The Lost Dogs

by Rebecca Johnson

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1 Dogs know vets will help them

  CHAPTER 2 Being a vet can be messy

  CHAPTER 3 Being a vet can be tough

  CHAPTER 4 Vets know how to be helpful

  CHAPTER 5 Being a vet can be a dirty job

  CHAPTER 6 Vets have lots of good ideas

  CHAPTER 7 Vets stay up late sometimes

  CHAPTER 8 Animal trainers are really clever

  CHAPTER 9 Every dog deserves a good home

  For my brilliant brother Ray,

  for always making me smile. Rx

  I wake up to a scratching noise, but I try to ignore it. There was a storm last night that kept me awake and I just want to go back to sleep.

  ‘Stop it, Max,’ I groan and I bury my head under my pillow. Max is my annoying five-year-old brother and he’s crazy about dinosaurs. It’s all he thinks about. He’s probably playing with his dinosaur toys in the hallway again.

  The scratching continues and I’m just about to call out for a second time when I hear a little whimper. That’s not Max, I think, sitting up in bed. It’s coming from outside.

  I go to the front door and look out through the glass. It’s a dog. A really scruffy, skinny-looking dog. I put my hand up to the glass and the dog licks at it from the other side. It must know I’m nearly a vet.

  Vets know they have to be careful about touching stray dogs, but I can see this one’s friendly and needs help.

  I open the front door just a little and the dog pushes its shaggy, brown and white face inside. Its tongue is out of control, trying to find something to lick. Suddenly Curly, my cocker spaniel, rushes towards us from the kitchen, barking like crazy.

  ‘Curly! Be quiet!’ my Dad’s voice booms from my parents’ bedroom at the back of the house.

  ‘I’ve got him, Dad,’ I call. ‘Go back to sleep.’ Dad’s not really into pets, so I’m pretty sure stray pets aren’t going to be his favourite thing either.

  I grab Curly by the collar and try to hold him back from the dog, but that just makes him bark even louder and the stray is pushing at the door from the other side. They’re too strong for me. They push towards each other until their noses meet. At least then Curly stops barking.

  They stand almost frozen with their noses touching. The scruffy dog is much bigger than Curly but it seems more timid and afraid. I open the door a little wider and the big, hairy, brown mess comes in. He and Curly wag their tails and sniff each other all over. They’re friends straightaway.

  The new dog has no collar. Some people really need a lesson in animal care. I lead Curly into the kitchen and the stray follows along.

  I quietly close the kitchen door behind me and assess the situation. I’m going to need my Vet Diary and vet kit to make some observations. I slip off to my room and grab them.

  When I come back into the kitchen the brown dog is wolfing down my dog’s leftover biscuits. Curly’s not impressed.

  I look down at the blank page.

  ‘Well, the first thing you’re going to need is a name,’ I say. For some reason, one pops straight into my head, so I write it at the top of the page and begin to make notes.

  I take out my stethoscope and listen to Hector’s heartbeat and then I check his eyes and ears. He seems very happy to be touched and examined. Curly keeps pushing his nose into whatever I am doing.

  I’ll ask Mum to give him a more detailed examination when she wakes up, but the first person I need here is Chelsea, my next-door neighbour and best friend.

  Chelsea is nearly a world-famous animal trainer and groomer. She’ll be the best person to get Hector ready for his check-up.

  I’m worried that if I leave the dogs while I go next door, they’ll bark and wake Mum and Dad. I open the fridge to look for something they could eat while I race and get Chelsea.

  I push a few things aside until I see the perfect doggy treat – a large bowl of leftover casserole. Hector and Curly look at me and wag their tails happily as I take it from the fridge.

  I hunt around for a second dog bowl, but I can’t find one. I spot Max’s dinosaur bowl on the sink.

  ‘That’ll do,’ I say, as I grab it.

  I leave the dogs with their feast while I run to the side of the house and call up to Chelsea’s open window. It’s hard to call out quietly.

  ‘Chelsea! Chelsea!’

  I’m just about to call out again when Chelsea’s neat, blonde head appears. She’s obviously been asleep but there’s still not a hair out of place on her head.

