Chapter One

When they first showed up at the Joint, I refused to waste any energy to impress them. For what purpose? So the half-breed with an attitude could get another big fat rejection? No way!

As for the general population, well, they had fooled themselves into thinking they had something to offer. They pulled every trick imaginable to get attention. They barked. They yapped. They howled. They jumped up and down. All this cutesy take- me-take-me bullshit. Sure, once in a while, a dog got lucky and earned his freedom. But, let’s face it—the odds were not exactly in your favor.

It was obvious a nap just wasn’t going to happen with all this commotion, so, for lack of anything better to do, I decided to check out the Fresh Meat slowly making their way down the hall.

Jen was petite and quite bubbly, rather like a Yorkshire terrier. Bob had a chiseled jaw, and a very straight, self-assured stance. Rather like a boxer. Only his ears weren’t clipped. I figured them both to be on the later side of six dog years. Certainly not pups, but far from washed up.

Jen and Bob spent a few token moments with each inmate—the basset hound with gas problems, the cockeyed, prissy toy poodle, the psycho pit bull twins, the German shepherd mix with the mange, the deaf dalmatian—and then moved on, leaving each poor schmuck’s hopes for a ticket out of the Joint smashed.

Typical.

I’d seen their kind before. They didn’t really want a dog, they just wanted to mess with his mind.

Next thing I knew, the couple was standing in front of my cage. I figured if I lay there like a melted turd, they’d take one look at my mug and split. Instead, Jen took several steps closer. She gazed at me with these deep-set eyes, head slightly tilted to one side, hand resting on her cheek.

“Well, hello,” she said, smiling this warm, toothy grin.

Was that cheese I smelled on her breath?

“Aren’t you a little cutie-pie!”

My tail—which, like another part of my body, always seemed to have a mind of its own—began to slowly swish from side to side in response to her compliment.

Bob gave me the once-over. “He’s way too small, Jen. My last dog, Bill, used to take dumps bigger than him.”

“But I thought size isn’t supposed to matter.”

Bob laughed. “As far as the bedroom goes, no, it doesn’t. But with dogs, it’s another story. A dog just doesn’t seem like a dog unless he’s a certain size.”

Sure, I thought, maybe I wasn’t tall enough to reach his nose, but I could still just as easily sink my teeth into this joker’s foot!

Jen blew air out of her mouth. “Do you realize you’ve found something wrong with every dog we’ve looked at? I think the idea of us owning a pet together, as a couple, represents a degree of commitment you obviously aren’t ready for yet.”

“It’s got nothing to do with that, honey. I’m just being cautious. Adopting a shelter dog can be a risky business.”

“But isn’t everything in life a big gamble? Relationships, especially? “

“Yeah, but we still don’t want to make some impulsive choice we may later regret,” said Bob.

You didn’t have to be a canine genius to realize this guy intended to take his business elsewhere. I rose from my ratty pillow—fed up with all this bullshit—and was about to retreat to the farthest corner of my cage when the door to the Joint opened.

It was the Warden. I recognized her scent immediately, and let’s just say this broad never smelled like fresh-baked cookies.

“Be quiet!” she screamed at the general population. “Shhhh! Enough! I said, enough!”

All jaws instantly snapped shut as the Warden clip-clopped over to my cage. “Hi there,” she said. “My name is Mrs. Conklin. I see you’ve met our Miles.”

My ears perked up and my back straightened. I’d lived with this new name long enough to instinctively respond to it.

“You mean, Miles, as in Davis?” Bob asked, his eyes widening.

“Yes, actually,” said the Warden. “I’m a huge fan.”

“Bob is, too. See, honey? It’s a sign.”

“Let’s not jump to clairvoyant conclusions, Jen. We still know nothing about this dog.”

The Warden, of course, took this opportunity to launch into her standard sales pitch. Translation: a bunch of bullshit.

“. . . and Miles is well-behaved, housebroken, and, like all of our intakes here at the ASPCA, has been fixed.”

I didn’t realize I was ever broken, so why did they fix me?

“He is also a very smart dog,” the Warden continued. “However, I feel obligated to tell you, Miles doesn’t warm up to many people. Trust issues, no doubt.”

“Hey, this is New York,” said Jen, coming to my defense. “We all have trust issues.”

“Can’t argue with that point,” said the Warden, pursing her lips. “Don’t even get me started on my ex-husband.”

Jen gave Bob a look I couldn’t translate, and he in turn grimaced, like his balls were twisted in a knot or something.

“Moving right along—is it possible that Miles might have been abused?”

“Afraid so,” said the Warden. “He was found several months ago in the Bronx. Poor thing was cowering in the doorway of a condemned building. Pretty rough shape. Had a sore leg. Scared out of his wits. We had quite a time rounding him up.”

Bob’s face fell. “How could anyone just abandon an animal like that? Worse yet, in the dead of winter.”

Having lived through every dog’s nightmare, I shivered at the mere mention of that word, abandon.

The Warden sighed. “Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens all the time. Despite our efforts to rescue them, over forty thousand pets are still put down each year in the city.”