Chapter 6: Chase

It’s been almost a week that he’s out in the streets but it felt longer. It was starting to feel like fulfilling his first mission - to eat, was more difficult than he had originally expected. Of course, that’s discounting the bits and pieces of food he would find on the street - the ones covered with all sorts of dirt or the ones left at the bottom of a can that’s just so difficult to reach no matter how much he extends his tongue.

Polly never noticed how far he had gone until from out of nowhere, a pellet fell in front of him. He was looking at it at the corner of his eyes and was fighting himself not to get close to it but it was just too tempting. “It smelled like chicken…no, no… it smelled like pig meat… no, wait, it’s turkey! Wow, turkey? Where did that come from?”

He moved a step closer avoiding not to look at it directly. For a while he thought he was hallucinating and then he jumped onto that piece covering it with his paws. He teased himself by loosening his hold just a little. And when he took it into his mouth, wow, “It was cow meat.” He caught himself laughing at his silliness.

Another pellet dropped followed immediately by another. He followed the source and found that it came from a dog in a crate in - “Wait a minute - Patty’s Pet Shop and Pet Supplies.” He repeated “Patty’s Pet Shop and Pet Supplies!!!” His mind wet wild.

He ate the pellets then approached the dog in the crate. “Wait, aren’t you -”

“Yes, I am Pete, Chunky, the Chow Chow is my mother.” He said before Polly could finish his sentence.

“And you are Polly, right?”

“You remember me?… I never knew you know my name.”

“I knew it was you ‘cause I notice that leg.” Pete pointing to Polly’s left leg with his snout.

“Do you, ahhhm… do you…” Polly couldn’t contain his excitement. He had so many questions in his mind that he did not know which one to ask first.

“If you’re gonna ask where your mother and brothers are, well, I don’t really know, okay?… I’ve never been out of this crate for longer than half an hour.”

How fast his heart sank after only a few minutes of hope. Well, that's how it's been the last few days, his happiness meter never really went very far and if it ever reached mid-point, it lasted for only a few seconds.

“Oh, Pete, I would give anything just to trade places with you.”

Pete let out a knowing laugh - “Are you kidding? You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“What do you mean? You don’t like it there? I mean you’ve got all the attention, the food… everyone notices you, gives you compliments, thinks you’re cute and adorable… I mean, you’re a step away from finding your purpose.”

“Purpose?”

“Yes, purpose!”

“And that is...”

“To find a human and make a difference in that human’s life.”

“Oh, I don’t really know about that, Polly. I just want to be able to do what you are doing.”

“Scavenging for food?”

“Well, yeah maybe… I just want to know what being a dog really is. You know, like what you used to do in the farm with your family - you can walk and run around freely, you can play, you can feel the earth from under your paws, you can smell the flowers up close.”

“I don’t understand, Pete. I mean, the dream is right there in front of you and you don’t wanna take it?

“Well, I don’t know, too, Polly. Maybe a dream becomes valuable only when you chase after it.”

“Hmmm.” Polly pondering on what Pete just said.

“Here, take all of these food.” Pete pushed his bowl until it tilted letting all the pellets fall to where Polly was.

“Thank you, Pete and I hope you find your purpose.”

“I really hope you find yours, too, Polly.”

Polly stepped back from Pete’s crate but decided to stay by the shop. He decided he would stay until someone drove him away.

Patty’s Pet Shop and Pet Supplies was a huge store and had a lot of customers. It carried anything anyone would need, pets-related. They had food and medicine and they also offered grooming and boarding services.

The entrance to the shop was about five meters wide and the door was a steel accordion type that was kept open for the duration of their business hours.  

The left side had all the animal food of different brands, different flavors, wet or dry. Majority of the food were for swine, chickens and dogs, some were for cats, birds, bunnies and fishes.

Located at the right side were pet supplies ranging from shampoos and conditioners, colognes… “Colognes?” … collars, leashes, food bowls … shoes, clothes, strollers… “Shoes, clothes, strollers?… Am I really reading it right?…Wow, people really treat their pets like babies!”

Right there, he was getting a sense of what Pete was saying earlier.

At the center were the crates. Pete was at the forefront maybe because he was the cuddliest . There were about more than ten other dogs of different breeds all waiting for someone to pick them. “Not one Aspin though.”  

Of course, there were cats, birds, bunnies, chicks and fishes for sale, too.

That day, however, most of the customers were looking for a pet to bring home.  

“What are they looking for?” was the question in his mind.

The fishes in the aquarium continued to swim, the birds perched, the kittens and the bunnies just slept whenever a customer would come and look at them. The chicks?  “Well they are just too crowded in their place to care.”

He noticed that the puppies were the only ones doing some tricks to get picked. You know, the wagging of their tails, making eye contact with their puppy eyes were enough to elicit “Oooohs and ahhs” from the buyers,

He caught a reflection of himself through the glass shelf. He was horrified. “Was this the one Mom kept saying handsome and adorable?” Because that’s not the him that he saw in his head. “Did my mom said that just to make me feel better?… Oh my! I’m so dirty and tiny and thin and my nose, it doesn’t have that solid black color. It has a white spot right in the middle. I look sick. I’ve got bald spots. I’m all bones!… My tummy is big and my tail has got about a number of hair one can count in one hand.”

Polly turned away from the mirror and felt like he was really going to be sick. He folded himself so small right beside the trash bins just outside of the pet shop and from his bag of lessons his mother taught him he retrieved -”Everything will be better in time, son.” He smiled and closed his eyes.