again, didn’t you?” Don, from work asked her.
“What makes you think that, boss?” She asked.
“Boss? You’re as responsible as I am for the shelter.”
“That’s true. Okay, peon, what’s up?” She checked her lap and smiled. The book was gone. Yippee! Gone!
“Very funny. Jennifer told me you had the last puppy in your office last night and I know you wouldn’t allow him die. It goes against your determination. How’s he doing?” Risa envied his soft, low voice. It was a confident voice for calming freaked out, newly arrived animals; she wished her higher voice had the same soothing effect.
Risa released a deep breath, “the puppy died. I tried everything but it wasn’t enough.” She wiped bangs out of her eyes with her forearm and tucked the longer fringes around her ears. “Since we work mostly different schedules you haven’t told me where the three puppies came from. What happened to the bitch?”
“Not sure. A boy about eighteen years old came in with them, said his mother wanted the pups out of the house. He didn’t know what else to do with them. He was told that if he didn’t get them out she’d drown them.”
“Ohh...so original. But don’t spay the bitch to prevent the litter in the first place. Do they know it’s illegal to separate the puppies before eight weeks?” Some instinct drew her eyes downward. She squinted. Was that red under the coffee table? Was it that freaking book?
“He said the female was their pet that got pregnant. I’m sure they know it’s wrong to get rid of the puppies. Do they care? Doubt it.”
She deliberately ignored the red under the table and stared up at the cobwebs on the ceiling. “Are we pressing charges?”
“I tried, even called the police, but the address and phone number the guy left were fake. I don’t know what else to do about it because I didn’t get his license plate. At least the kid said there were only three puppies in the…”
“Why did you really call? I know it’s not to check on my sleeping habits.” Risa heard Casey snoring beside her and wondered if Don could hear the loud grunts, hoping he didn’t think it was some bodily noise she was creating.
“To tell you there’s a meeting, the twenty-sixth at six, and we have two dog evaluations next week. Don’t forget!” He said with just a hint of mirth in his voice.
“I won’t. Just cuz I missed two end-of-the-month meetings in three years doesn’t mean I need to be reminded all the time. You’re trying to provoke me.”
“Who me?”
Risa felt his smirk across the phone lines. The red under the table was irritating. “Did you leave a book about a random litter on Casey’s crate?”
“No. Did you find one?”
“Well duh! It’s thick, red velvet cover. You didn’t leave it for me to read?” She draped her free arm across Casey’s back.
“If I ever left you a book it’d be called ‘Finding My Way Home After Dark.’”
She giggled, “how boring.”
“Ask Jennifer if she left it, she leaves weird books around all the time, especially in the coffee room. See you at the evaluations.”
“One thing before you hang up on me, check the lighting in the entry outside my office, the lights were flickering and buzzing, maybe there’s a short or something.”
In order not to see the book, she raised her hand under her nose and examined her cuticles- messy. She stretched her legs around Casey, grabbed the corner of the purple wool throw and tossed it over her feet.
“Maybe you were dreaming? I talked to Nancy at the shelter before I called you and everything’s fine. You need more sleep,” and sternly, “go to bed.” He abruptly hung up.
Before Risa dropped the phone into the cradle, she stared at it as if it could speak.
“Brat, huh, Casey?” The reddish colored hound dropped from the couch front feet first, prolonging his rear end from hitting the floor. He took a moment to walk his front feet out several steps, stretching his frame. He finally lifted his rump, still on the couch, dragged his back legs out way behind himself, then snapped them onto the floor. He was bizarre. Casey stood in front of her and wagged his tail causing his stocky body to wobble uncontrollably. She shook her head and smiled.
Her dog had come such a long way in the two years she’d owned him. When they first met it hadn’t been under the best circumstances. Always being partial to hounds she kept her eye out for one when new dogs were surrendered at the shelter. When the person in possession of him brought Casey in he said he’d caught a relative beating him. The dog urinated submissively when she reached to pet him. He was cowering at the end of a leash with a choke collar around his neck. The collar was so tight bolt cutters were later needed to remove it. She knew immediately that this seventy pound red dog with his adorable floppy ears; sad chocolate eyes and sloppy jowls had endeared himself to her without more than a peek at her from under his sleepy eyelids.
