Watchdog and the Coyotes by Bill Wallace

Author:Bill Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

The coyotes ate our food. They gobbled it down and laughed. They slobbered and burped. Then they crawled into our warm, cozy doghouses and laughed and talked some more. All the while Poky, Red, and I lay shivering on the cold, cold ground. I never imagined things could get worse.

Chapter 9

The growling from our three empty tummies woke us early the next morning. Red struggled to his feet and tried to stretch. Sleeping on the cold ground made him stiffer than ever.

“We’ve got to do something,” he whimpered. “We’re gonna starve to death if we don’t.”

Poky got up and shook his curved tail. “What can we do? I’m too little. Sweetie won’t even growl at a fly, much less bite one. You’re too old and scared.”

“Red’s not scared,” I protested. “He’s a brave dog.”

“He’s scared,” Poky repeated. “I smelled it.”

Red slouched. He looked down at the ground, and when he leaned forward, his long red ears covered his eyes.

“Poky’s right, Sweetie. I am scared. When I was young, I didn’t know enough to be scared. When I was older, I was strong and fast, and I’d chase dogs away from my yard. Even bigger dogs didn’t scare me. It was my yard, and I wasn’t afraid of anything. Now . . .” His tail slipped under his hip and curled around his tummy. “Now I’m afraid. I’m old and weak and sore. I know if I try to take on those coyotes, they’ll hurt me. I hurt enough already, just from being old. I don’t want to hurt any more. They might even kill me.”

As he talked, that strange but familiar smell came to my nose. It hurt, but at the same time it made me feel big and strong inside. I tilted my head and cocked one ear.

“Is that what fear smells like?” I asked.

Red shrugged. “When you’re afraid, you can’t smell fear.”

Poky sniffed at Red. “That’s the smell of fear!”

I plopped on my bottom. I sat down so quickly I forgot to move my tail out of the way. It crooked under me, and I had to shift my weight to get it out.

“I smelled it before. I tasted it. Only I didn’t know what it was.” I glanced at Poky. “Why didn’t I smell it on you the first night the coyotes came?”

Poky’s tummy growled. “I was mad. When they stole my food, then got my chewy bone, I was so mad I couldn’t even see straight. That was my favorite chewy bone. I was so mad I forgot to be scared.”

I looked down at my front paws, remembering.

“I smelled something very close to it from the big coyote, the leader, only it went away. I remember because it was like the smell on the burglar that night he came to my master’s house.” As I stared down at my paws, pictures and smells and tastes flooded the space between my ears. “I remember tasting the smell on my friend Scotty when he left for the pound—only somehow it was a little different from the smell of fear on the coyote and the burglar.

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