something warm and good and migrated toward her, climbing sightlessly over each other, tumbling, mewling.
“It’s okay, little Mama,” Kate Everly, DVM, said as the dirty, matted schnauzer sat up anxiously to watch the calm, soft-spoken stranger kneeling beside her. Even if Kate hadn’t had a special knack for reassuring animals, the mother dog was too depleted from whelping to do much more than worry. “I’m just going to check your babies.”
With a sniff of the back of Kate’s hand, the mother looked up at the humans standing around the old cardboard box and sank back with resignation. Kate picked up the puppies, one by one, and gave each a thorough examination.
She felt the pudgy little legs and soft pink pads of the feet of each of the four puppies, then she turned them over and checked their abdomens and listened to their hearts. Afterward she settled them against their mother, who sighed and lay back in the newspaper bedding as the last pup recognized her scent and began rooting for milk.
“They’re in pretty good shape, actually,” Kate said, rising from the floor of the makeshift surgery she and her partner, Jess Preston, had created in the kitchen of the old farmhouse that had become the headquarters of Harbor Animal Rescue. She swiped her shoulder-length hair back with her wrist as she headed for the old porcelain sink to wash her hands.
“For puppy mill escapees, you mean.” Nance Everly, one of the shelter’s founders and not-so-coincidentally Kate’s grandmother, stood over the box with crossed arms and a scowl. Nance was a tall, straight-backed woman of seventy with silky white hair and a faced tanned and lined by years of outdoor life in Florida. “Look at the mother. She’s a mess. Filthy, undernourished—it’s a miracle she survived their birth.”
“But she with us now. We feed ’em good,” volunteer Hines Jackson said, bending stiffly beside the box and letting the mother sniff his hand before running it down her back and side. “She gonna be okay. She got good bones.”
Kate finished drying her hands and leaned a hip against the worn laminate countertop stacked with jars and tins of first-aid supplies. “Who dropped them off? Anybody see this time?”
“Nope. Just opened the office door and there they were. A box full of scared-and-needy.” Nance’s face darkened. “Damned criminals. Breeding these dogs dry of health and hope, keeping them caged and forcing them to bear litter after litter—”
“Preachin’ to the choir, Everly,” Hines said with a knowing glance at Kate, who gave a rueful smile. This was one of Nance’s hot buttons.
“There you are.” Janice Winters, a uniformed officer from Sarasota Animal Control, stuck her head in the doorway, wearing a look of disbelief. “Got a real beaut this time.” She led them out of the surgery and into the main reception room, where a russet brown heap of fur sat on an old blanket. The creature turned its head to them, and with the reference point of two dark eyes Kate was able to make out the head of a dachshund. On steroids.
Or carbs. Lots and lots of carbs.
“Good Lord,” Nance said, walking around the beast. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my time, but this—”
Silence fell as they took stock individually. The dog peered anxiously from one to another of them, looking like it was trying to move, but couldn’t.
“Where on earth did you find it?” Kate asked, sinking to her knees and letting the dog nose her hand before running it over the bulbous shape. The fat was appalling; it distorted every aspect of the doxie’s body and all but prevented the animal from walking. The poor thing’s stomach scraped the ground and, from what she could see, was scoured raw from its attempts to move.
“In an alley across from the Westfield Mall,” Officer Winters said, shaking her head. “We got a call from a woman driving by and went out to investigate. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, how long would it take to feed a dog that much? He must weigh—fifty, sixty pounds?”
Kate helped Hines drag the blanket and the dachshund into the surgery and then slide him onto the scale.
“Fifty-two, actually.” She shook her head. “Enough for three dachshunds. What kind of human being would do this to a dog? Let’s get him up on the table and see about that belly.” She motioned for Hines to help, and together they lifted the dog onto the exam table. He struggled when they rolled him, but fat-bound as he was, he was as helpless as an overturned turtle. He was indeed a male, and Hines chuckled and christened him “Moose.”
“We have to put you on a diet, Moose,” Kate said, cleaning and then spreading salve over his abraded belly. “And when we get you nice and healthy, we’ll find you a forever home.” When she finished listening to his heart and lungs, they turned him over and she took blood samples and checked his joints, which were, amazingly, intact. “He’s in surprisingly good shape,” she told her grandmother and the animal control officer standing in the surgery’s doorway. “Except for the thirty pounds of extra lard he’s hauling around.” She stroked his head to reassure him, then took his head between her hands and looked him in the eye.
“We’re going to take care of you, fella.” Her magic worked; the dachshund relaxed, sniffed and then licked at her hand. “We’ll find somebody to foster you and—”
“Me,” Hines said, his dark eyes glowing and his jaw set in a way that said there was no arguing with him. “He comin’ home with me.”
“You sure, Hines?” Isabelle Conti, the shelter’s director, glanced at the aging volunteer’s arthritic hands. “He’s going to take a lot of work.”
“I never been afraid of work, Izzy. Old Moose here needs me. Who knows, maybe I need him, too.” He moved to the head of the table and petted the dog. “I hope you like green beans, old son.” He laughed as the dog eagerly nosed and licked his leathery hand. “’Cause you gonna be eating plenty of ’em.”
They helped Hines put Moose and some supplies in his lovingly maintained 1987 Lincoln Continental and watched as he drove slowly out of the sanctuary’s gravel parking lot.
The lowering sun was painting golden edges on the rose and purple clouds lining the western horizon, and Kate paused to appreciate the gentled light and listen to the rustle of the nearby palms. She slid her hands into her back pockets and lifted her face to the breeze.
Sometimes the magnitude of the career she had chosen seemed overwhelming. Whenever she confronted the heartbreaking ways human failings and animal vulnerability could collide, she found herself making the decision all over again to stand on the front line of decency and compassion. It was her job to treat and care for patients who could not speak for themselves, and whose trust of humans was unequivocal and often undeserved.
She was unaware of her grandmother standing behind her until Nance hooked Kate’s arm through hers and tugged. When she turned, Gran’s sun-weathered face was soft with understanding. Her gran had always seemed to know what was happening with her before she knew herself.
“Come on.” Gran led her back to the main office. “I know just the cure for that look.”
Minutes later, they were on the puppy-room floor, ensconced with eight rambunctious balls of fur, tossing toys, stroking fuzzy new coats and avoiding sharp little milk teeth. It was impossible to dwell on human irresponsibility in the face of such a contagious love of life. The pups threw themselves wholeheartedly into learning and exploring, seeking out Kate and her grandmother and Isabelle. They chewed and licked and tumbled. They investigated toys and the room’s boundaries, tracked through the water bowl and barked at the humans sitting in their play area. They attacked each other and teased their caretakers; it was enough to melt the most jaded heart.
Kate picked up one of them in her arms and cuddled him, inhaling his sweet puppy breath and laughing with delight at the way his little pink tongue licked her face.
“They’re almost eight weeks old.” Nance turned to Kate as if an idea had just occurred. “Hey, why don’t you take one of them home with you?”
Kate rubbed