Initially, he was treated as the rest of the dogs that came into the privately run shelter; placed in the back kennels for an evaluation, then placed in one of the twenty front kennels for adoption after he was given all his shots. He also had the choke chain sores around his neck treated. He would have been neutered if circumstances at the shelter were ideal, but because of a lack of funding, every adopted intact dog was sent out with a coupon to spay or neuter for a discount with cooperating local vets.
She continued to walk him daily during her breaks and worked with him by exposing him to everything she could think of, to help him overcome some of his fears. She took him to malls, walks in the woods, and drives for ice cream. It took a few weeks but he overcame some of his nervousness and became a sweet trusting boy. She realized it would be too difficult for her to allow a stranger to take him home after all the hours she’d spent fussing over him. She had him neutered before bringing him home.
Her mother tried to talk her out of keeping him. She said Risa’s life was too unstable at twenty-one, she’d never find a better apartment that would allow a dog and she was too irresponsible. She didn’t think her mother knew her very well. Casey was the best thing that happened to her since she left home five years ago. He certainly didn’t question her decisions as her mom did. To top it off, he was a great listener, without him she’d be talking to herself all the time, and everyone knew that wasn’t healthy.
She intentionally ignored the glaring red thing under her coffee table and still feeling the effects of three sleepless nights, trudged into the kitchen to slap together a bologna and cheese sandwich then she lured Casey into the bedroom with the last bite. She was finding it almost impossible to eliminate the exhaustion of two six day-old puppy nights, and one late night out with her friends, plus the oddball visions following. She and Casey slept until dinnertime.

Chapter 2

When she woke, Casey was sitting at the side of the bed wagging his tail. “What?” She asked, “out? Again? Are you addicted?”
Casey nudged her with his grizzled muzzle. The slimy wetness of his nose stuck to her cheek and his pleading whines urged her out of bed. She was groggy and took her time flinging the new faux quilted blanket off her. She looked at her surroundings critically. The apartment wasn’t anything fancy. Finding an affordable place on her shelter salary that would allow dogs was difficult and finding one that was fancy too, wasn’t next to impossible, it was impossible. Her three-room apartment was painted orange. She hated it but in three years never found the time or energy required to repaint. The blinds were yellowed from old cigarette smoke and some were broken in spots. When she felt overcome with the urge to redecorate (at least once a year), she remembered her Picasso-like sense of design and that always stopped her from bothering.
The paint-flecked brown bureau in the corner, almost completely hidden by clothes, had been in the apartment when she moved in, other than that, she added the queen-sized bed and a small couch her parent’s let her take from their basement. She rarely used the closet when the bureau and floor had room to spare, a rebellion against the demands of her fastidious mother.
Casey enjoyed nosing her discarded clothes together for a bed, and usually spent ten minutes or more snuffling everything into a pile before napping in them. The few items hanging in the closet were a couple old high school dresses for emergencies, two blouses and four coats; she had a ‘thing’ for coats and indulged once a year if she found something special. Her prized possession was a black leather hip-length jacket with heavy zippers. She also shoved a pair of brown leather shoes, winter boots and two pairs of sneakers in the closet so Casey wouldn’t chew them. He preferred the smell of her feet to his proper, and expensive, chew toys.
“Lets walk before it gets dark, we’ll eat dinner and maybe I’ll make out a shopping list for tomorrow. How’s that?”
She had fallen into bed dressed, so only had to add her sneakers and old army coat to her ensemble, and a leash to Casey’s, who paced in front of the kitchen door while she finger-combed her hair. She grabbed her keys before clipping the dog’s leash to his leather collar.
They usually walked across two streets and around the blocks back home, often stopping at a nearby park to play, but today she was too lethargic to trail Casey around the park while he indulged his passion for sniffing each blade of grass, routing out strange animal scents.
When he pooped she scooped it up in a baggy and dropped it in the park trashcan when they walked by it. She passed a few people with their dogs in the park. Some dogs romped loose in the small park enclosure while others were leashed and pacing out Casey’s usual spots leaving pee-mail for him to re-cover with his own pee next time he visited those areas. Neutering hadn’t stopped the leg-lifting routine. Risa tucked her hands into her jean pockets dangling Casey’s leash from her wrist. The walk was slowed down as they neared her first floor apartment, Casey having a perverse need to identify every minuscule scent he met the nearer they got to the front door. On one walk home she had bent down to see what could possibly take so much nose consideration from her dog and saw nothing on the concrete sidewalk at all. From then on, she minded her own business leaving those invisible details to the dog.
