Heartache Hike

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt: Hike
Via Daily Post: Hike

 

Different approach to today’s prompt. An experience from my personal life.

It was our first trip to Saratoga Woods. My German Shepherd, Buffy, led the way as usual. The early morning air was cool and wet. Fog draped the green, needled spires. A sloped meadow met tall, dense cedars and pines, the path beckoning us into the darkness among the trunks. We stepped lightly through the meadow, the disturbance of dew our only tracks. Into the somber thicket we went. 

Once among the bark-clad columns, awe illuminated our surroundings. Light filtered through the thick canopy, bright green ferns reached their fronds skywards. Moss clung to branches, rocks, anything offering purchase. Steam rose from the forest floor in columns of light where the sun’s rays could fully penetrate. The silence of the meadow was replaced by bird songs and squirrel chatter. The hidden world within the forest presented itself to us without reserve. 

A Change of Heart

[Prompt: You are a cynical, evil dog who has had many owners. You are adopted by a lovely couple with a toddler. You do not want to be friends with the toddler but somehow you are going to love the toddler ]

     I hated being caged. Too many times in my short life I could recall being trapped within a metal barrier or clipped to the end of an unbreakable chain. I had also learned what actions resulted in consequences at a young, tender age. Barking out of turn promised a muzzle. Begging for food meant a missed meal. Showing excitement gained a kick in the ribs. Growling ensured the shock collar was put around my thin neck, and any type of eye contact with the human after that point was a memory of immense pain. But I had learned one valuable lesson during my time with my first human: biting meant I got to leave.
     Over the past three years I had resulted to biting four separate times. I had never drawn blood or caused a true injury like the first time, but I used my power to convince the bipeds I should go somewhere else. I had been exchanged between men who wished for a ‘tough looking sonofabitch’, although the sentiment meant nothing to me. 

Two of a Kind

Prompt: You are a cynical, evil dog who has had many owners. You are adopted by a lovely couple with a toddler. You do no want to be friends with the toddler but somehow you are going to love the toddler.

    Oh not this again.
    Rolling over, I watched the humans ogling me from the other side of the chain link fence. There was something irresistible about a small terrier that apparently ‘looked like Wishbone’. I don’t know who Wishbone was, but my physical resemblance to him provided me with a free ticket out of the pound whenever people came to adopt. I’ve been adopted several times and the poor schmucks never knew what they are getting themselves into before it was too late. But, since I didn’t like being in the pound, I gave the people a little tail wag to convince them to break me out of here on their dime.