Doglands (6 page)

Furgul came around to find himself standing in the first bright room again. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there. His brain was all fuzzy and foggy and blurred, and so was his eyesight. He could hear the other dogs woofling, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. His legs felt weak. His haunches ached. Yet he could feel that the buckshots had gone. All he really wanted to do was lie down and go back to sleep.

The Fisherman bent down and smiled at him. He didn’t seem so concerned anymore. He picked Furgul up and carried him back to the green truck. Furgul was happy to curl up on the soft leather seat, where he went to the land in his head where dogs made dreams.

After that everything seemed like he had made it in a dream. There was more rumbling and more driving through the night. The Fisherman took him inside a house that was full of strange smells, many of them wonderful. There was a woman there. When she saw Furgul, she glared at the Fisherman and started ranting.

“Rant, rant, rant!” she said.

The Fisherman waved his hands as he tried to explain himself. Furgul thought he seemed a bit scared of the woman. Eventually the woman patted Furgul on his head. She cooed with pity when she saw his wounds. Then she put something in his mouth. Furgul crunched it up
and swallowed. Whatever it was, it was delicious.

Perhaps it really was all a dream.

Finally a dog wandered into the room. He was a bulldog, and his belly was so big it almost scraped along the ground. He sniffed around Furgul, and the woman wagged her finger. The bulldog shrugged and lay down next to Furgul. Then he looked at him.

“Hello, mate,” he said. “My name’s Kinnear.”

To Furgul that didn’t sound much like a dog name. It must be the name the masters had given him. He said, “I’m Furgul.”

Kinnear chuckled. “They’ll soon change that,” he said. “You’ve had a rough time, from the looks of you, but your luck’s just changed for the better. In fact, you’ve hit the jackpot.”

“Where am I?” asked Furgul.

“In the Household.”

“What do they want?”

“They want you to be a pet.”

“I’m not a pet,” said Furgul. “I’m a free dog.”

Kinnear chuckled again, in a way that made Furgul feel stupid.

“You’ll learn,” he said. “Now, if it’s all right with you, I’m the dominant dog in the Household. At least, in theory, I should be. After all, you are only a puppy, whereas I’m a fully grown dog. And I have been here a lot longer than you, so you could say, in theory, that this is my territory.
Although, of course, it’s the master’s house—or, I should say, the mistress’s—not ours.”

Furgul stared at him. Compared to the dogs he had known at Dedbone’s Hole, Kinnear was about as dominant as a pigeon. Furgul’s stare seemed to make Kinnear feel uncomfortable.

“However,” said Kinnear, “that’s always something we can reconsider, from time to time, especially if it causes conflict in the Household. In the Household only the Grown-Ups are allowed to have conflict.”

Furgul had no idea what he was on about.

“Let me go to sleep,” said Furgul.

“Righty-ho,” said Kinnear. He all but bowed. “I’ll show you to your bed.”

P
ART
T
WO
THE DOG
WHO RUNS IN
DARKNESS

N
ine months later Furgul was fully grown. He was healthy, strong, solid with muscles, and could jump a four-foot fence from a standing start (though he kept this ability a secret). He was still living in the Household with the bulldog, Kinnear, and the two Grown-Ups—the kindly Fisherman and his wife, whose names, he had learned, were Gerry and Harriet. He had a soft, warm place to sleep and two large bowls of chicken-flavored food pellets per day. He got his share of patting and stroking, which he had to admit was rather nice. And from time to time he got crunchy treats and spectacularly tasty leftovers from Gerry and Harriet’s meals.

In short he had everything that any pet dog could wish for. Yet bit by bit Furgul realized that if you want a share of
the treats from the Grown-Ups’ table, your soul has to pay the price. And day by day he felt as if his spirit was dying inside him.

In his first few days in the Household—after he’d recovered from the sleepy drugs the Vet had given him—Furgul had found that he had a lot to learn. He found himself living in a world of rules. Rules that either didn’t make much sense or, even worse, were completely unfair. These rules were as follows.

Don’t do this and don’t do that.

Don’t go here and don’t go there.

If you have an impulse, restrain it.

If you want something, you can’t have it.

Keep quiet.

Don’t disturb the Grown-Ups when they’re staring at the noise-screen.

