POV - Chaos
One day, about a week after I was dropped into the dog pen, the kennel master came in with another shifter. They didn't bring food and it looked like they came to pay special attention to me. The kennel master pointed me out to the new man.
"That's him. Probably another stray drop off. I came in one day and he was in bad shape, huddled under the water trough, but he won't let me near him. I've let him be so far, let the pack decide what to do with him. Looks like they've let him stay." he said.
The new guy shrugged. "Guess so, or he'd be dead already."
The kennel master shrugged. "Guess so. Whaddya think, Sam? He's gotta earn his keep and he can't do that if we can't work with him."
Sam watched me, watching him from across the pen. It sounded like they did NOT know what I was. Noted. I stood in a patch of sunlight, the deep red that made up my black fur blazing where the sun kissed it. "Let me see him move, Lou. Let's see what we're working with," he said.
Lou approached me, and I backed away. I didn't want him touching me. I didn't know if he was going to hurt me or not. I learned a lot from Kyas' memories of how they tricked him and would hit or kick him out of nowhere the second he thought he could trust them. I wouldn't make the same mistake.
Lou and I had played this dance before. He advanced, and I retreated. He knelt and called to me, I stood still. Lou tried to use dried beef to pull me with food, and it almost worked a few times, but each time he pulled out the food, Todd showed his teeth, and I backed off.
After about fifteen minutes of this dance, Lou returned to Sam.
"See? He's not aggressive but he doesn't trust people." Lou said.
Sam nodded. "Well, he listens, just not to us. Did you see him back off at that look from Todd? He got the message loud and clear. That's probably why they let him live. Show the right amount of respect to the boss, and there's less trouble for everybody. He's also been kicked around a lot, he never took his eyes off your hands and feet when he wasn't watching Todd." he stated.
"So, what do we do?" Lou asked.
Sam returned to watching me. "Well, we won't get anywhere with him in here, Todd's got him trained up tight. We need to see how he acts without the pack in the way. Let me see if I he'll let me touch him and see if he's leash broke. If not, we'll have to lasso or trank him."
This time, it was Sam and me in the dance. For the same reason, with the same result. I didn't know what lasso or trank meant, and neither did Kyas, but we both agreed that I wasn't getting close enough to get hurt. Sam was smart. It only took him ten minutes to realize it wasn't going to happen.
Lou stepped out of the pen, and came back a few minutes later with a rope. They did something fancy with it while I watched from a distance. They kept looking at me and it was clear they intended to use it on me, but I didn't know how. Sam then held it out to me and I was going to sniff it, but Todd lifted his lip again. I didn't need to know that bad.
Sam then started to swing the rope through the air in a circular motion and I panicked. I'd never seen such a thing! I bolted, running around the pen's fence, looking for a way out. Romeo didn't like it and shoulder-checked me to stop me, so I turned the other way and something fell on my head and tightened around my neck. I frantically tried to identify what had me and found the rope had caught me.
Sam was pulling me towards him. No, no, no, no, this can't happen! He'll hurt me! I fought the rope hard, tried to get my teeth on it but Sam apparently knew that trick and kept it away from my teeth. When I had started running, the other dogs went wild, barking and taking the opportunity to nip me, objecting to my out-of-control behavior. It was like the first night, when they all went at me. It was too much. Finally, Sam had pulled me to within arms distance. He had won this fight. I gave up. I dropped to the ground, belly up and cried in a panic. This had worked twice before, and I hoped it would work now.
Sam reached down and wrapped the rope around my muzzle, muffling the sound of my crying yelps, which immediately quieted many of the dogs. He put his arms around me and lifted me like a goat. Lou led the way out of the dog pen while Sam carried me through. They carried me to a smaller pen and set me down, but Sam kept his hands on me, clearly determined not to let me run off.
What followed was the oddest thing I had ever experienced. While holding the rope close to my neck, he checked my teeth, declaring me under a year old because my canines were pristinely white. He then ran his hands all over my body. It felt… not… bad. He was quick and professional with a practiced hand, but nothing he did hurt. I stood there, tense and shaking, waiting for the touch to change, for the hurt to come.
Then… for no good reason, he scratched behind my ears. What a feeling! Never had any kind of touch in my life, or Kyas', felt that wonderful. I melted, the tension leaving my body in an instant, I leaned into his hands. I became Fred, ears back, body low, but no longer trying to move away.
Sam laughed and scratched harder.
"I was hoping there was a good dog in there somewhere," he said. He turned to Lou. "This one's had a rough time of it so far, but I think we can work with him, he's just a big puppy that didn't get a good human association."
In the back of my mind, Kyas was amazed. He said that even he didn't know people could touch like that.
Sam stood up, and I immediately missed that touch and pressed against his legs. Lou came forward and the tension returned, but not as bad.
"Lets see if he'll work for food without Todd to boss him." Lou said. He stepped a few paces away and again offered the dried beef. My stomach rumbled. "Come here," Lou said. I cautiously approached, but he didn't give me the beef until I let him touch me. "Good boy!" he said and ruffled my fur. It was awesome!
Lou returned to stand next to Sam, and I followed, curious to see what was next. "Well," Lou said, "if we want to go further, he's going to need a name." I already had a name, but there was no way to communicate that.
"That's easy," Sam said. "See how the sun plays with his fur, turning it red in different places as he moves? It's like fire in the dark. Let's call him Blaze." Lou nodded, and Kyas laughed in my mind. He said that when he was human, his last name was Blaze. Kyas Blaze.
Over the next week, Sam and Lou regularly took me away from the dog pack for one-on-one training in basic obedience. To avoid trouble with the pack, every time I returned, I gave up anything I had eaten during the sessions, allowing me to move away while they squabbled over my left overs. At the end of that first week, I was fitted with my own collar, with a freshly minted dog tag.