Man's Best Friend

A short story written in High School for a composition class.

Squeak! I hear as my brother sits down in his high back leather chair to my right, his reheated dinner on his plate, because he had missed dinner. I couldn't help but notice that (for the billionth time) I hadn't heard the door squeal shut behind him. I had told him so many times now that whenever he wants food he better shut the door, and as per usual he hadn't heeded the warnings. The events that proceeded could easily have been predicted and mitigated; the smell of chicken and rice was far too strong for there to be any other outcome. As I sat listening to Queen through my silver headset, ignoring the urge to get up and shut it, I heard a quite clacking noise from behind me of a metal name tag against a collar. I let out a long drawn out sigh: I should have shut the door when I had the chance.

I pretended he wasn't there for awhile, that he just didn't exist, but that never seemed to work, because he quickly made his presence more than obvious. There, at my brother's feet sat a scraggly little jet black dog, with a patch of white fur trailing down his chest and leading all the way up to his whiskers where it stopped abruptly. He was a cute little dog, don't get me wrong, but sometimes that isn't enough. "Shadow", is what my mother decided his name should be, and by appearance it's a perfect fit, but when you get to know him, my suggestion of "Renegade" seems far more appropriate. He can be a devilish little dog, and for some reason he decided my brother's food is his rightful property, and that my brother's eating of it was a horrific crime against him.

Shadow begins to make his case with a light sigh—a throat clearing if you will, for his plans to come. As my brother takes another bite his sigh evolves into a steady growl, only taking short pauses to breathe for the next round of a game I like to call: Annoy your owners to death. He sticks to the growl for a little while, but as he begins to notice that the food is dwindling quickly he desperately decides that a meager growl just won't cut it. He still is growling, of course, but he starts to end each growl with a piercing little bark. This pattern continues for awhile before I start to get really irritated with him. My brother makes his way to the last few bites of food on his plate completely nonplussed—He has really expensive headphones and can't hear a lick of what's going on, he might as well be on another continent as far as the dog is concerned. Shadow has given up the growling all together now, and is instead just yelping at the top of his little lungs. At this point I'm thoroughly mad at him. I put my headphones on my desk, push the pause button on my keyboard, and turn to face him.

"Shadow, get out!" I bellow at him, my voice dripping with anger. He acknowledges me by showing a puzzled look, as if he doesn't understand the words I am saying. Being obnoxious I can deal with, but that's just disrespectful, and I find myself soon standing up. I make my move over to him and grab his collar in an attempt to guide him out from the room. He's a slippery little guy though and rolls over onto his back and starts gnawing at the hand holding his collar. I feel a slight bit of pain as his teeth grab at my fingers, I know its just playful biting, but it still hurts.

"Ouch Shadow! Stop it!" I wince at him as I retract my hand from his mouth. He puts his paws up to his face, because he knows he hurt me and he thinks now is the time to be on the defense. The way he bends his front paws is really odd when he's threatened. It's sort of a boxing stance: he curls his legs in front of his face, suggesting that at any minute I could get a puppy sized jab to the nose. I thought his new pose was rather funny, and started to scratch his stomach, to let him know he's not about to get kicked or something. His leg twitches in tempo with the scratches to show his contentment, and when I stop he flips back to his feet. By now my brother has been done with his food for awhile, and the dog, having no further business here, makes a motion towards the door. But, before he leaves, the hellion plunges his head deep into the garbage can and snatches out a paper fast food wrapper.

I could swear I see a smirk flash across his face as he bounds out the door, slobber spewing from his mouth all over the place. I hear a loud ripping noise coming from the top of the stairs. I hurredly exit my room to find him sitting next to the hallway wall, tearing the wrapper to pieces. He doesn't care about the food crumbs inside the wrapper, that's not important to him for some reason. All he is doing is tearing the wrapper to shreds and making a big mess of wet slobbered paper all over the place, and I am the one who's going to have to clean it up. I lunge for him, trying to get the remainder of the wrapper out of his mouth so he doesn't choke on it, but he's too quick for me. He zooms down the staircase full speed, turning around the bannister at a rate that just boggles the mind. I speed after him taking the turn at half his speed, and fly into the living room and finally the destination of the dining room.

He takes the same route every single time I chase him, and the only reason for it is that this route causes the most annoyance for me, so therefore the most joy for him. In our dining room we have a large dining table in the center with a white table cloth that makes it hard to see around. Shadow just loves to run in circles around it while I chase him. I run after him, and we recreate a very Benny Hill esque scene—I can just hear Yakety Sax playing as I chase after him around and around and around and around. I then soon decide maybe I can switch directions like a cartoon and catch him off guard, but that's not even close to realistic. As I turn around Shadow stops abruptly and I think it's my chance to catch him, but when I leap at him he takes off towards the living room table, which is a lot smaller than the dining room. I know that this mistake just cost him the chase. He runs to one side and I feign chasing him, and then make a mad grab at him, just barely catching him by the collar.

I begrudgingly put my hand in his mouth and rip the paper from it. Yuck! The paper is all soggy and covered in slobber. In my frustration I lightly bop him on the nose. I know he should be punished more, or he'll never learn, but I really dislike punishing him. He still doesn't like that bop one bit and puts on his best innocent face, and I just can't stay mad at him, even if he just forced me through the entire house. Through his fake innoncence emerges another little smirk, and I can't help but let out a laugh. It's all a game to a 2 year old puppy, he doesn't care about the food, he gets plenty throughout the day. He is just a sadistic little thing, his purpose in life is to make me mad and then make me think it's my own fault that I'm mad, and I think that's kind of funny. At that point I couldn't help but smile back at the cheeky little devil, because I knew behind those black piercing eyes there was a subtle intelligence that was greater than any person might ever care to admit.

Note: Shadow passed away Jan 12, 2024 at the age of 15, surrounded by those who loved him. He was, and forever will be, a good boy.