Lily to the Rescue: Dog Dog Goose

by W. Bruce Cameron

  “Good dog, Lily,” she told me.

  I didn’t even look up, because I’d been called “good dog” a lot lately, but before there had been no ice cream and I could smell there were no treats now.

  Mom put the box that she was carrying down onto the floor and I went to examine it, the geese right on my heels. Inside it were seeds and pieces of grass and some small berries. Why bother to put stuff like that in a box?

  The goslings seemed to be very interested in the box, though. Its sides were very low and they could climb right into it. They began waddling among the grass and seeds and berries, pecking and nibbling and peeping.

  The things in that box were bird treats, then? I did not understand this at all. I’d done Come and Sit for Maggie Rose, but the little geese had not done anything except peep and climb all over me like I was a bird bed.

  I padded over to a bowl of water and drank. Then, with a long, weary sigh, I flopped down on the floor and stretched out on my side for a nap like old Brewster.

  Peep peep peep! Goslings instantly rushed over to surround me.

  It seemed that these geese wanted to be really, really good friends with me! They nestled around me, huddling into my fur, pecking lightly at my skin.

  “I think Lily will have to stay the night,” Mom said. “The goslings won’t be able to settle down without her.”

  “Can I stay, too?” Maggie Rose asked. “I can sleep on the couch.”

  Mom shook her head. “No, because Lily will want to lie with you, and the goslings will want to lie with her, and you’ll end up sleeping with baby geese. You might roll over and crush them. Nope, I’m afraid Lily is going to have to handle her job as the new mother goose all by herself.”

  My girl’s shoulders slumped. “I am going to miss my dog.”

  “I’m sure she’ll miss you, too,” Mom replied, “but if we separate her from them, it might make the goslings really, really upset.”

  There was some more talking, and after a while Maggie Rose brought me a whole bowl of food all for myself. I had to shake goslings off to eat it, and they peeped at me until I lay back down so they could snuggle beside me again.

  This was getting to be ridiculous. I was very much looking forward to going Home so I could sleep with my girl.

  Except that’s not what happened. Maggie Rose put me inside the goslings’ kennel and left me there and went away!

  I barked a little to remind her that she had forgotten me, but she didn’t come back. I whined a few times, but that didn’t work, either. Meanwhile the baby birds stared up at me as if I was waving an ice cream cone around. What did they want?

  Brewster groaned and got up and circled around and lay back down, and as he did so he gave me a weary look, probably thinking I looked very silly with a bunch of goslings clinging to me.

  Slowly the room got darker, although a little light still came in through a window. I sighed. A few goslings peeped. Then everything was quiet for a while, until something went click.

  It was a door. The door was opening.

  Someone came through the door, someone who smelled familiar. It was Bryan.

  Bryan came into the room where I was in the kennel with the goslings. He was carrying the long stick that he sometimes uses to hit balls. He put the stick and a ball and a big leather glove down by the wall. Then he came over to my kennel.

  He unlatched the door and looked in. “Lily, is that you?” he asked. “What are you doing with all those ducks?” He opened my kennel door.

  I wagged my tail but didn’t get up because I had all these peeping geese sticking to me. Bryan shrugged and kept moving. He stopped in front of Brewster’s kennel.

  “Hi, boy,” I heard him say.

  Bryan opened up the kennel door and Brewster actually climbed to his feet. Bryan pulled some treats out of his pocket and gave them to Brewster.

  Okay, I was a good dog, too, just like Brewster. I got up, shaking off goslings, and left the kennel to go over to Bryan and Brewster.

  The goslings followed me, of course. They probably thought they were dogs, but that was just silly. Dogs know how to do Sit and Stay and Lie Down and Roll Over, and that is why they get treats. Other animals don’t do these things, and that’s why treats are not for them.

  Well, every now and then cats get treats. But they don’t really deserve them.

  Bryan understood. He gave me a treat and did not give any to the goslings. I loved Bryan. Also, his hands smelled a little like peanut butter, and I love peanut butter.

