Mans' best friend (standard:drama, 3426 words)
Author: JohnSeeger	Added: Feb 26 2008	Views/Reads: 3046/2074	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Dog is lost and then found. In the meantime it saves a family and allows a small girl to grow up a bit.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

was no puppy.  He then ran to the restaurant and all the way round the 
building.  He tried to call for the puppy but as he came round the 
building a train came rolling by and the noise drowned his calls.  He 
looked in the piles of boxes and trash and garbage behind the building 
but it was no use. 

The next two hours Daddy and Mommy looked and called for the puppy but
there was no answer.  In fact by this time Sandy, frightened first by 
the box throwing man and then by the train and then by many unfamiliar 
sounds in the night, was so far away he could not have heard it if Dad 
had set off a bomb.  Sandy was lost. 

The little girl continued to cry as they left the gasoline station. 
Mommy cried and Daddy also cried because he knew his little girl's 
heart was broken.  He promised to get her another puppy, he promised 
lots of things even though he knew no promise would change anything but 
he had to try to heal her heart. 

They went on to the hotel and the little girl cried herself to sleep as
she lay between her mommy and daddy on the strange bed in the strange 
place with the strange empty place in her arms.  In the morning she 
woke up crying and cried for the next few days after they arrived at 
Grandmother's.  However, a little girl can't cry forever and after all 
she was with Grandmother.  In a while she began to feel better and to 
believe that some good would come out of her loss after all, just like 
Grandmother said, "Sweetie, somebody good will find your puppy and will 
love it just as you do.  It will bring joy to some other little girl or 
boy, just you believe it." 

Well, somebody good did find the puppy. 

One evening just as the sun was setting, maybe 3 or 4 days after the
puppy was lost, a man was standing at a corner in Phoenix waiting to 
cross with the light when he noticed a ball of sopping fur lying in the 
gutter just a few feet away from him.  As he watched he thought he 
noticed a small movement.  He went over and pulled the messiest little 
fur bag he had ever seen from the mucky water and saw that it was a 
small dog. 

Sandy had been wandering for days looking for his beloved mistress.  He
had been without food and very little water; only what was in the 
gutters and in June in Phoenix there isn't much.  No one had offered it 
food; no one had cared for the little puppy without a home.   The puppy 
was starving and almost dehydrated. 

The man took off his jacket and wiped the mud and muck from the puppy. 
The little puppy tried to lick the man in thanks but was so weak it was 
hardly able to stick out its tongue.   Then the man grabbed up the 
puppy, rushed to his car and drove home quickly with the little dog on 
the seat right beside him. 

When he got home the man called to his wife as he ran into the house,
"Honey, get some towels!  Get some milk!  Let's make a place for this 
poor little puppy to lie down and see if we can help it live!"  The 
man's wife wanted to help because she loved animals as much as the man 
did so she ran into the garage and got rags and towels for the puppy to 
lie on.  While she ran to the garage, the man went to the refrigerator 
and got a big bottle of milk.  He poured some in a small plastic cup 
with a baby lid on it and brought both back with him to the place in 
the family room where he had lain the puppy.  He stuck the little spout 
of the plastic lid in the puppy's mouth and let the milk run out into 
the puppy's mouth.  Unfortunately the puppy didn't open his mouth so 
the milk spilled all over its nose.  Some went into its nose.  The 
puppy sneezed and blew milk all over the man.  Both the man and his 
wife laughed and laughed as he wiped the milk off his glasses and 
shirt.  By now the puppy realized what it was that was all over his 
face and he began to lick it off his muzzle and look for more.  The 
man's wife took the plastic cup and began to feed the puppy who gulped 
the milk as fast as it would pour from the spout. 

Soon the puppy was feeling so much better and he began to lick the
lady's hand and then her face as she bent over to kiss its head.  But 
then the full tummy took over and the puppy fell fast asleep.  Finally 
the puppy could rest somewhere with people who obviously cared for it 
and where maybe, just maybe it could find a new home. 

The puppy was happy now as the days passed.  It didn't forget the little
girl but puppies can be content if someone cares for them, feeds them 
and gives them someplace to sleep.  Mostly though a puppy needs someone 
who cares.  So now the puppy had a home with a man and his wife and two 
children as well.  There was a young girl, not as young as the little 
girl, who wasn't in school yet and a bigger boy who like to run and 
throw sticks.  That was the puppy's favorite game.  It loved to bring 
back the sticks. 

As the days went on the puppy learned to love the boy and girl.  They
renamed Sandy.  They called him Rocky.  During the day they played 
after school and during the night Rocky slept in the kitchen with the 
doorways blocked so he couldn't get to the other parts of the house. 

One night about a week after the man found the puppy, everyone was
asleep in the house when the dog began to bark louder than ever before. 
 The dog barked as though it was being attacked by a mountain lion.  
Yelping and screaming and howling until the man ran downstairs to see 
what was the problem.  He was madder than a wet hen as he came into the 
kitchen and was ready to give the dog a good scolding.  He had been 
thinking as he got out of bed that maybe he should have left the dog in 
the street.  He was that mad!  However, when he got into the kitchen he 
saw smoke seeping under the door to the garage with little flickers of 
light showing through the cracks in the doorway.  Oh, NO! The garage 
was on fire.  Soon the house would be burning!!!  The children's 
bedrooms were above the garage!  They might be on fire already. 