At home in her small, working kitchen, she put a frozen dinner in the microwave. She got a glass of cranberry fruit drink, took a napkin and fork and reached to put them on the living room coffee table. That’s when she saw the red corner under the table.
Shit! If it was a figment of her tired imagination, why the hell was she still seeing it?
She placed her things on the table and reached underneath for the book.
Crap. Same book. Crap. She dropped it gently on the coffee table jiggling her fruit drink.
“How?” She asked Casey. He tipped his head, nudged the book with his nose, and took an extra second to lick it reverently.
“You’re no help.” She turned abruptly going into the kitchen to answer the “ding” of the microwave. She stirred the dinner up and quickly mixed a bowl of canned and dry food for Casey. She brought both dinners into the living room and placed her dog’s bowl beside the couch, hers on the coffee table. “Eat,” she pointed to Casey’s large ceramic bowl.
She dropped herself down on the couch heavily, squeaking the springs. She resigned herself to the existence of the book and after a bite of food, picked it up.
“What do you want?” She asked the red cover. As she opened the first page, a single paper slipped, ready to float to the floor. She caught it. It had been typed and inserted after the cover page. She held it up and read it.

***
Hand delivered to Risa Champagne by Wolf Madison.

Hand delivered? When? How? I don’t know anyone named Wolf Madison. A joke? She read on:
The Rainbow Bridge Committee has been increasingly concerned about the welfare of domestic pets. We have seen an unfortunately high predominance of dogs and cats under the age of one year being sent to us. Many of them either have never had an owner or have had too many owners in their very short lives. To our dismay, we have many unclaimed pets that will never experience the joy of any reunion at the bridge.
We randomly chose the first litter of Helga, to focus our report on. Helga was a year old female German shepherd who delivered ten live puppies on March 20, 1990.

This evening, you, Risa, held a six day-old unnamed puppy. Upon his demise you asked aloud, “why?” You spoke one word yet asked the infinite. Your question may be answered within the covers of this book. It is in each of the puppies’ own words. Read and you will know “why”.

***
“Puppies’ own words? Huh?” Touching the fancy script on the paper, she felt the words, each letter impressed crisply atop the white. How could someone know what she asked last night? She’d been alone. She glanced at Casey.
“You know anything about this?” He continued to eat his dinner without pause, snuffling and crunching away as if nothing dramatic was happening around him. Risa immediately remembered reading the flyer over her desk about the rainbow bridge. Coincidence?
It was weird. Too weird. She stuck a fork of macaroni into her gaping mouth; at least the hanging jaw was useful.
She stared at the book. She witnessed premature deaths of young animals that had never truly been owned by anyone, like...all the time.
She remembered a litter from her first weeks of work at the shelter.
A young couple dropped off seven pit bull puppies. The owners had bred their pets and didn’t want the puppies once they were five weeks old. They were honest about what they were doing and behaved as if it were normal to discard an entire litter. Risa’s unabashed stare of incredulity that day must have gone right over their tiny little heads.
At the time, she wondered, why would people breed their dogs and then discard the product? What was the point of the breeding if the puppies were unnecessary? If puppies were unnecessary why the hell weren’t they spaying or neutering these dogs?”
Astoundingly, this happened frequently. The shelter took in many puppies every spring, but she didn’t know this when she first began working there.
The pit bull litter spent its days at the shelter separated from the rest of the dog population in a wall-to-wall cement puppy room where volunteers socialized them. The pups would not be approved for adoption until they reached between eight or twelve weeks old, depending on their maturity.
Often, when Risa entered the room, three of the puppies hid behind the box designed as their bed. These three growled and snapped at the air. Sometimes they missed the air and nipped each other causing actual fights, resulting in bloodshed, forcing her or other workers to physically untangle them from each other, receiving little nips in the process from their sharp baby teeth.