  Bryan sat down on the floor and leaned his back up against one wall of the kennel. Brewster lay down next to him and put his head in Bryan’s lap. Bryan rubbed his ears and stroked his head, and Brewster let out a long groan of happiness.

  “You’re a good dog,” Bryan whispered. “A good, good dog.”

  They stayed like that for a while. I did Sit in case Bryan had any more treats hidden in his pockets. The goslings clustered around my feet and settled down. Brewster looked away, embarrassed for me.

  After a while, Bryan sighed. “I have to go now,” he said. Very gently, he picked up Brewster’s head and put it on the ground. “Sorry, boy. I’ll be back.”

  Then with a loud noise we heard the side door open. “Lily!”

  It was my girl! She came rushing into the room of kennels and halted in surprise when she saw her brother in the kennel with Brewster’s head in his lap.

  “Bryan?” she said.

  “Don’t tell Mom,” he whispered urgently.

  5

  I was greeting Maggie Rose with licks and wags while the goslings milled around underfoot, as if they didn’t understand how wonderful it was that my girl had come back.

  “What are you doing here, Bryan?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “Maggie Rose, are you talking to me?” Mom called from another room at Work.

  “Um … I am here with Lily!” my girl called back.

  I wagged at my name.

  Bryan stood up. Brewster did Sit at his feet.

  “I’m just visiting Brewster,” Bryan explained quietly.

  “But it’s after dinner,” Maggie Rose said.

  “So what? I can’t pet a dog after dinner?”

  “You told Mom and Dad you were playing baseball with your friends!”

  “Yeah, well.” Bryan looked embarrassed.

  I lay down and rolled over, and the baby birds scattered when my girl started rubbing my tummy.

  “You play baseball with your friends every night!” Maggie Rose went on.

  “No, I don’t,” Bryan said. “I come to visit Brewster after dinner every night.”

  “You do?” Maggie Rose stopped rubbing my tummy. She straightened up and the goslings all rushed to be with me even though I had been lying here the whole time. I wearily got to my feet and did Sit like Brewster.

  “He’s all by himself. All night long,” Bryan said. “I just … visit him. That’s all. Don’t tell anybody, Maggie Rose!”

  My girl’s eyes widened. “You should adopt Brewster!” she said.

  Bryan made a snorting kind of noise. I looked at him in surprise. Humans don’t usually snort.

  “Mom would never let me,” he said. “You know her and her rules—our family can’t adopt animals from the Rescue because it sets a bad example, somehow.”

  “They let me have Lily,” Maggie Rose pointed out.

  “That’s different. That’s because you’re the youngest,” Bryan said. “And they love Craig because he’s the oldest and responsible and stuff. But they’re not going to let me have a dog. There’s no point even asking.”

  “Except Brewster is a senior dog. Mom says it is really hard to place an old dog with a new family,” Lily argued.

  Brewster and I both wagged at “dog” but the goslings didn’t react at all. They were still staring at me as if I were a human with bird treats in my pocket.

  Bryan didn’t say anything. The goslings poked their beaks into my fur.

  “What if you paid the ad
option fee?” Maggie Rose suggested suddenly.

  Bryan snorted again. Brewster and I glanced at each other. I wondered if Bryan was going to be making this noise all the time now.

  “I don’t have anywhere near that much money,” he replied. “It’s, like, two hundred dollars.”

  “But if you did,” Maggie Rose insisted, “I’ll bet you Mom would say yes.”

  “Whatever. It’s way more than I have.”

  “But I have money, too,” Maggie Rose pointed out.

  Bryan stared at her. Brewster flopped down on the floor with a groan. I didn’t, because if I did I would be swarmed with goslings.

  “I’ll give you all my money,” Maggie Rose continued. “And then we can do extra chores around the house to earn more. If you had the adoption fee, Mom would have to say yes!”

  “You would do that for me?”

  “For you and for Brewster.”

  Brewster had been snoozing, but he opened a lazy eye when my girl said his name.

  “Okay!” Bryan replied.

