The K-9 Chronicles: Book Three
Der Weg-Dinge Begann (The Ways Things Began)

©2005 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

In The K-9 Chronicles: Book Three, you will learn how things began—the things you read about in Books One and Two where you met Serpico Wolfgang and Tomi. Now you will meet Eva, the Pack’s Alpha, and discover how her name became “Leda”. You also will find out more about Jake’s life before the beginnings of the Pack (Books One and Two) and learn how the Pack dramatically changed his life and saved him from the demons that inhabited his mind.   
The following pages contain one of the Chapters from Book Three, and in it, you will read about Eva’s first adventure after escaping from the LAPD’s K-9 Training Compound. Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.

The K-9 Chronicles: Book Three
Der Weg-Dinge Begann (The Ways Things Began)

Chapter
Der Zwischenfall (THE INCIDENT)

This first glimpse of being on my own was terrifying me. To begin with, when you consider what my legacy was, it was obvious (even to me) that I was a strange dog, and when you include that with being alone in a strange place, you most likely will end up with a dog who has a slight attitude disorder. Oh yes, let’s not forget that now I was not under the guardianship of a furless face or faces. Since birth, this had been a critical component of my life—but now, there was no one in charge of the things that I had taken for granted like providing me with water, food, and a place to sleep. Then—as I reflected even further on missing ‘critical components’—there was a matter of authority and direction. For any dog, authority and direction are important to have for survival in a world dominated by furless faces. Obviously, it is their world and I, along with other dogs, am just a part of it.
As I walked, I knew that all I had going for me right now in my life was what I was born with—four paws, a lot of fur that needed brushing, dewclaws, a good nose and possibly menacing teeth to those who really didn’t know me well. I was purposeless, functionless and jobless—worst yet, I felt as if some furless face was dangling me off a mountain waiting to drop me.   

I sat down under a tree, took a deep breath and attempted to make sense out of what had happened to me. It was time to try to figure out what I was going to do. I just couldn’t keep walking around like this forever.
A noise. The branches above me started to make sounds. I raised my head and noticed that they were moving up and down. I stuck my nose straight upward to try to catch a scent in the wind. There was none. It seemed as if they were moving on their own. Then out of nowhere, a furry animal with a bushy tail ran across them with the precision and effortlessness of a spider. (As a puppy, I remember watching a spider move through the air on an almost invisible string that came out of its behind.) This clump of fur was much larger than a spider but it glided above me exactly the same. When it saw me, it stopped and sat frozen as if it had suddenly become part of the branch--exactly as the spider had in the air when I saw it. The furry animal was silent.
It jerked its head from side to side and never seemed to look directly down at me. Then, unexpectedly, it glided effortlessly down onto the branch just above my ears. It sat there with its tail twitching, keeping perfect balance and never once giving the slightest hint of falling.

“Hello,” I barked. Another living thing, I thought to myself, who probably couldn’t understand what I was saying. The furry animal was still silent.
Wait. Maybe I was wrong. It looked down at me and our eyes locked onto one another. At that moment, it began screaming at me in some unfamiliar furry animal language.

I searched around for a furless face in charge of it. There didn’t seem to be one. I guess it didn’t need one. In my opinion, it most likely has been around way before the furless faces arrived on earth and seemed to be doing just fine. Call it renewed confidence or maybe just gaining a little more confidence—but for God’s sake, I’m a dog. I am bigger and stronger than this tiny animal with fur! (Mom and Dad had said that dogs had been living on our own way before the furless faces showed up.) I was positive there had to be some kind of instinct for survival somewhere inside of me. Then, just as quickly as the furry animal had appeared, it disappeared. I waited for a while, watching for the branches to move and listening for them to make a noise, but there was nothing. The furry animal never returned. I got up and continued walking.

As it became dark and the full moon lifted way above my head, the empty spaces with grass, trees, and hills that had once seemed to be all around me had practically disappeared. It seemed that the farther I had moved away from where I escaped, the sounds of horns, motors, sirens and other noises in the distance became louder. An unsettling feeling went through me as I found myself having trouble picking up exactly where they were coming from or, for that matter, even understanding why they were there.
As I turned the next corner, I found myself right in the middle of nothing but furless faces, the loud noises I had been hearing, lots of strange looking buildings and cars. Every direction I looked I was surrounded. A dog. Right in front of me there was another dog! I have to admit that some relief passed through my stomach and I wagged my tail feebly. The dog was small, had something tied on the top of its head and was on this long lead that seemed to mysteriously get automatically longer and then shorter as it walked. More dogs. All of them were small and seemed to be unnaturally missing fur on different parts of their bodies. It wasn’t long before the one that I had seen first came right up to me and smelled my butt. The furless faced woman holding this mysterious lead quickly yanked the little one away, but then stopped. She took a close look at me, knelt down and then reached her hand out. I didn’t move but growled, and she jumped back almost falling over.