  ‘We’ve got an emergency! Bring your grooming kit and come to my kitchen. And try to be quiet.’

  Chelsea nods and disappears inside. I race back to the kitchen.

  I slowly open the kitchen door and then screw up my nose. The smell of the stray dog is really bad. He’s eaten all of his casserole and licked his bowl clean. Curly has tipped the dinosaur bowl over and he’s licking his way around peas and chunks of carrot and celery on the f loor. Hector watches him closely. He looks more than happy to finish up for Curly when he’s done.

  I step on a pea with my bare foot and it squashes between my toes. I pull a face and hobble to get a tissue just as Chelsea sneaks in.

  She covers her nose and mouth with her hand when she sees and then smells Hector.

  ‘Mind the peas,’ I say.

  ‘Whoa!’ says Chelsea. ‘What a mess!’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘We’ll clean it up later. But first, we’ve got to get this dog clean before Dad sees him. Then Mum can check him over.’

  ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘I found him at our door this morning.’

  ‘He must have known you were nearly a vet, Juliet.’

  We both smile.

  ‘Well, he’s too big to lift into the laundry tub where we bath Curly,’ says Chelsea.

  ‘How about the bath?’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ says Chelsea. ‘Your mum won’t mind having a huge, smelly dog in her bathroom?’

  ‘If we’re quick and quiet, she won’t even know.’

  We grab some plastic jugs and sneak the dogs down the hallway to the bathroom. The smell of Hector in the small room is even worse when we close the door. Chelsea holds a handtowel over her nose, but her eyes are still watering.

  I turn on the taps to fill the bath.

  ‘Okay Chelsea, help me lift him in,’ I say, after I’ve got the water to the right temperature.

  It’s a struggle, but eventually we get the big, filthy mess of a dog in the bath. I turn off the taps and we begin to pour jugs of warm water over his back. Thick rivers of brown water run off his coat.

  Chelsea opens her grooming kit and gets out a small bottle of dog shampoo. ‘We might need to use some of your shampoo as well,’ she says.

  I grab a bottle from the shelf and we start to lather Hector all over. He loves it and stands very still as we rub and scrub, massage and comb him. The muck and filth makes the foam a dark-brown colour.

  ‘Why can’t you stand still like this when you have a bath, Curly?’ I say, turning to look at my cocker spaniel sulking in the corner. He doesn’t look too happy about all the attention Hector is getting.

  ‘What are all those little black dots?’ asks Chelsea, peering at some froth on her hands.

  ‘Fleas,’ I tell her.

  Chelsea leaps to her feet and moves away from the bath.

  ‘Fleas?’ she squeaks. ‘You didn’t tell me he had fleas!’ She starts checking her arms and legs.

  ‘Of course Hector’s got fleas, Chelsea – he’s a stray dog. You’re going to have to get used to fleas if you want to be a world-famous groomer and trainer.’

  Suddenly we hear the toilet flush. We both freeze. There’s a tap on the door.

 
; ‘Juliet, what are you doing?’

  It’s Mum.

  ‘Um, we have an emergency, Mum,’ I stammer. ‘A stray dog came to our house and . . .’

  Just as Mum opens the bathroom door, Hector decides to shake. The whole room is suddenly sprayed with chocolate-coloured, flying, foamy flea-bombs. We all scream. Mum comes in and quickly shuts the door behind her.

  ‘Juliet, what were you thinking? Where did it come from? Is that my good shampoo?’

  ‘Mum, calm down!’ My voice is almost as hysterical as hers. ‘We’ll clean it all up. He came to our door. We didn’t use that much.’

  ‘Is everything all right, Rachel?’ Dad is on the other side of the door.

  ‘Yep,’ says Mum, glaring at me. ‘It will be. Just give us a minute, love.’

  ‘Why would you bath it in here?’ Mum whispers through gritted teeth. ‘Why didn’t you come and get me? Why didn’t you wash it outside?’

  I can’t keep up with Mum’s questions. She’s so cross I don’t actually think she wants an answer. She takes the jug from me and starts to rinse Hector.

  ‘You girls start wiping down the walls and floor. And put Curly outside.’