  “Maggie Rose?” called a voice from the door to the yard. “I’m done closing up for the night—time to go home. Say bye to Lily.”

  It was Mom’s voice. Bryan made a face at Maggie Rose and held a finger in front of his lips. Maggie Rose nodded at him. He turned to leave through the front door.

  “Bryan?” my girl said softly.

  Bryan turned back.

  “Mom and Dad do love you,” Maggie Rose proclaimed. “And so do I.”

  Bryan snorted. Again.

  I don’t think I understood that my girl was going to leave me at Work so the baby birds could all try to climb on my head, and do it the next day, and the next, and the next.

  Had I been a bad dog? Why wasn’t I sleeping on my girl’s bed?

  The geese were with me constantly. They trailed along the floor behind me. They nibbled on my fur and wiggled under my belly. They nestled up close to me as soon as I stopped moving.

  Why couldn’t they climb on Brewster instead? All he did was lie there. He would make an excellent bird’s nest! But no, the goslings wanted to be with just me.

  One morning my girl took me and the goslings out into the yard. I went through the dog door by myself, but Maggie Rose had to hold the people door open for the geese.

  The yard at Work is a nice place, with grass and one tree with a squirrel who comes down to be chased every now and then. Today the squirrel was not around, though. Instead Craig was there, picking up some papers that had blown into the yard.

  “Hey, they’ve gotten a little bigger already,” Craig said.

  I wanted to play Chase-Me or Fetch with Craig and Maggie Rose, but it was hard with the geese underfoot. The only game they seemed to know was Follow-Lily-Everywhere.

  After a little while, Mom came into the yard with another lady who had been eating bacon for breakfast, which I appreciated very much.

  “Oh, they are precious!” the new woman exclaimed, clapping her hands.

  I thought maybe she wanted me to come and sniff her. Sometimes people who clap their hands want that. But she wasn’t even looking at me. She was looking at the goslings.

  “Hi, Mrs. Swanson,” Maggie Rose said.

  The new lady, I figured out, was called Mrs. Swanson. She liked to talk.

  “I just love geese,” she said to Mom and Maggie Rose and sort of to me and the goslings, too. “I always have. You know the way some people just love cats? I feel that way about geese. When my husband told me about these poor orphaned babies, I knew I had to come and see them.”

  The goslings were pecking at my feet. I turned around and nudged them out of the way with my nose so I could go and sniff Mrs. Swanson’s shoes.

  “Maybe I could help support them?” Mrs. Swanson asked Mom. “I’d love to help buy food for them.”

  Mom smiled. “We’re always looking for donations to support our work,” she said.

  Mrs. Swanson talked some more and some more and then she and Mom went away. Maggie Rose grinned at me. “She’s a little funny,” she whispered. “Why would anybody like geese better than dogs, Lily?”

  I crawled into her lap. The geese circled around, working up the nerve to climb up with me. Goslings do not always understand that sometimes a dog just wants to be with her girl.

  Craig came over to see me but probably not the goslings. “Hey, good dog, Lily,” he said, leaning in to talk to my girl.

  “So,” he murmured quietly. “I know something is going on, Maggie Rose.”

  6

  I looked at my girl with interest—she had stiffened, and seemed worried.

  “Something going on?” she repeated innocently.

  “With you and Bryan. All of a sudden you’re doing all these extra jobs around the house? Bryan was sweeping the garage—last time he did that it was because Dad was using it as punishment. I saw you straightening the shelves and dusting them. What gives? Did you two do something really bad?” Craig demanded.

  “No-o-o,” my girl answered slowly.

  “Then what? Why are you two working so hard to impress Mom and Dad?”

  “Okay, look Craig, if I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone else. Okay?”

  Craig folded his arms. “You know what Dad always says—you can’t make that promise until you know what it is. Like, what if you and Bryan robbed a bank or something? I’d have to tell.”

  My girl sighed. I thought about lying down on her feet, but I knew as soon as I did I’d be covered with baby birds. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

  “Good.”