“You are a real beauty…are you lost pretty one?” she asked after regaining her balance. I really did not feel a new furless face in my life right now would be a good thing—I was sure they would take me back to where I just ran away from. Moreover, honestly, I did not feel I was going to be able to trust the furless ones anymore. As she reached over again, I decided that it was time to leave and started to run.

This was almost a critical mistake—I ran right onto the place where the cars were quickly moving. Screech! Whoosh-Screech! One of the cars almost hit me! As I jumped back onto the place where the furless ones were walking, a car ran over a large box in front of me. Squish! It was clear to me that not being careful in the furless world could be disastrous.

As I weaved in and out of the furless faces as they walked, I kept telling myself not to panic. I realized any chance of surviving was going to depend entirely on how I would learn to fit in with them—and there weren’t any of them to teach me. Everything depended completely on me.

I started to walk faster to keep up with the faster furless ones. They were probably the strongest. The scents of their lives were all around me—what they ate, what they touched and what they were made up of. There were times when they would stop, stand together (and stare down at me) while cars moved quickly past them. Then—one…two…three…four—they would begin to walk into the street where the cars had just been moving. Then—one…two…three…four—the cars that had been stopped started to move again. I was pretty sure that I understood what was happening. Wait with them. Walk with them. When the furless face stopped, I should stop. Actually, I began to feel that this might not be as hard as I had originally thought.

Suddenly the scent of meat was everywhere—I really hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I noticed that the furless faces were walking into a place where the scent was the strongest—it had to be in there. At the time, it seemed as though it was going to be pretty simple—like waiting for the cars to pass in the street. All I had to do was walk in with a furless face, get some meat and then leave.

This was too good to be true! It was like one of the furless faces had heard what I was thinking—the door opened and I walked right in next to a furless woman’s feet.

“Ah, excuse me Miss…Miss, hello, over there…excuse me!”  A furless faced man behind a short wall in front of us called out. “Miss, hello, dogs are not allowed in a restaurant…people eat here…not dogs…it’s against the health law!” His furless voice was getting very loud and sounded angry.

“I am not with the furless face!” I barked. Of course, they didn’t understand me. I cannot say furless face words or make sentences (my tongue and lips are not made for that) but I can understand them.

“Why don’t you 'excuse me, Sir…and hello’ back at you and jus’ calm down…this dog is not mine,” she yelled back to him. Suddenly he rushed out from behind that short wall and started to run towards me screaming. I turned to look at the door and, whoops, it was closed—and there was no one coming in or leaving through it.

“Can someone call Animal Control now?!” He yelled out to everyone around.

“What is ‘Animal Control’?” I looked up and whimpered at my new furless faced female friend. Naturally, she didn’t realize that I was talking to her.

Standing there, I thought to myself, “Self, whatever Animal Control is, it doesn’t sound like something I really want to or should go to.”

I realized that the furless faced man now had me cornered between the door and him. I let out a growl and showed my fangs.

“I just want to get out of here,” I barked loudly. He started to come closer, and this time I lunged at him showing my fangs again. This may not have been a wise choice because now a whole crowd of furless faces began gathering behind him to see what was going on.

“Just open the door buddy and let the mutt out…it looks like it wants to leave as much as you want it to,” some furless face I could not see yelled out.

“No,” another one said, “It’s a real beauty and it has a tattoo on its ear. Let’s wait for Animal Control so that they can pick it up and find out who it belongs to.”

“Why don’t you just mind your own business!” I barked at whoever said that.

However, it seemed that many of the furless faces seemed to support that suggestion. That was it. New plan. I saw something on top of a table right next to the door that smelled awfully good. I grabbed it.
“Hey…this pile of fur just snatched my sandwich!” the furless man at the table yelled.

I turned, the sandwich locked tightly between my jaws, leapt forward and jumped as hard as I could into the door. Perfect! It opened just far enough so I could push through it and out of there! With sandwich in mouth, I took off running through the crowds of furless ones outside.

I ran fast, hard and what seemed forever. This time, being scared and clearly not remembering my lesson from before, I didn’t stop when the furless faces did to wait for the cars moving in the streets. As I recollect, it seemed as though every single car in that street I ran into screeched and skidded to a halt in an effort to avoid hitting me. (I may have heard some of them smashing into one another.) Amazingly, none did (otherwise I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to tell you the rest of my story because it would have stopped here) as I zigzagged my way over to the other side.