Since no one had met the sire or bitch, the employees didn’t know the potential aggression lurking in the pup’s genes, but this litter seemed frighteningly vicious. Two of the puppies were extremely timid, rolling over and urinating anytime the door opened. The last two were the largest and clung to each other for security. They charged the opening door and bit the pants or shoes of any worker entering, encouraging their littermates to do the same.
Initially, everyone thought it was mildly amusing to clean the room with a few puppies hanging from their pant legs, but it became a nuisance and worse, their demeanor switched in days from playing to growling, tearing, and biting.
When they were eight weeks old, the staff had a meeting to decide the fate of the pups. Their many efforts to change the litter’s behavior had been fruitless. The violence had in fact, escalated.
At the meeting they discussed the liability of the shelter. They would be held responsible if a child or another dog was attacked by one of these pups some day. The pups were too dangerous. The novice breeders had created monster puppies and cleared themselves of all responsibility by discarding them. There was no way Risa or the others could justify keeping them alive. The decision was made to euthanize the entire litter.
What comes with their decision to euthanize is the responsibility of injecting each puppy while holding their innocent warm bodies; they did not ask to be born.
It was her first time putting animals to sleep, but it was unforgettable due to their young age. Putting a tired, ill dog to sleep was more acceptable, but... puppies.
After euthanizing the pit bull litter it took her a few weeks to organize her feelings. In order to euthanize without totally freaking out she compartmentalized the events. She couldn’t deal with it consciously, so she tucked her angst in a deeper part of herself, a part unavailable to any nitpicking scrutiny. The nights were difficult for her but in her heart she knew the staff’s decisions were based firmly in reality.
So, she knew about puppies dying young. She knew first hand.
If only breeding owners could witness euthanization of their puppies. It was hard to watch.
She knew the shelter’s policies with regard to euthanasia. She must maintain a fine line of emotional involvement. She tried not to show too much concern about a dog slated for euthanization because it spread to other people and exaggerated the behavior of a nervous dog or one that was aggressive.
Too little emotional response raised concerns of other employees, and for good reason. She kept herself as balanced as possible, often teetering towards loss of emotion.
She finished the tart glass of juice in a gulp and picked up the empty food container of macaroni. After Casey licked it clean she tossed it in the garbage in the cabinet under the sink, and put her fork and glass in the sink to wash.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the report. What was it all about? How could pups tell the story ‘in their own words’? Unbelievable. If puppies could ‘tell’ a story there was much more about the way the world worked than she had ever imagined. If she couldn’t touch a thing or move it from one place to another it didn’t exist. Her dad was fond of telling her; believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. She approved of his philosophy but had her own credo; believe in yourself only and even that’s iffy.
Her mother, so steadfast in her beliefs, was the only person on the planet still calling her Theresa, unable to bring herself to bastardize her name as she put it. The bastardization was simply how her older sister, Darla, pronounced Theresa at six years old. Her mother was rigid.
Risa never accompanied her on her weekly forays to church once she was old enough to protest. Mom never missed a Sunday sermon, any holiday celebration, and helped at all the money raising events, even volunteering at Bingo games every Thursday night. She even resembled a cherub having a soft white head of unruly hair that looked like a halo above her round red-cheeked face.
Oh, yeah, Mom would love the Rainbow bridge-heaven stuff and eat it up with relish. Her entire reality was based on an imagined afterlife. The woman’s unquestioning faith conflicted with Dad’s vocal non-belief, even ridicule.
The disparity between her parents confused her as a child but eventually she’d come to lean in her father’s direction. Since Risa had seen no visible proof on her mother’s side and science discredited that version of creation, she sided with her dad. Nothing dissuaded her once she asked; if there were a god, how could he stand by and allow cruelty to animals? Why were animals ignored by god? What could possibly be their sin? Animals had no choices.
In her mind, mankind created God and not the other way around. If any sort of reality existed at all, she believed in facts and what she knew by her own deductions.
The phone suddenly jangled beside her.
“Hello.”
“Risa, what you doing tonight?”
She leaned back. It was her sister. “Hey Darla, not much. I stayed up with another one of those puppies last night.”
“Oh no. Did it make it?”
“No.”
“Sorry,” ahe said softly.
“I’m used to stupidity, but this time it takes the cake cuz they were six days old.”
“Six days? God Risa, I could never do your job. You see too many bad things. Why do you do it? And don’t say it’s the money...”
