The Guard Dog by Dick King-Smith

Author:Dick King-Smith [King-Smith, Dick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407099453
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

“Oh, thanks,” said the manager of the Dogs’ Home, when one of his kennelmaids brought in his cup of coffee at eleven o’clock next morning. He looked up from his record book.

“Shame about the little titchy one in Number twenty-five,” he said.

“You don’t mean …?” said the kennelmaid.

“’Fraid so. If things had been slack we could have kept him longer, but the way dogs are pouring in, we must keep to the two-week rule. He’s one for the vet today.”

“Oh dear,” said the kennelmaid. “He’s such a lovely little fellow. Dozens of people fell for him, until …”

“… until he opened his mouth,” said the manager. “I know. It’s a pity, but you can’t blame them. In all my long experience of every sort of dog, I’ve never come across one with such a dreadful voice. Nobody could possibly live with that; though, talk about burglar alarms – any burglar would run a mile if he heard that hullabaloo. And you wouldn’t need to dial nine-nine-nine – they’d hear it at the nearest police station easy.”

The guard-dog ate a hearty breakfast, and was a little surprised when the kennelmaid came to clean out his run, at the fuss she made of him. She cuddled and stroked and kissed him as if she would never see him again.

Then he remembered what the smelly old terrier had said. This is my fourteenth day, he thought. Great! Someone will pick me out today! He sat, waiting for the time when the public were admitted, determined that today of all days he would leave no-one in any doubt as to the quality of his greatest asset. Other guard-dogs, he supposed, might act in other ways, by looking large and fierce (which he could not) or by leaping up and planting their feet on the shoulders of burglars and suchlike and knocking them flat (which he most certainly could not). He had only his voice, and when the door to the kennel block opened, he let rip, fortissimo.

No-one even got to smiling at him that morning. Everybody kept as far away as possible from the dreadful sounds issuing from Number 25, and concentrated upon the other inmates. The guard-dog was left strictly alone.

When at last the batch of would-be owners had left, some with new companions, some empty-handed, all mightily relieved to reach the comparative peace and quiet of the busy roaring street outside, the guard-dog sat silent once more. There was a puzzled look on his extremely small and hairy face.

Can’t understand it, he thought. Nobody seems to want a decent guard-dog. But if fourteen days was the limit, then they’d jolly well have to find him somewhere to go today. Perhaps the man in the white coat would take him too – he’d seemed a nice sort of chap.

He watched the door to the kennel block.

It was not the man in the white coat who came in but the kennelmaid with a man with white hair, who walked with a stick with a rubber tip to it.

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