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A quote: “How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” ~~ Abraham Lincoln
I’ll start with a story …
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7 year old Annie pointed at the runt, “HIM”. She announced his name, Rusty, and made a spot in her bed just for him. Every day Rusty watched over Annie. At night he would stick his nose under her arm to say “bedtime”.
She was 18, studying for finals and realized that Rusty hadn’t arrived. Annie found him, curled on the floor next to the bed.
The vet shook her head. The runt had beat the odds, but …
Annie held him, rocked him, looked into his trusting eyes one last time, promising him he had been a good boy.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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.featured image, cropped, Adobe stock, standard license
“Not guilty, your Honor. It’s her own fault she fell and broke her neck. I have a long-proven record of good behavior. I get along with everyone: postmen, children, other dogs, and, notably, cats. When I first began to identify, I immediately enrolled in obedience school, passing with honors. I’m a certified Service Dog. I don’t bark in public, even a friendly ‘woof.’
When I first saw Nano, I sat, tail wagging. She turned sideways, presumably offering to trade friendly butt-sniffs. I stood, she sprinted up that tree, snarling. Not my fault.”
The judge cleared xir throat. “Not an acceptable defense. Yet… not guilty. You’re charged with violating her human rights. Since she identified feline…”
Cameron says: I wanted to scold her. She jumped into a ditch to retrieve this dog and got hurt. Then she held onto it tightly and wailed when I said to put him down. So we took him home, cleaned him up and took him to the vet.
The dog was terrified. I tried putting my foot down about him sleeping in her bed but my wife overruled me. My fears about him biting her came to rest that first night he snuggled up against her.
“Fine. Just don’t be too smug about it,” I said as I turned out the light.
Fletch says: We sometimes think a good story requires a man with a gun, who has been wronged somehow, and now is hunting the villains who once hunted him. It doesn’t. The best stories are cut from Christmas morning, with wrapping paper on the floor, and kittens playing in boxes instead of with toys. The best stories are of children at school and a little dog who waits and watches, pining for them to come home.
At least, that’s what the man with the gun thought, as he stood in the dark part of her room waiting for the villains to appear.
Dennis says: Todd was slightly less angry than a man who, after returning to his parking spot to find a truck double parked in front of his car and having spent the last hour in the lineup at the bank (all the while, thinking about the way his best friend had been flirting with his wife at a party the night before) followed by a run-in outside the bank with a bratty little kid carrying a water gun full of grape juice on the day the man had worn his new silk shirt, had just stepped on some gum.
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