Storm Dog by L. M. Elliott

Storm Dog by L. M. Elliott

Author:L. M. Elliott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00


Eleven

THE CRAZY-GOOD THING ABOUT DOGS IS if you’re nice enough to them, most every single one will get happy—even if it’s locked up behind bars. As soon as Marcus put the key into the back-door lock, I could hear them get excited. He walked in and twenty dogs were up, yip-yapping, jumping on the cage doors, their tails wagging, wagging, wagging. He walked down the line of inmates, saying hello, calling each by name: Ace, Butch, Rowdy, Rocky. They were mostly mutts, genetic mishmashes of country dogs used for all types of hunting—foxhounds, Jack Russells, setters, springer spaniels, beagles—and the occasional pit bull or corgi. With such strange mixtures of physical features, none would win a dog show beauty contest. But they sure got adorable with the littlest bit of attention.

“Will these dogs get adopted, Marcus?” I asked.

“That’s what we’re here to remedy,” he answered. “Some of them have been here for weeks, and it’s beginning to show in their eyes. Like this one.”

He stopped in front of a Labrador retriever, who sat waiting for him, whimper-whining, gazing through the wire mesh with solemn, sad eyes. She was truly pretty. But she had a beard of white around her muzzle, and—there’s no other way of saying it—she was downright obese.

“Here’s Midnight, the one I was hoping you could take home,” he said. “She’s the sweetest thing, but nobody wants her because she’s old and needs to lose a bunch of weight to ease the strain on her legs. She’s had a passel of puppies. I bet she was a good mother; she’s so gentle. She was turned in by one of those thousand-dollar-a-puppy pedigree breeders. He said times were bad, and he just couldn’t afford her anymore. I’m thinking the jerk didn’t want to pay for her old age.”

He reached through the bars to scratch her ears. She licked his hand.

“Why don’t you take her, Marcus?”

“I wish I could. But we already have my dad’s pointer he takes hunting and two dogs I brought home when they’d been here for weeks and weeks with no takers. According to Mom’s tarot cards, another stray would make our trailer explode.” He winked at me. “Her way of saying she doesn’t want another dog.”

I laughed.

“All righty, then.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s get cracking.”

Balancing an armload of brushes, I followed Marcus outside to set up a dog beautician corner. Because our county shelter also rescues mistreated horses, it has several fenced paddocks where the dogs can have a real romp. We let four out at a time to run and tumble all over one another before taking them aside for their beautifying.

For a while, I raced around with them as Marcus tended to his chores. They jumped all over me to get some petting. I even convinced a couple to do dance circles around me. Without bacon! I guess dogs that desperate to please just catch on fast.

Marcus came out to check on me right as I got one of the oddest-looking



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