The Kennel

Meant to have this as part of a challenge, but I missed it. This was a story had been kicking around for a while trying to decide whether I wanted to make it a short story or something longer, essentially the day in the life of a service dog in training.

You remember the first day he arrived, the large building the concrete floor and the kennel with rows and rows of other dogs, which was surprisingly quiet.

He was put in a kennel with another dog, small, female who wagged her tail in a polite sort of way as she sniffed to greet him.

In this strange new setting there were things he knew and things he didn’t. The commands give learned as a puppy were the same and the daily routine is the same he could walk and run and play and he was fed twice a day, so he was content. Then there were the things that were new. He trained with the same trainer every day and learned LOTS of new commands; how to open and close doors with a rope in his mouth, how to pick up objects from the floor (some harder than others) and how to put his paws up on someone’s lap who was sitting down.

Then one day everything changed.

He was taken from the kennel and put in a crate, which was moved to another part of the building. It was a smaller room with a few other dogs in crates but they mostly ignored him as people came in and out of the room.

Then he was brought into another room there were people in the and people who didn’t know. Some of them seemed as apprehensive as he had been all he knew was they were unsure… Maybe this was new to them too. He worked with a female human in a rolling chair, but he was used to these contraptions by now, the trainers had used them often. He practiced his commands for her and after a while she seemed as confident as the trainers… That made him feel more comfortable. When she did something he perceived as correct his tail wagged more and the trainers seemed happy too.

They worked very hard, like he had with the trainers. They went to places the humans called “public” places his family use to take him to places dogs didn’t normally go. He was used to the “big boxes” humans rode in to go up and down, the doors and the floor didn’t bother him anymore; he was sure, confident.

After some time he was taken to another room back in the building where the kennel was and he was put in his vest, which had gotten some getting used to, but he didn’t mind it so much now. It meant he was doing his job. The humans were happy that much was sure. Their tone radiated happiness, which made him happy too.

There had been so many changes in the past few weeks so many new places and people; new situations he had never experienced before. He had learned to get along with his new handler and he was sure there would be more new experiences as his journey continued.

His family had said he was going to do big things, well this felt like a big thing. He could do this, the trainers knew he could and his handler, who relied on him knew he could; they would continue to learn together they were a team. He liked that.