Barely out of his teens, he was just a little younger than me, and despite my own fears about the future, I wanted to make Boris feel better.
‘You’ve seen how lovely Kelly and the rest of the carers are here. She will love you, play with you and listen to you, all while helping find you a good home.’
‘She’ll be lucky,’ Boris barked darkly. ‘My owner Sam used to tell me I was such a pain, nobody else would want me.’
I growled under my breath. This Sam appeared to be unfit to lick Boris’s paws, I thought darkly.
‘You’re not a pain,’ I barked in anger. ‘You’re a lovely dog, Boris.’
‘Don’t pay any attention to your old owners,’ Barney added. ‘Any family would be lucky to have you.’
Boris rolled his eyes. ‘Easy for you to say, you’re both a lot cuter than I am. Nobody will want me.’
‘But it wasn’t always like that,’ I protested. ‘I felt as bad as you do now when my old owner Javier dropped me off here yesterday.’
‘What was he like?’ asked Barney.
I sighed and flopped to the floor, unsure where to start. When I thought of Javier, I felt wretched. Even though he had dumped me here, I still worshipped him and would do anything he asked if he walked through the doors right now.
‘Javier was a doctor from Argentina, who liked the finer things in life and he treated me like a king with the best food, treats and toys money could buy,’ I told Boris gruffly. ‘We lived in a flat in Battersea overlooking the River Thames, after he adopted me from my mum three years ago when I was a few months old.’
‘Sounds like a nice life,’ Boris barked appreciatively.
‘It was,’ I woofed. ‘I would nap when he was working, then when Javier returned, he would drink a cold beer straight from the fridge, before taking me out for a walk in the park, where we would chat and I would chew tennis balls. If Javier was working long hours, then his girlfriend, Gabriella, would take me instead, but it was never the same as she couldn’t wait to get our walk over with.’
‘So what happened?’ Boris asked, interrupting my trip down memory lane.
‘I was watching television one night,’ I barked gloomily, ‘when I saw they were both filling their suitcases with their belongings. Once the cases were filled, Javier picked me up, gave me a cuddle, told me he loved me, but that he and Gabriella had to go home to Buenos Aires, as their visas had run out.’
‘Why didn’t they take you with them?’ Barney quizzed reasonably.
I shrugged my little shoulders and felt my bottom lip tremble. I had wondered the same thing as I had barked my throat out at the time, begging him to take me, but Javier ignored my pleas. Instead, he gathered my things together and then called a taxi and dropped me off here.
‘That’s horrible,’ Boris said quietly. ‘You must have been terrified.’
Sadness coursed through my fur as I remembered watching Javier walk away and how my little body had pulsed with fear as I realised he really was going to desert me in a shelter, somewhere in the far reaches of South London. My wrinkled cheeks burned with shame as I recalled how I had barked at him not to leave me, that I was sorry for whatever I had done and that I would be a good boy, if only he would come back for me and take me with him to Argentina. But my undignified and desperate barks had fallen on deaf ears as my former master climbed into the back of the taxi, without so much as a backward glance.
‘I was terrified,’ I barked quietly. ‘I still am.’
In fact, I was so terrified I had not yet confessed my greatest fear to anyone here, not even to Kelly. That even if she did find someone who would love and adore me, there was nothing to stop them leaving me too. Who was to say that they would keep me for ever and ever? Javier had taught me one thing, that sometimes love was not enough.
As the days turned into weeks and most of the friends I had made left the shelter for pastures new, I wondered if Barney, Boris and Kelly had in fact been wrong and that not everyone loved pugs. Over the last few days, I had watched Frank the spaniel walk away with a lovely young couple from Cheam; Maggie, a Weimaraner, disappear with an elderly gentleman from Hove; and even Daisy the Highland terrier, with flatulence evil enough to clear a room, adopted by a seemingly lovely family from Chelmsford.
Now it seemed Barney was all set to leave me too, as he had hit it off with a young single lady from Clapham, who was now here to take him home. As the woman bent down to fondle his ears, Barney whined and wagged his tail with such excitement he made the floor vibrate beneath me. Of course I was happy Barney had found someone to give him the love he deserved, but deep down I was sorry it was not me.
As Barney walked away with his new owner, he shot me a hopeful stare. ‘A special family are coming for you, I promise.’
I watched him walk through the large glass doors that opened up to the exercise yard and the outside world beyond. Deflated, I trotted back to my squishy bed, and dived under my soft blanket. All I wanted was to shut everyone out. Even though it was Saturday and I knew the shelter would be full of prospective families, I was not in the mood to perform. Over the past few weeks, I had done all the cute pug-like things you could imagine to try and get a family to take me. I had uncurled my tail to give it a little waggle, exposed my belly to show I loved a stroke and even stared longingly with my big brown eyes at passing children. Of course I had received my fair share of cuddles and, as my time here grew longer and longer, I had even stopped moaning when the bigger children pulled my tail or stepped on my delicate paws. But while everyone had been kind enough to shower me with love, I had heard them talk in hushed tones about the health problems my short face would cause, along with worries about gassiness.
I was broken-hearted. I had lost my home, my owner, and hope was deserting me. Kelly had done her best to cheer me up, by telling me how loveable I was, but I knew that was untrue. I no longer felt like putting a brave face on my little snout. Instead, I shut my eyes and dreamed of a different life. Little walks in big green parks, tummy tickles with a loving child, snuggles in bed with a cuddly mum and man-to-man chats with the dad of the house in a shed at the bottom of the garden.
But those thoughts seemed little more than fantasy to me now, and I closed my eyes tightly, wanting nothing more than to forget the world. My time here at the tails of the forgotten had been fine, nice even, but it was no substitute for a real home. Seeing all my friends apart from Boris adopted left me with a lot of questions, namely, what was wrong with me?
Since revealing the story of how I had arrived at the shelter with Boris and Barney all those weeks ago, I had been unable to forget how Javier had ignored the way I begged him to take me with him and had gone over and over all the things I could have done to upset him. I knew Gabriella had never been particularly fond of me and perhaps that was the reason he had not fought to take me to Argentina, to start a new life.
Doubt nagged away at me as I realised that even if I found a family who would take me in, there could still be one person who disliked me enough to send me away again. There were so many reasons a dog could end up at the tails of the forgotten, I wanted to howl in despair. It seemed to me we pooches were doomed no matter how adorable or well behaved we were. Feeling sad, I did what I always did in a crisis and gave in to the land of nod, hoping against hope that when I woke there would be a change in fortunes.
*
‘Oh, isn’t he gorgeous,’ a woman’s voice murmured, gently waking me with a start from my slumber.
Turning around, with sleepy eyes, I looked at the woman peering through the glass. Short and thin, her brown hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders and her blue eyes radiated a kind of warmth and love I had not seen in a long time. I felt a sudden sense of hope and, glancing up at Kelly, who was standing with a smile a mile wide next