  When I open the bathroom door to take Curly out, I hear more trouble coming from the kitchen.

  ‘Aw, yuck! What’s this all over the floor?’ Dad has found the peas, carrot and celery.

  ‘Gross. What’s all this brown stuff?’ Max has found his dinosaur bowl.

  Being a vet can be very complicated.

  ‘There is no way that dog is staying here!’ Dad is not happy about our unexpected visitor.

  ‘I agree,’ says Mum. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen him at the surgery before, but I’ll check and see if we can find his home.’ She turns to look at Chelsea and me. ‘If we can’t, Hector will have to go to the lost dogs’ home. If someone’s looking for him, that’ll be the first place they go.’

  Chelsea is still trying to comb the knots out of Hector’s fur. ‘If someone did own him, they didn’t look after him very well,’ she says.

  We go with Mum to her surgery and she checks Hector over. He’s thin, but other than that, he’s healthy enough. Mum lets me scan him for a microchip but he doesn’t have one.

  ‘What are microchips anyway?’ asks Chelsea.

  ‘They’re made from silicon and are about the size of a grain of rice,’ I tell her. ‘Microchips are injected into an animal’s loose skin and each chip has a special code to show who owns it. The codes are read with a scanner like this one.’ I pass the scanner to Chelsea, so she can have a turn. ‘They’re really good if a dog loses its collar.’

  Mum double-checks her files, but a dog matching Hector’s description has never come into her surgery.

  Chelsea and I spend a few hours making Hector look and feel better. We brush him and trim the fur around his eyes and mouth. We even clean his teeth!

  Curly has a bath too, in case he picked up some of Hector’s fleas. We do it in a large plastic tub that Dad has put outside for us. He’s not in the mood for dogs inside after this morning.

  Curly stands very still for his bath, which is unusual. He keeps looking over at Hector as Chelsea brushes his coat and quietly talks to him. I think Curly might be just a bit jealous, so I give him a big hug to make him feel special, too.

  When both dogs are pampered and beautiful, we tie a lovely blue bow around Hector’s neck and take them for a walk down the street. We stop to talk with every person we meet, but nobody has seen Hector before.

  We’re both exhausted and very disappointed when we get home.

  ‘Poor Hector,’ says Chelsea. ‘I don’t want to take him to the lost dogs’ home. But what can we do?’

  ‘Maybe we could take his photo and make some lost dog posters to put up around the neighbourhood?’ I suggest.

  We get busy and make a heap of posters. Dad even lets us print them out on his good printer. I think he wants Hector to find his home as much as we do.

  We all admire our work as the printer spits out the copies.

  Dad drives us around to put the posters up on posts and walls.

  ‘He can sleep in the garage tonight, but tomorrow we’ll have to take him to the lost dogs’ home,’ says Mum when we get back. ‘Sorry, girls, but no one has rung about him.’

  I look down and sadly pat Hector’s head as he wags his tail.

  ‘We can’t keep him, Juliet. I know it’s really hard and very sad, but we can’t keep every lost animal that comes in. The lost dogs’ home will find him somewhere nice to live.’

  I understand that we can’t keep him, but when I look at Hector I just want to cry.

  He’s lying on the floor with his head on Max’s lap. Max is showing him his dinosaur collection. I can see Hector loves us already. Why else would he put up with looking at all of Max’s dinosaurs?

  ‘We could ask your mum?’ I say to Chelsea hopefully.

  ‘I already tried. Twice,’ says Chelsea. ‘Mum says it wouldn’t be fair on Princess and she’s probably right.’

  I understand why Chelsea’s mum said no. Princess is Chelsea’s kitten. Her mother was a stray cat we saved once. Princess really doesn’t like dogs.

  Mum lets us give Hector an extra big dinner and we set up a bed for him in the garage. Chelsea’s sleeping over tonight and we sit together with him until it’s time for bed. He cries a bit when we shut the door but after a while he settles down.

  Later that night I’m woken up by another thunderstorm. I can hear Hector, above all the wind and rain, crying in the garage. I don’t know how Chelsea can sleep through all the noise. I put on my dressing gown and Curly and I go and sit with him until the storm passes.

