A Dog's Purpose Read online

  But not just any truck—this same vehicle, making the same sounds, had been back and forth along our road several times the past few days, moving slowly, even menacingly, as if hunting specifically for us.

  We followed Mother as she darted back to the culvert, but for reasons I’ll never fully understand, I stopped and looked back at the monstrous machine, taking an extra few seconds before I followed Mother into the safety of the tunnel.

  Those few seconds proved to make all the difference—they had spotted me. With a low, rumbling vibration, the truck came to a stop directly overhead. The engine clanked and went quiet, and then we heard the sounds of boots on gravel.

  Mother gave a soft whimper.

  When the human faces appeared at either end of the culvert, Mother went low, tensing her body. They showed their teeth at us, but it didn’t seem to be a hostile gesture. Their faces were brown, marked with black hair, black brows, and dark eyes.

  “Here, boy,” one of them whispered. I didn’t know what it meant, but the call seemed as natural as the sound of the wind, as if I had been listening to men speak my whole life.

  Both men had poles, I now saw, poles with ropes looped on the end. They appeared threatening, and I felt Mother’s panic boil over. Her claws scrabbling, she bolted, her head down, aiming for the space between the legs of one of the men. The pole came down, there was a quick snap, and then my mother was twisting and jerking as the man hauled her out into the sunlight.

  Sister and I backed up, cowering, while Fast growled, his fur bristling on the back of his neck. Then it occurred to all three of us that while the way behind us was still blocked, the tunnel mouth in front of us was now clear. We darted forward.

  “Here they come!” the man behind us yelled.

  Once out in the creek bed, we realized we didn’t really know what to do next. Sister and I stood behind Fast—he wanted to be the boss, so okay, let him deal with this.

  There was no sign of Mother. The two men were on opposite banks, though, each wielding his pole. Fast dodged one but then was snagged by the other. Sister took advantage of the melee to escape, her feet splashing in the water as she scampered away, but I stood rooted, staring up at the road.

  A woman with long white hair stood there above us, her face wrinkled in kindness. “Here, puppy, it’s okay. You’ll be all right. Here, puppy,” she said.

  I didn’t run; I didn’t move. I allowed the loop of rope to slip over my face and tighten on my neck. The pole guided me up the bank, where the man seized me by the scruff of the neck.

  “He’s okay; he’s okay,” the woman crooned. “Let him go.”

  “He’ll run off,” the man warned.

  “Let him go.”

  I followed this bit of dialogue without comprehension, only understanding that somehow the woman was in charge, though she was older and smaller than either of the two men. With a reluctant grunt, the man lifted the rope off my neck. The woman offered her hands to me: rough, leathery palms coated with a flowery smell. I sniffed them, then lowered my head. A clear sense of caring and concern radiated off of her.

  When she ran her fingers along my fur I felt a shiver pass through me. My tail whipped the air of its own accord, and when she astonished me by lifting me into the air I scrambled to kiss her face, delighting in her laughter.

  The mood turned somber when one of the men approached, holding Hungry’s limp body. The man showed it to the woman, who clucked mournfully. Then he took it to the truck, where Mother and Fast were in a metal cage, and held it up to their noses. The scent of death, recognizable to me as any memory, wafted off of Hungry in the dry, dusty air.

  We all carefully smelled my dead brother, and I understood the men wanted us to know what had happened to Hungry.

  Sadness came from all of them as they stood there silently in the road, but they didn’t know how sick Hungry had been, sick from birth and not long for the world.

  I was put in the cage, and Mother sniffed disapprovingly at the woman’s smell, which had been pressed into my fur. With a lurch, the truck started up again, and I was quickly distracted by the wonderful odors flowing through the cage as we moved down the road. I was riding in a truck! I barked in delight, Fast and Mother jerking their heads in surprise at my outburst. I couldn’t help myself; it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my whole life, including almost catching the frog.