Don’t lick your sack in front of the mistress.

And even if Grown-Ups do something, it doesn’t mean that you can.

As Kinnear put it: “If you have the natural urge to do something fun—anything fun at all—then it’s a safe bet that you’ve broken another rule, even if no one has told you what it is.”

First of all came the rules of peeing. Furgul learned—after much yelling, shock and horror from the Grown-Ups—that he couldn’t pee on tables or chairs, on Harriet’s bike, on the
piano, or on Gerry’s leg. Indeed, he couldn’t pee anywhere inside the house at all. The Grown-Ups could, but they had special peeing rooms, called bathrooms, which the dogs weren’t allowed to use. He couldn’t even pee on the grass in the garden, or on the gardens of any of the neighbors, even though it was clear to Furgul that plenty of other dogs were doing it when Harriet wasn’t looking.

Kinnear, who was an expert on every aspect of life in the Household, explained that the Grown-Ups—that is, Gerry (who was often called “You Idiot”) and Harriet (who was often called “Yes, Darling”)—were “responsible” dog owners. So Furgul and Kinnear had to be “responsible” dogs. They could pee on lampposts, parking meters, car tires and fire hydrants, and sometimes, if they were lucky, even on trees, but not on grass because their pee was “acidic” and would kill it. Since there was so little grass around—pathetic little squares of it called lawns—Furgul could understand why it had to be protected, so he learned to hold his pee in for hours and hours.

Taking a dump was even more complicated.

Taking a dump in a wardrobe, which Furgul tried just once—when he was desperate, and because it seemed like the least offensive spot—caused more uproar and panic when it was discovered than anything he’d ever seen, even in the Household. Kinnear pointed out that Grown-Ups didn’t like the smell of dog poop, which Furgul thought was strange because he liked to sniff it. Yet even though they hated the smell, the Grown-Ups carried plastic bags and picked up
the poop outside whenever Furgul or Kinnear got the chance to dump some. Furgul had never seen anything like it in his life. If the Grown-Ups couldn’t find a plastic bag, they looked all around as if terrified that someone had seen them with the pooping dogs. Then they scurried away from the poop as fast as they could. Grown-Ups were weird.

Furgul decided there was no point trying to figure them out.

During this time, Furgul had to come to terms with a great humiliation.

Gerry and Harriet started saying the word “Rupert.”

To Furgul it seemed like they said it all the time, at least when he was around. They said it, they murmured it, they muttered it, they shouted it, and most of all they repeated it. At first he had no idea what they were talking about.

They yelled “Rupert!” a lot when he peed on the piano and when he took that dump in the wardrobe, so he thought it was all about peeing and dumping.

Then there was the time he jumped onto a chair in the kitchen and found two enormous raw steaks on the counter. Strangely, the room was lit with candles and filled with flowers, while next door Gerry and Harriet laughed and drank fizzy liquid from a bottle that went “POP!” Furgul had wolfed down one steak—very tasty it was too—and was halfway through the second when the yelling started, louder than ever.

“RUPERT! RUPERT! RUPERT!”

They wagged their fingers and got red in the face. Harriet
burst into tears and ranted at poor Gerry for the rest of the night. Furgul was sorry for upsetting them. But those steaks were the most delicious food he’d ever tasted.

Gradually Furgul realized that they both said “Rupert” every time they spoke to him, even when he hadn’t done anything wrong. Even when they petted him.

“Rupert and Kinnear,” they’d say. Or “Kinnear and Rupert.”

Finally, Kinnear—who had watched these disasters with amusement—explained it to him. “Don’t you get it?” he said. “Rupert is your new name. Your pet name.”

“Rupert?” said Furgul, horrified. “That’s even worse than Kinnear. Or Tic and Tac. It sounds like a bear’s name. A bear who wears checkered pants.”

“They can call you whatever they want,” said Kinnear. “They own you.”

“I don’t want to be owned. And I don’t want to be called Rupert.”

“Well, you better get used to it—Rupert.” Kinnear chuckled.

Furgul showed Kinnear his teeth. “I can’t stop the Grown-Ups’ calling me that,” he snarled, “but if you ever call me Rupert again, I’ll bite your ears off.”

