He dodged under furniture if Forrest's deep voice rose above a certain soft, quiet level.
He trembled whenever he saw one of our cats, and I understood that he wanted to chase them but was too weak and sore.
"No, no," I'd say. "Leave the cat alone."
Skid listened so hard that the wrinkles between his ears made the top of his head look like a plowed field.
We padded one of our pet travel cages with old towels and closed him in it overnight and when we couldn't be with him.
Whenever one of us spoke, which was often, he listened sharply. As we moved about the house, he watched closely.
He never used the bathroom in the house or chewed on anything that wasn't food and specifically given to him. He was always extremely careful to take tidbits from our hands without actually touching our skin.
Skid quickly learned that the source of the deep voice was also the source of tasty treats and a good scratch, so he swiftly lost his fear of the man of the house. However, he still stayed close to me.
Toward the end of that week, Skid was moving much better and had gained a couple of pounds. Since the ticks and fleas were gone, his wonderfully thick, soft fur and loose puppy skin invited hands-on therapy. One night, I took him into the dog yard and rubbed him all over, nose to tail.
He wriggled and wagged then rolled in the grass, sneezing with that tone that a dog uses to say happy, happy, happy!
Skid watched the other dogs almost as intently as he watched us. He sat respectfully to the side when dinner was doled out. We had to feed him in the hall, since he wouldn't eat as long as Sunny and Coco were in the same room.
Even relaxed, he was alert and interested in anything moving or making noise. He loved surveying his domain from a chair.
"He's a dog's dog," we agreed. "He knows the law of the tooth, the rule of the pack."
Forrest and I talked about what to do with him. We both thought that he was an excellent, bright little dog that obviously had not been taken care of, at least not recently by human beings. We decided the possibility that he had an owner was remote.
"What kind of person would let a dog get in that poor a condition?" we asked each other.
"Don't feel that you have to go looking for his owner on my account," Forrest said at last. "He's a good dog. He deserves better." >>
