Buster by Caleb Huett (ebook reader library txt) 📕

Whoa whoa whoa. All of that happened in his head just while I was gone?

“—and Mia kept talking to me, but I couldn’t say anything, and so she was like, ‘I guess I’ll do it myself!’ ”

I tried to lick his face again, but he pushed me away and frowned.

“Bad dog. Bad.”

You know how it feels to hear that. I lost all my energy to fight. As Tonio picked up my leash and started back toward the dog park in silence, I tried to think of anything that would make him feel better.

He made a little groany, growly noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you, anyway. You don’t understand what I’m saying.”

I couldn’t tell him that I was trying to help. I couldn’t explain why I hadn’t done my job right. And if he knew I was trying to catch Mozart for Mia, I’d be a Bad Dog, anyway, because I’d look smart. In the end, I was just a service dog who hadn’t done his job. I’d left my human behind.

So, yes, I was taking my duty to Dog Court seriously. I could have found a way to tell him then, and probably would have made him feel better.

But I didn’t.

The Lin Family Dog Shelter also functions as Bellville’s only public dog park. People in Bellville are encouraged to bring their pets to the grounds of the shelter, which allows their dogs to roam around the farm as much as they want. This provides a service to the town (which is too small to afford a nice dog park on its own) and the increased activity and socializing means the Lins don’t have to spend all day playing with the shelter dogs themselves.

Or, at least, that’s how the humans see it. For us, it means Bellville is one of the most social dog communities in the country!

The farm itself was split into four main areas: the human area, which had the shelter’s office building (a repurposed barn), a big toolshed, and the Lin family’s house; the living area, where dogs slept and ate in an old stable; the “forest,” a light clumping of pecan trees with a little creek flowing around them; and what used to be crop fields, which was now a wide spread of dust, mud, and weeds for dogs to run around and get dirty in.

An unpaved road led from the entrance to Mia’s house and the shelter’s main building, so we started by walking along the edge of that. Tonio seemed to know his way around—I wondered when he’d been here before—and he steered us away from the buildings and onto the trails leading toward the forest. I looked around for Mia and Mozart, but couldn’t spot them anywhere.

Over the course of our walk, his stress from the square gave way to embarrassment. When we reached the picnic tables between the pecan trees, he seemed to have forgiven me. He unclipped my leash and looked me in the face.

“Let’s practice, okay? Stay.” He stood up and left me by the bench, then walked a few feet away. “Now, come here, Buster!”

I ran over to him and sat down. He nodded seriously. “Good boy. Okay, stay.” This time he went behind a tree, where I couldn’t see him directly. “Come here, Buster!”

Easy as pie—and even okay for a regular pet! I ran around the tree and wagged my tail for a treat, which he gave me.

“I know you don’t understand me, but I’m going to sit here and draw in my sketchbook. You can go play, but you have to come back when I call for you. Okay?”

I couldn’t answer him, so I just wagged my tail at his voice. He knelt down and pushed his forehead into mine. “I’m sorry I got mad at you. I should have held on to your leash better.”

My tail drooped. No, Tonio, it was my fault.

He pulled a little sketchbook out of one of the many pockets in his shorts and sat down to draw the creek bubbling beside him. I sniffed around slowly at first, to show I was hesitant to leave him alone, but I think he really did want a moment to himself. So I wandered over to the nearest dogs—a group of runners just finished with a race, cooling off in the water and the shade—and asked them not to bother him. Dogs who love exercise are usually pretty chill, and this group just nodded and splashed some water around.

Something interesting had to be going on, somewhere in the park! I planted my feet, closed my eyes, and tuned my ears toward different crowds to listen in on their conversations.

A referee made tough calls over an impromptu wrestling tournament in the dirt field: “Illegal mouth grab! Yellow card! Watch yourself, Leila!”

A book club discussed their latest pick over by the stable’s water fountain:

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t like it. Is that okay? Is it okay that I didn’t like it?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, you’re wrong, but it’s okay.”

The sound of lightning-fast typing from … somewhere? “You’re good, WagCorp. But I’m better.” The clacking of that keyboard reminded me that Mozart had said he had a way to sell the necklace. Which meant, probably, someone in the shelter was helping him. My best guess was Jpeg—and she was also the only dog I knew who could type so fast. I decided to follow the clacking to its source, deeper into the forest.

I found her pretty quickly, hiding behind a big tree with a computer she’d built herself stuck in a hole. From far away, it would just look like she was digging.

“All right, bonewrangler2016,” she mumbled at the computer, “let’s see if you’re serious.” Then Jpeg, a Shiba Inu with a dark brown coat and a face stuck constantly smirking, tilted her head toward me, her paws still slamming down quickly