With fear and dread in his mind and heart he turned away from the dog
and ran upstairs into the hall to the children's bedrooms.  The floor 
was hot under his feet as he ran from the girl's room, and then with 
her now under his arm, into the boy's room filled with smoke.  He 
dropped to the floor and crawled to his son's bed to pull him off onto 
the floor.  As he pulled both the children after him and then pushed 
them before him into the hall he could feel the floor below burning the 
soles of his feet.  He leaped into the hall and pulled the door closed 
behind him then grabbed the children and fled to the stair to run out.  
Only then did he realize he had been yelling all the time to his wife 
and to whoever would listen crying, "Help us, Oh! My G-d!  The house is 
on fire, we're all going to die!  Help us! Help us!  He was still 
shouting as he ran the children out onto the lawn but now he was 
yelling, "Thank G-d, we're safe, all of us!!"  Suddenly he realized he 
had left the dog in the kitchen next to the garage.  He turned to run 
into the house when his wife stopped him and pointed to the space 
between his feet.  There, wide eyed and shivering was the little puppy 
who had saved everyone's life. 

There was a news reporter at the scene and a photographer.  They heard
everyone talking about the dog barking and they asked what happened.  
When they heard that the man had just brought the dog home a week ago 
they thought it was a great human-interest story; man saves dog, dog 
saves man, that's a great story.  So they took a couple of pictures and 
went back to the newspaper office.  The next day the paper published 
the story on the front page and the family was famous around the 
neighborhood for a little while. 

The vacation time was over for the little girl and her mom and dad so
they headed back to Vermont.  They traveled back the same way they came 
driving back toward the east on what was then highway 66.  When they 
came to Phoenix again they had to stop for gasoline so Dad looked for a 
station with the right brand of gas.  He couldn't bear to stop at the 
same station were the puppy had been lost.  That would have been more 
than the little girl should ever have to suffer.  So into a different 
station he pulled and it was clear over on the opposite side of town 
from the first one.  He put the nozzle into the tank and waited for it 
to fill. 

Mom and the little girl got out to stretch their legs and wandered over
to the building.  There was a stack of papers in the office, some older 
ones that hadn't been thrown out yet.  As the mother looked over at 
them she notice the word "DOG" on a page that was almost all covered.  
She didn't think anything about it but since the puppy was on her mind 
she couldn't really control her hand as it reached over and pushed the 
covering paper aside.  There was the picture.  At first she thought, "I 
need some rest, I'm seeing things."  But then as she looked closer, she 
bent down and stared.  She grabbed the paper up and running from the 
office, screamed to her husband, "I FOUND THE PUPPY!!!"  They both 
looked at the paper and noting the address of the family, Mother jumped 
into the car.  Dad ran to the office, grabbed a map, threw a $20 bill 
at the attendant and ran back to the car.  He pulled the nozzle out of 
the tank and without even screwing the gas cap on, drove screeching out 
of the station toward the neighborhood of the family with their dog 
while Mother shouted directions. 

When they arrived at the address it was plain to see that no one lived
there at the moment.  The place was a total disaster.  Hardly a board 
remained without burn marks.  Even the grass all round the house was 
scorched brown and black.  Dad, frantic with excitement ran from house 
to house trying to find someone at home, someone who could tell him 
where the family could be found.  As he ran along someone came out of a 
house across the street and called, "Can I help you?"  After learning 
that he was trying to find the owners of the house, the neighbor seeing 
the Vermont license plate, took them for relatives of the family and 
told Dad that they were in a local motel until they could get settled.  
He gave directions and with that Dad jumped back in the car and they 
were off again.  All this time the little girl didn't know what had 
happened.  Now that everyone was somewhat more calm Mother told the 
little girl that the man had found the puppy and had cared for it.  
"Really, Mother said, "he had saved the puppy's life and now the puppy 
had saved the man and his family."   The little girl was excited that 
the puppy had been found but then she sat back quietly thinking as they 
drove on. 

When they found the motel, Dad went in and asked for the family.  The
manager called their room and said for Dad to wait.  In a little while 
the little girl and her mother saw a man leave one of the upstairs 
rooms, walk along the balcony, down the stairs and go into the office.  
As she sat in the car, the little girl wondered what was happening. 

As they waited for Dad to return it became quite hot in the car so Mom
and the little girl stepped out and walked around the motel.  As they 
neared the end of the parking lot they saw in the back of the motel two 
children playing with the puppy.  The boy was throwing a stick and the 
dog was happily running to pick it up and bring it back.  Then the boy 
would throw it again and the dog would bring it back.  The little girl 
moved forward to go to the puppy when she heard someone yell, "Son, 
come here now......and bring the pup!....... Now!"  The boy called the 
puppy to himself and tucking it under his arm came running to his 
father.  Mother and the little girl watched from the distance as the 
boy got to his father and stood at attention as they spoke to each 
other.  The boy listened for a bit and then suddenly stamped his foot 
and shouted, "NO!  I can't, I won't!"  He turned to run as his father 
caught hold of his shoulder and stopped him.  He said something again 
and the boy hung his head, lifted his arm from the puppy and handed it 
to his father.  The man quickly turned to Dad and handed the dog to him 
and just as quickly turned away with his hand on his son's back moved 
back toward the room from which he had first come. 

The little girl now moved in a run to her father and held her hands up
to take the puppy.  Dad, now with tears in his own eyes, handed it down 
to her.  She felt the warm soft fur again, something she never expected 
or even dared hope to do.  She stroked the soft, wet and cold nose, 
kissed the eyes of the puppy she loved and without a word to her father 
she turned to walk back to the motel.  She walked up the stairs that 
led to the balcony where the man now stood unable to go into his room.  
She walked straight and stiff as a soldier to him and holding the puppy 
close to her chest said, "Thank you so much for taking care of my puppy 
when I lost it.  I was so sad and afraid I would never see it again."  
The man said, with a voice hoarse from his own loss, that he was glad 
to do it for her and the pup.  The little girl then said, "But I think 
that the puppy needs to stay with you."  Then without another word she 
handed the precious bundle to him and turned back to walk down to the 
car.  She got into the backseat and said, "Ok, Daddy, let's go." 


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