“Okay, Furgul,” cringed Kinnear. “Righty-ho!”

Then there was walking.

You would think that walking was the easiest thing in the world. But no. Walking was a whole new dimension of yelling
and rules. First of all Furgul had to wear a collar all the time, which he hated. Then, whenever the dogs went outside, a leash was attached to the collar, so that Furgul had to walk in step alongside a Grown-Up. Whenever he stopped to examine an interesting, unusual or delightful smell—like another dog’s pee—the Grown-Ups would tut and mutter and pull him away.

Kinnear’s golden rule was correct: “If something is fun, it’s wrong.”

Grown-Ups walked very slowly, though not quite as slowly as Kinnear. Whenever Furgul pulled on the leash to walk a little faster, the Grown-Ups would pull him back until he was choking, while shouting another word he grew to hate.

“Heel!” they’d yell. “Heel! Heel! Heel!”

Kinnear explained that the “heel” was the back of a Grown-Up’s shoe and that this was where a good dog learned to walk. A Grown-Up’s shoe was the most boring place in the world—especially as they wouldn’t let you chew on them—but for some reason, if Furgul shuffled along at their heels, it made them happy.

Other dogs—stranger dogs, also trudging along at the heels of their masters—were another problem.

What could be more natural, when two dogs met, than to have a good old sniff of each other’s butts, get to know who was who, have a little chat and maybe even have a playful scrap to see who was the boss? But no, this broke numerous rules because the masters got all flustered and afraid, and they
quickly pulled the dogs away from each other and hurried on. The masters with dogs didn’t even talk to each other much, except to mutter, “Sorry.” Furgul heard them say it so often, it was one of the new words he learned the fastest.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” they said. “Ever so sorry.”

The walks always took them past rows and rows of houses, just like the Household. They reminded Furgul of the rows of greyhound crates at Dedbone’s Hole. Often they went to a “park,” which was an area of grass and trees many times bigger than a lawn. In the park the Grown-Ups took Kinnear off his leash, and Kinnear would waddle around and sniff and snuffle in the undergrowth. But for a long time they kept Furgul on his leash. He was dying to get off the leash and run and feel his untamed blood pump in his heart. But the Grown-Ups wouldn’t let him.

This wasn’t fair, of course, but as Kinnear explained, “The Grown-Ups don’t trust you yet. You’ve got to prove that you’re a good dog, just like me.”

“Does that mean they think I’m a bad dog?” asked Furgul.

“Well, you are a bit too wild,” said Kinnear.

“But I
am
wild,” said Furgul. “And I like it. Being wild is great.”

“You’ve got to stop thinking like that,” said Kinnear. “You’ve got to start thinking correctly. Pets aren’t wild. That’s the whole point of being a pet. You have to toe the line and play it by the book. You have to fit in and stick to the routine. You have to keep your tail down and mind your pees and
poos. In short, you have to know your place and not rock the boat. Otherwise, well—who knows? They might not feed us! And then where would we be?”

“So I’ve got to stop being wild in return for a bowl of little brown pellets?”

“There you go!” said Kinnear. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“What you’re saying is that we’ve got to live with our tails between our legs.”

“Well, of course,” said Kinnear, wiggling the pathetic docked stump that was all he had left of his tail. “Doesn’t everyone?”

So Furgul tried not to be wild. He obeyed the masters. He plodded along at heel, even though his legs ached to run. He peed where he was supposed to. He avoided making friends with strange dogs. For weeks and weeks and months and months he gritted his teeth and did everything he could to be a good, responsible dog and to think correctly. If he wanted some exercise, he carried his leash to Gerry in his mouth. If he wasn’t in his basket, he was nibbling little brown pellets from his bowl. He lived as though he were afraid—even though he wasn’t—of the world, of other dogs, of going out alone, of getting lost, of numberless invisible dangers that he couldn’t even name. He learned to live the way the Grown-Ups wanted him to live, which was the way they lived themselves. One winter night he was locked outside by mistake and stood whining at
the kitchen door, tired, hungry and cold, until Harriet let him back inside. And Furgul realized that, despite himself, their fear had seeped into his bones. The fear of losing the comfort and the safety that was his reward for betraying his own true nature.