  Maggie Rose took a deep breath. “Bryan and I robbed a bank.”

  “Maggie Rose!” Craig was laughing. “Come on.”

  “Well … you know how Mom always says Brewster is a senior dog that nobody will ever want and it’s sad because he is so great but people don’t adopt old pets?” My girl’s words were coming out of her in a rush. “Well, Bryan does want to adopt Brewster!”

  Craig was shaking his head. “You know Mom’s policy about that. We can foster rescued animals, but if we adopt one that’s foster failure, and it sets a bad example for the other people who foster.”

  “Yes,” my girl said, “but she made an exception for me, because Lily is such a special dog. She’ll do the same for Bryan—otherwise, it’s not fair!”

  “I guess it’s not fair,” Craig agreed, “but you know Mom. She’ll come up with a reason that will make sense so she can be both fair and stick to the rules.”

  Maggie Rose nodded. “That’s why Bryan and I are raising money to pay Brewster’s adoption fee. If we have the fee, Mom has to say yes, doesn’t she?”

  Craig looked thoughtful. “You know, this could work. When you say it’s not fair to let you have Lily but not let Bryan have Brewster, she’ll probably say ‘okay, but only if you pay the adoption fee’—because she knows you don’t have that kind of money. How much do you have?”

  “Almost half … of half,” my girl admitted hesitantly.

  The goslings were all clustered around my butt, as if they wanted me to sit on them. Which meant I couldn’t sit, even though I wanted to!

  “Okay, well … I’ve got some money saved up, so you guys can have that, too. But you still have a long way to go,” Craig told her.

  My girl pumped her fist and said “Yes!”—so happy to have a dog like me she nearly jumped.

  I wish I could say that I went Home and the goslings stayed at Work that night, but instead I was left at Work with Brewster and the silly birds.

  I stayed at Work for days and days. I did most of the things I usually did. I sniffed Brewster and my other friends and said hello to all the people who came to take care of the dogs and cats and squirrels and ferrets and birds and other animals who live there. I was a good dog, but I missed my girl at night and I was tired of being climbed on by geese.

  Maggie Rose came to see me every day, though. Often she would let me and the goslings out into the yard. I would sniff and the geese would follow
me, sometimes climbing over each other to be close to me. They were right there when I squatted.

  I don’t mind peeing in front of other dogs. But for some reason it is embarrassing to do it in front of baby geese.

  Dad had set up a small plastic pool in the yard, and he was standing there filling it up with a hose. I went over and slurped up a drink. Water from a hose tastes different from water in a bowl.

  The goslings followed, of course. I was willing to teach them to drink from the hose, but they weren’t interested in that. They were focused on the water in the pool.

  Dad put a long, flat piece of wood on the ground. One end of the wood was on the edge of the pool and the other was in the grass, so it made a ramp.

  “Help them out, Maggie Rose,” he said.

  Maggie Rose knelt down. “Go on, Gertrude,” she said, pushing a gosling up the ramp.

  Dad chuckled. “Gertrude?”

  “That’s her name. She’s the biggest,” Maggie Rose said. “And she’s the bravest, too. She does things first, and the rest follow. Okay, Mr. Waddle-puss. Fluffy. Goofy. Downy. Oh, and Harold. You go, too.”

  She shooed the goslings up the ramp.

  When Gertrude reached the top of the ramp, she didn’t hesitate. She plunged straight into the water. The other goslings followed her.

  I know about water. It’s good for drinking when it’s in bowls or hoses, but if you try to stand on it or run on it, you go down to the bottom.

  But for some reason this water was different! The goslings did not sink. They stayed right on the top, and when they paddled with their legs they moved over the water.

  I put my feet up on the edge of the pool to watch this amazing sight. Gertrude paddled right over to me. The others followed. They peeped at me as if they wanted me to get in and swim, but swimming is for geese and not for dogs like me.

  Some of them even ducked their bodies under the water. I whined and looked at Maggie Rose. But it turned out that I didn’t need to worry. The goslings popped right back up.