  Fast seemed overcome with sadness, and it took me a moment to understand: Sister, his favorite companion, was gone, as lost to us as was Hungry.

  There was, I reflected, much more complexity to the world than I had supposed. It wasn’t just about Mother and my siblings hiding from people, hunting, and playing in the culvert. Larger events had the ability to change everything—events that were controlled by human beings.

  I was wrong about one thing: though we didn’t know it at the time, Fast and I would meet up with Sister again in the future.

  { TWO }

  Wherever we were headed on our truck ride, I had the sense we’d see other dogs when we got there. The cage in which we were being held was positively flooded with the scent of other canines, their urine and feces and even their blood mixed with fur and saliva. While Mother cowered, her claws extended to keep her from sliding on the bouncing, jerking floor, Fast and I paced, our noses down, smelling one distinct dog after another. Fast kept trying to mark the corners of the cage, but every time he tried to stand on three legs a good jounce from the truck sent him sprawling. Once he even landed on Mother, earning him a quick nip. I gave him a disgusted look. Couldn’t he see she was unhappy?

  Eventually, bored with smelling dogs who weren’t even there, I pressed my nose to the wire grate and pulled in great snootfuls of the wind. It reminded me of the first time I’d buried my face in the succulent garbage bins that represented our main source of food; there were thousands of unidentifiable odors out there, all of them coming up my nose with such force I kept sneezing.

  Fast took up position on the other side of the cage and lay down, not joining me at the side of the cage, because it hadn’t been his idea. He gave me a surly look every time I sneezed, as if warning me that next time I tried that I’d better ask him for permission. Each time his cold gaze met my eyes I would glance pointedly at Mother, who, though obviously cowed by this whole experience, was still in charge as far as I was concerned.

  When the truck stopped, the woman came around and spoke to us, pressing her palms to the side of the cage for us to lick. Mother stayed where she was, but Fast was as beguiled as I was, and stood next to me, his tail wagging.

  “You are so cute. You hungry, babies? You hungry?”

  We were parked in front of a long, flat dwelling, sparse desert grasses poking up between the truck’s tires. “Hey, Bobby!” one of the men yelled.

  The response to his shout was astonishing. From behind the house came a chorus of loud barks, so many I couldn’t count the sources. Fast rose up on his back legs and put his paws on the side of the cage, as if that would somehow help him see better.

  The racket continued as another man emerged from around the side of the house. He was brown and weathered, walking with a slight limp. The way the two other men stood grinning at him carried an air of expectation. When he saw us, he stopped in his tracks, his shoulders slumping.

  “Oh no, senora. Not more dogs. We have too many now.” He radiated resignation and regret, but there was nothing angry in what I felt coming off him.

  The woman turned and approached him. “We have two puppies, and their mother. They are maybe three months old. One of them got away, and one of them died.”

  “Oh no.”

  “The mother was feral, poor thing. She’s terrified.”

  “You know what they told you the last time. We have too many dogs and they will not give us a license.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “But senora, we have no room.”

  “Now Bobby, you know that’s not true. And what can we do, let them live as wi
ld animals? They’re dogs, Bobby, little puppies, you see?” The woman turned back to the cage, and I wagged my tail to show her I had been paying rapt, if uncomprehending, attention.

  “Yeah, Bobby, what’s another three more?” one of the grinning men asked.

  “One of these days there will be no money to pay you; it will all go to dog food,” the man called Bobby replied. The men just shrugged, grinning.

  “Carlos, I want you to take some fresh hamburger and go back out there to that creek. See if you can find the one that got away,” the woman said.

  The man nodded, laughing at Bobby’s expression. I understood that the woman was in charge of this family of humans, and gave her another lick on the hand so she would like me best.

  “Oh, you’re a good dog, a good dog,” she told me. I jumped up and down, my tail wagging so hard it whipped Fast in the face, who irritably blinked it off.