  Being a vet can be really sad at times. Someone out there must want a beautiful dog like Hector.

  The next morning we put Hector in the car and drive to the Mercy Street Home for Lost Dogs. When we get out of the car, the barking from inside the building is crazy. Hector doesn’t want to go in and I don’t blame him.

  Chelsea and I need Mum’s help to get him to walk to the entrance and he strains against his leash.

  ‘He hates it here already, Mum.’ I can feel myself getting upset again.

  ‘Let’s just go in and see what they think,’ says Mum gently.

  There’s no one at the front counter but there’s a bell. Mum rings it and we stand and wait. Chelsea sits with Hector, her arms around his neck.

  After quite a long time, a man slides the side door open and enters the room. The sound of the dogs barking is even louder until he shuts it again.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he says. ‘It’s been very busy this weekend. Always is after a storm.’

  ‘We’re sorry to add to your load,’ says Mum, ‘but this dog showed up at our house. I don’t suppose anyone has reported a large, shaggy, brown dog missing?’

  The man looks at Hector and runs his finger down his list as he wipes his forehead with the back of his arm. I look more closely at him. He has a very kind face but he looks really tired.

  ‘Nope,’ he says. ‘No brown shaggy dogs on the list. Doesn’t mean they won’t call though. It was such a whopper of a storm last night and the night before that I’ve got dogs here from two towns away! Of course, it had to happen when I’m short on staff. Two of them are on holidays until next week.’

  ‘I’m a vet,’ says Mum. ‘Can I give you a hand?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ says the man. ‘I would love an extra hand. Just having someone help to check over them all and see if they have microchips or any injuries would be so helpful.’

  ‘I’m nearly a vet and Chelsea is nearly a world-famous animal trainer and groomer,’ I say. ‘Can we help, too?’

  The man looks at Mum. She smiles and nods her head. ‘They’re actually a great help to me around the surgery.’

  ‘Well, that’s settled then,’ says the man, smiling. ‘What good luck to have three experts to help me out!’

  Mum calls Dad to tell him we’re going to help
out for the day. She says Dad was very pleased because he thought she was ringing to say Hector was coming back home.

  Chelsea and I race out to the car to get our vet and grooming kits. We never leave home without them. Vets and groomers always need to be prepared for emergencies.

  The man tells us his name is Paul and then he leads us into the area where the dogs are kept.

  There are dogs in cages everywhere. Big dogs, little dogs, long dogs, short dogs, white dogs, black dogs, spotty dogs and patchy dogs. I had no idea so many dogs could get lost.

  ‘It’s not normally this bad,’ says Paul, yelling over the barking. ‘And twelve people have already rung to say they’re coming for their dogs. Can you believe that before the storm, I only had four dogs here?’ Paul opens the last cage on the left where there is a chubby cream-coloured labrador.

  We lead Hector inside and they both wag their tails and sniff each other’s noses. Maybe he won’t mind being here after all? I think. But then Hector turns around and looks back at us through the wire of the cage. He starts to cry.

  ‘It’s okay, Hector,’ I say, patting him through the wire. He must feel really confused.

  Paul sees that I am starting to get upset. ‘Hector will be fine,’ he says. ‘He’ll settle down soon.’

  ‘Let’s help Paul get these other dogs sorted out and then we can work out where Hector belongs,’ says Mum, giving me a hug.

  Being a vet can be very emotional.

  Paul nods. ‘I need to check them all for microchips so we can let the other dog pounds and refuges know what dogs we have here. Then we’ll put the dogs that have been claimed into the cages up near the office and bath the ones that are really dirty. Plus they’re all going to need food, water, fresh bedding and a walk.’

  I whip out my Vet Diary and make some notes.

  ‘Okay,’ says Mum, looking around at the dozens of barking, howling, wagging dogs. ‘Let’s get to work. Where shall we start?’

  Paul races to the office and comes back with his list. ‘Girls, if I put a peg on the gate of a cage, it means that dog’s owner has been found and they are friendly enough for you to handle. Here are some leashes. If you could walk them to the empty cages up near the office and check they have food, water and bedding, they’ll be fine to wait there for their owners to collect them.’