Prison

"We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Life for me started out behind bars. Well maybe not at the very beginning. In the very beginning my brother, sister and I found ourselves alone in a box by the water. It was a very scary time for me and I do not like to dwell on it. After what seemed to me, to be a life time of cold, damp nights, with a growling belly, a woman came along. She was jogging with the biggest dog I had ever seen. When she found us she removed her coat, bundle us in it and took us to her car. The woman kept telling us it was going to be ok, and that we would all have warm places to call home before we knew it.
This is where the bars come in. I don’t know if that woman knew what she was talking about but I am inclined to this day to think that she did not. After the long ride, we ended up in a building that smelled overwhelmingly of dog and chemicals. We were bathed, toweled, feed and put in to a small concrete cubby with a barred door. It just seemed to be getting worse. Though it was nice to have a full belly and be warm, I longed for the smell of fresh air. Being part hound dog, my nose burned with the smell of chemicals.
The people came in with the rising sun that next morning. An old man with a grizzled face was the first to greet us that morning. He gave us our morning meal and a fresh blanket. As he was about his work that morning he would stop buy with a cookie for each of us and tell us we would not be here long, saying things like no one will be able to resist those cute faces. I was hoping he was right but at this point I wasn’t to inclined to believe that humans really knew what they were talking about..
That very afternoon a young human came up to our cage and yelled. At the sight of us, she was yelling to her father saying “daddy I want this one!” I wasn’t sure what was going on but before I knew, this little human was stealing my sister away from me. I growled at them, but this did nothing to deture them and they took her anyways.
It wasn’t but a few weeks later that my brother was taken. I was alone. In a concrete box that reeked of chemicals. I am not sure why I was even here. I had done nothing to earn this cell. In the months I was there I learned as much as I could about the wide world from the other dogs trapped in here. I learned that the people that came and went were not to be feared because they were the ones looking to take a dog home. I also learned that I would be starting a class soon as well. The teacher I was a signed to was a young woman.
By this time I had been in my cell for a few months. All of the people who came and went admired me as cute but never chose me as the one for them. My teacher came to me a few times a week. She would say to me “Omar, (which is the name I was giving by my jailers after just a few weeks) you are cute but you need to learn manors if you are going to find a good home to call your own.” So manors I was taught. I was so eager to sit and stay, and lay down and give high fives. She always told me that I was her best student. After class we would sit together for a few and she would tell me about her day, and the noise beagle her parents had.
When we were done with our session she would take me back to my cell, I would do everything I could to resist, but humans being a smart race had laid floors that I could not sink my nails into and so this was a futile effort. She would turn to me and say as she closed the door, “I am working on it Omar”. I had no clue what it was that she was working on so this meant nothing to me, until the day that I found out.
When I was six months old and had done 4 months of hard time, she gave to me the greatest gift of all or at least the best thing I had ever gotten at the time. She showed up earlier than normal to give me the good news. I was going to have a pen outside during the day. She told me she had found me a great dog house at an auction and that though the ground was gravel she thought I would like it better out here. She was right.
All day I could smell the fresh air, hear the birds sing and soak up the sun. We continued our lessons and I soon learned to tell stories and to whisper. I learned to touch things with my nose on command, but the real crowd pleaser was “dead dog”. The girl would point her figures like a gun and say bang. Down I would go, I was a great actor, and sometimes I would whimper for extra effect. Still I longed to go home. I hadn’t felt grass on my toes since I was a pup. All I had was my gravel kennel outside, and the solid slick floors of the building inside.
This is the account of what I remember about prison. This is why I hope that the people who read this will think about adoption. Why not rescue your next best friend from the biggest horror in their lives. I promise they will appreciate it, and show you by loving you with ever ounce of their being. I know I do.