  The one called Carlos smelled of spicy meat and exotic oils that I couldn’t identify. He reached in with a pole, snagging Mother, and Fast and I followed willingly as she was led around the side of the house to a large fence. The barking here was deafening, and I felt a slight flicker of fear—just what were we getting into?

  Bobby’s scent had a citrus quality, oranges, as well as dirt, leather, and dogs. He opened the gate a little, blocking the way with his body. “Get back! Get back now; get back! Go on!” he urged. The barking lessened just a little, and when Bobby pulled the gate all the way open and Carlos thrust Mother forward it ceased completely.

  I was so astounded by what greeted me, I didn’t even feel the foot in my back as Bobby pushed me inside the enclosure.

  Dogs.

  There were dogs everywhere. Several were as large as or even larger than Mother, and some were smaller, and all were milling freely around in a large enclosure, a huge yard surrounded by a high wooden fence. I scampered forward toward a knot of friendly-looking dogs not much older than myself, halting just as I got to them to pretend to be fascinated by something on the ground. The three dogs in front of me were all light colored and all females, so I seductively peed on a mound of dirt before joining them to sniff politely at their rear ends.

  I was so happy at this turn of events I felt like barking, but Mother and Fast were not having as easy a time of it. Mother, in fact, was hunting along the perimeter of the fence, seeking a way out, her nose pressed to the ground. Fast had approached a group of males and now stood stiffly with them, his tail quivering, while each took a turn lifting a leg against a fence post.

  One of the males moved to stand squarely in Fast’s path while another circled back to sniff him aggressively from the rear, and that’s when my poor brother folded. His butt sagged, and as he turned to face the male behind him his tail curved and slid up between his legs. I wasn’t at all surprised when, seconds later, he was on his back, squirming with a certain desperate playfulness. I guessed he was no longer the boss.

  While all this was happening, another male, muscular and tall, his ears hanging long on the sides of his head, stood absolutely still in the center of the yard, watching Mother run around in desperate circumnavigation. Something told me that of all the dogs in the yard, this was the one to be careful of, and, sure enough, when he broke from his rigid stance and padded over toward the fence the dogs surrounding Fast stopped messing around and raised their heads alertly.

  A dozen yards from the fence, the lone male broke into a full run, bearing down on Mom, who stopped, cringing. The male braced her with his shoulders, blocking her, his tail straight as an arrow. She let herself be sniffed up and down the length of her body, still crouched against the fence.

  It was my impulse, and I am sure it was also Fast’s, to rush to her aid, but I somehow knew this would be wrong. This was the Top Dog, this male, a thick-boned mastiff with a brown face and dark, rheumy eyes. Mother’s submission was simply the natural order.

  After his careful examination, Top Dog aimed an economical stream of urine against the fence, which Mother dutifully examined, and then he trotted off, paying her no more attention. Mother herself seemed deflated, and slid off unnoticed to hide behind a pile of railroad ties.

  In due course, the pack of males came over to check me over as well, but I crouched low and licked them all in the face, letting them know in no uncertain terms that they’d have zero problems with me—it was my brother who was the troublemaker. All I wanted to do was play with the three girls and explore the yard, which was populated with balls and rubber bones and all sorts of wonderful smells and distractions. A clear trickle of water fell continuously into a trough, providing refreshment whenever we wanted it, and the man named Carlos came into the yard once a day to clean up our messes. At regular intervals we would all break out in loud barking, for no reason other than the sheer joy of it.

  And the feedings! Twice a day, Bobby, Carlos, Senora, and the other man would wade into the pack, separating us out into groups based on age. They would pour bags of rich food into large bowls, and we would bury our faces, eating as much as we could hold! Bobby stood by, and whenever he thought one of the dogs (usually the smallest of the girls) didn’t get enough he would pick her up and give her another handful, pushing the rest of us away.

  Mother ate with the adult dogs and occasionally I’d hear a growl from over on their side, though when I looked all I could see was wagging tails. Whatever they were eating smelled wonderful, but if one of the juveniles tried to wander over there to see what was going on the men would step in and stop the pup.