“I love my job, it’s my life. How many people get paid while helping animals? Do you love your job?”
“I like my job that’s why I got a degree in what I like, math. Being an accountant in a quiet office suits me, whereas your job makes you hate people. It’s kind of a catch twenty-two. You’ve always preferred animals over people. You work mostly with dogs and see people at their worst which makes you dislike them more than ever.”
Risa pulled a sterling chain from around her neck and lifted the opal ring out. She began twisting the chain around her finger. “I get fed up with people, but I don’t do my job for them.”
“I still couldn’t do it, I’d want to shoot everyone.”
“Hummmm, there’s an interesting perspective. I see so many young, untrained dogs...just a bit of training could keep many dogs in their original homes.”
“I know, look at Casey he’s a good boy and you’ve been training him since you got him. I love that dog. If you write up your will leave him to me, okay?”
“Get in line, everyone loves Casey. Are you going out tonight?”
“Heidi and Linda asked if I wanted to check out a new band downtown and I thought I’d invite you, you work too…”
“I know I work too much but they need me.”
“The dogs or the shelter? You've got to get rid of the stress by going out. You need to balance your work with fun.”
She smiled. It’d be nice to get out but she wasn’t in a partying mood, she felt too distracted and needed a bit of regrouping of her thoughts since losing the puppies. “I’m going to stay in tonight but I’ll definitely go out sometime tomorrow.”
“Great. I’ll fill you in on the evening when I see you. Read a book or something to take your mind off those puppies.”
Funny she should mention a book. “What book?” She let go of the necklace, sat straight in the couch hoping for an explanation. Maybe Darla brought the book in to the shelter.
“Any freaking book, comic book for all I care, you need to relax.”
There went that idea. “Okay. Have fun, call me.”
“I will tomorrow around lunch.”
She hung up and stared at her snoring dog. He looked so secure to her. He was so trusting. Every dog her family had owned was a family member to her and she could never abandon him in any manner.
A sad smile thinned her lips when she thought of the miserably uncreative excuses for giving up dogs in the files at work: dog is too wild; dog is not housetrained, no time for dog, and moving were common themes. As if anyone would drop the kids off at a homeless shelter when having a hard time finding an apartment that allowed children. Dog hair was a literal killer. Who’d get a dog unaware that dog hair was involved?
Her tolerance ran low she knew that. The real reasons for surrender were never vocalized: no effort to train, no time to exercise, we do not care. We won’t be bothered. Everyone knew the real reasons. Everyone. No one was fooled by the excuses including those making them.
The weirdest most unacceptable behavior she witnessed (rarely) was the people who dropped a dog at the shelter while announcing they were on their way to pick up a puppy.
“What was up with that?” She had asked Don once, who shrugged in resignation.
She washed the dishes that had built up in the sink over the past couple of days, rinsed out Casey’s food bowl, then she stacked everything on the dish rack to dry. She wiped her hands on a paper towel. She knew there were legitimate reasons dogs were given up; owner went into a nursing home or the owner died.
But how could so many owners drop off a pet without knowing its fate? So many dogs were aggressive, under-socialized, timid or born unhealthy from poor breeding practices, some were too old for adoptions. Many dogs and cats waited for new homes in shelter pens for months and months, which often drove them kennel crazy. So many were euthanized, which is a pretty word for killed. There wasn’t anything pretty about it.
She read most of the flyers, newsletters and pamphlets that were regularly sent to the shelter. So many in fact the repetition of reading, over and over; ‘seven out of a litter of ten puppies died before reaching age one’, became unreal. She couldn’t visualize seven out of every ten puppies being actually and permanently dead before age one. It didn’t compute in her head. Not that she knew much about breeders, puppy mills or backyard breeders, or their stats; she only saw the young dogs at her one shelter.
With an air of resigned determination, she walked into the living room and picked up the velvety book.
It was there for her, she would read it.
She leaned back into the plump couch and sighed aloud. Perhaps there was something she’d learn, something she didn’t already know. Perhaps she’d read the report and have an inkling of why, because a tiny piece of her wanted to know if it was other than human ignorance.
The book is something she could touch after all. It’s real. She’d figure out where the hell it came from later.
This book would either condemn mankind or prove her wrong.