In next to no time the noises of horns and motors and the scents of the furless ones began to fade. As I turned this one corner, the buildings suddenly looked completely different—they looked smaller, lower and made in a different way. There were large patches of grass in front with fences surrounding them on all sides. I slowly and cautiously made my way up to the very top of a hill that was right in between all of them. Here there was a large portion of grass without any fences but with lots of bushes instead all around it. I was panting hard and had a pain in my side—I dropped the food I had taken and tried to lick my lips but my swollen tongue made it almost impossible. I took a couple of deep breaths, picked up my food, and made my way over to a place in the bushes that was out of sight. I dropped my food again and then collapsed. Breathe deeply.
It took awhile but my breathing became normal again and I snuggled into one of the bushes and began to chew my food. The moon lit everything up and after finishing eating, I saw a spot further back in the bushes that appeared to be the perfect place to hide. I tried to make myself as little as possible by curling up so no furless faces could see me—ouch! I was sticking myself in the sides with the branches as I burrowed myself down trying to get comfortable. I was never good about getting hurt and being in pain! I started to think (it could have been dreaming) about being back home—I truly missed Mom and Dad…and honestly, I even missed my brothers and sisters.

I must have drifted off because the next thing I remembered was that it had gotten breezy and cold—then out of nowhere a peculiar sounding noise started—Chu, Chu, Chu…Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh…Chu, Chu, Chu! It seemed to be getting faster and then with it water came. Wet...me, and everything around me, was getting soaked. I charged out of hiding place and made a run for a spot where the water was unable to reach me. I shook myself off, went down on all fours and watched as the wetness drifted in waves through the air in different directions—each wave barely missing me as it passed by and then returned.

The water looked good and made me thirsty. I pushed myself up and moved over to where there was an area without grass. Puddles on the ground had formed and at first looked like little circles of light (the light above them was reflecting off the water). I walked over stuck my tongue in one—good! I started to drink. Thinking back, this could’ve been the best tasting water I have ever had. I walked around the whole area trying to see if some of the puddles had food in them instead of water. I was still hungry. No luck--all had only water.

There was a noise—not that loud, but I could still hear it. I looked from one side to the other and then behind but saw nothing. I was sure—I was so sure there was something moving toward me. Now a scent. No, a collection of scents. There was something there. It was quite a few “somethings”. The scents, the noises were getting stronger which only meant that it was moving quickly toward me. I started to run back to my hiding place. The scents and sounds were now almost right behind and on both sides of me. They were closing in fast.

My intuition was not giving me a good feeling about this. The noise that was making the water spray had now ended. Now I was sure about what I heard—they were the sounds of dogs moving in on me. 
“Well, what do we have here?” a deep bark came from behind. I instantly turned my head to the side and saw a short, squat Pitbull menacingly creeping its way up. 

“Shepherd chick! Mmmmm, yumm good!” a growl came from my other side; I couldn’t see to whom it belonged.     
“Hey babe what ya doin’ in our neigh…bor…hood?” a high-pitched snarl came from behind me. It was closer than the Pitbull’s.

“Jus’ passing through guys,” I barked.

“Who gave you permission to pass through our neigh…bor…hood?” the Pitbull rumbled. Now, he walked around me to where we were almost nose-to-nose. His nose was pointing upward trying to touch mine. I will never forget his breath! Icky! Awful! At once, there were growls, snarls and fur all around me, but I couldn’t really see what they were doing.

“No one passes through our neigh…bor…hood without permission, Shepherd!” a Boxer yapped at me, as he seemed mystically to appear next to the Pitbull.
“No problem gentlemen…I am out of here then,” I barked and slowly started to turn and back up onto the grass. One…two…three…go! I ran as fast as I could. But out of nowhere, some mutt hit me on the side and took me down hard. Thud! My nose hit the soaking grass and a patch of flowers as he rolled me over. I sliced my lip on something hard that was leaking water! I let out a whimper. I told myself to get up. As I pushed myself upwards, the Pitbull quickly jumped onto my back near my tail. I was pinned and unable move. A Rottweiler appeared and took hold of the top of my neck just below my head. I felt something wet and warm coming out of my nose and dripping into my mouth. 

“Zeus, the Shepherd has a tattoo on her ear,” the Rottweiler snarled as he took hold of it with his teeth, “…should I tear it off and you can keep it as a trophy?”

I stopped struggling, closed my eyes and went limp. I knew that if I kept trying to get free, the Rot would rip my ear off for sure. With my head pinned down, I tried to think—I tried to figure out if there was going to be any way out of this mess. There had to be a way out. There always is a way out. I was outnumbered. They were on top of, around and beside me. I was scared and never felt so alone.

“She’s the real deal,” Zeus barked begrudgingly. That was the last thing I remember hearing.

This book and its characters is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.