  The woman, Senora, would bend and let us kiss her face, and she would run her hands through our fur and laugh and laugh. My name, she told me, was Toby. She said it to me every time she saw me: Toby, Toby, Toby.

  I was certain I was, by far, her favorite dog—how could I not be? My best friend was a fawn-colored female named Coco, who had greeted me on my first day. Coco’s legs and feet were white, her nose pink, her fur coarse and wiry. She was small enough that I could keep up with her despite my short legs.

  Coco and I wrestled all day long, usually joined by the other girls and sometimes by Fast, who always wanted to play the game where he wound up the Top Dog. He had to keep his aggressive play in check, though, because when he became too rambunctious one of the males would be dispatched to trot over and teach Fast a lesson. When this happened, I always pretended I had never seen him before in my life.

  I loved my world, the Yard. I loved running through the mud by the water trough, my paws making a dirty spatter that flecked my fur. I loved when we’d all start barking, though I seldom understood why we were doing so. I loved chasing Coco and sleeping in a pile of dogs and smelling other dogs’ poops. Many days I would drop dead in my tracks, exhausted from play, deliriously happy.

  The older dogs played, too—even Top Dog could be seen tearing up the yard, a ragged piece of blanket in his mouth, while the other dogs pursued and pretended not to be able to quite catch up with him. Mother never did, though—she had dug herself a hollow behind the railroad ties and spent most of her time just lying there. When I went to see how she was doing, she growled at me as if she didn’t know who I was.

  One evening, after dinner when the dogs were drowsy and sprawled out in the Yard, I saw Mother stealthily emerge from her hiding place and creep toward the gate. I was gnawing on a rubber bone, addressing a constant ache in my mouth for something to chew, but I stopped and regarded her curiously as she sat in front of the gate. Was someone coming? I cocked my head, thinking if we were having a visitor the other dogs would have started barking by now.

  Many evenings Carlos and Bobby and the other men would sit at a small table and talk, opening and passing a glass bottle from which came a sharp chemical smell. Not this night, though—the dogs were all alone in the Yard.

  Mother lifted her forelegs off the ground, pressing them against the slats of the wooden gate, and took the metal knob in her mouth. I was baffled—why, I wondered, would she chew on such a thing when there were all these perfectly goo
d rubber bones scattered about? She twisted her head left and right, apparently unable to get a good bite of the thing. I glanced over at Fast, but he was sound asleep.

  Then, astoundingly, the gate clicked open. My mother had opened the gate! She dropped her paws to the ground and shouldered the gate aside, sniffing cautiously at the air on the other side of the fence.

  Then she turned to look at me, her eyes bright. The message in them was clear: my mother was leaving. I stood to join her, and Coco, who was lying nearby, lazily lifted her head to blink at me for a moment before sighing and stretching back out in the sand.

  If I left, I’d never see Coco again. I was torn between loyalty to Mother, who had fed me and taught me and taken care of me, and to the pack, which included my worthless brother, Fast.

  Mother didn’t wait for my decision. She slunk off silently into the gloom of the approaching night. If I wanted to catch up to her, I would have to hurry.

  I scampered out the open gate, pursuing her into the unpredictable world on the other side of the fence.

  Fast never saw us go.

  { THREE }

  I didn’t get very far. I couldn’t move as quickly as Mother to begin with, and anyway the front of the house had a stand of bushes that I felt compelled to mark. She didn’t wait for me, never even looked back. The last I saw of my mother she was doing what she did best: sliding into the shadows, unnoticed, unseen.

  There was a time not long ago when all I wanted out of life was an opportunity to snuggle up to Mother, when her tongue and her warm body meant more to me than anything else. But now, watching her disappear, I understood that by leaving me behind she was simply doing what all mother dogs must do eventually. The compulsion to follow had been the last reflexive gesture in a relationship that had forever changed the day our family arrived at the Yard.