Besides, living with humans is what keeps us Kaxians covert. (Yeah, it hides the Niques' alien origins, too, but who cares about them?) Living with humans has worked well for millennia, and besides, it is tradition. Have you ever tried to buck tradition? If you have, then you know what I mean when I say, don't try it.
It doesn't really matter if I agree or not, though. Remaining covert is command number one, straight from Kax:
No humans can know that dogs are aliens.
We have the technology to be born again and again and again, so mortal peril is no excuse to blow our cover and allow any human to guess we are not from Earth. Being in the pound is no excuse, either. Besides, every Kaxian (and every Nique, too, but who cares about them?) wants to be reborn. The punishment for blowing our cover is we don't get to be reborn.
OK.
So you see the challenge that was before me?
We Australian Cow Dogs can jump really high and run really fast, but how many humans are looking for those qualities when they pick out a pet? Not many, that's how many.
Nope, I had to concentrate on being responsive to what the humans said, and I had to pray to Kax they noticed how attentive I was.
Of course we didn't want any of the Niques to be adopted, so we worked together to keep the humans in our big-dog room at the pound, choosing just among us Kaxians.
As soon as the pound opened up for business in the morning, a small human boy ran in.
"Dad! Dad! Look at all the dogs, Dad!"
He ran down the aisle and back, looking each of us in the eye as he passed by.
"Can we take them all home with us?"
He kept running up and down the aisle of kennels, stopping here and there to put his fingers through the holes to pet one of us, or to let us lick his hands.
"Don't put your fingers in the cages!"
The boy's father was more frightened than angry, but he was letting his frustration at being frightened manifest itself as anger.
"These dogs might bite you! We don't know which ones are friendly."
The boy was used to his father's temper, and knew just what tone to make with his voice, to appease him.
"Aw, Dad, they're all friendly. None of them are going to bite me. They're all sad about being in these cages. I want to let them all out."
"Sorry, Son, you can't do that."
The father hugged the boy.
"Let's just look at them all in their cages and see if one might be the one we want to take home."
We were all talking again, of course.
"I'm friendly!"
"I'm more friendly!"
"I like to play!"
"I want to come home with you and play!"
You know what? I almost think the boy understood us. He sure seemed to run to each of us right after we spoke, and to answer what we were saying.
"Oh! You are friendly, aren't you?"
"Yes, you are friendly, too, huh?"
"Do you like to play with a ball?"
When he came to my kennel, I barked out my answers to each of his questions, of course, but I also smiled at him, with my lips pulled back to show my teeth and my tongue sticking out and my ears up. I wagged my tail fast, too, in a show of enthusiasm. I was doing all I could to show the boy I was a happy, friendly dog who would play with him. I was also trying my new trick of reaching out with my mind to connect to his mind, but his mind was swollen with excitement and pity. There was no room in there for my suggestions. I kept trying.
The boy took a rubber frog out of his pocket, to show me. I slanted my head sideways to show I was looking at the toy in fascination. Humans love it when we do that.
"Would you go and get this for me, Boy? You wouldn't chew it up, would you?"
"I would be happy to go get it for you, and of course I wouldn't chew it up!"
The boy laughed and tossed the toy into my kennel. I dutifully got it and brought it back to him, holding it in the front of my mouth for him to take.
Laughing, the boy was reaching to get the rubber frog back when his father saw him and came storming over.
"I told you not to put your hand inside the cages! OK, I can see you're not going to listen, so you'll have to wait in the car while I pick a dog for us to take home."
The boy started crying then, still looking at his little toy frog that I held in my mouth, ready for him to take.
"But Dad! He has my frog!"
"Well you should have listened when I told you not to reach into the cages. You could have been bitten! I need to be able to trust that you will do as you are told. Your punishment is to wait in the car while I choose the dog myself. I'm sorry, but you disobeyed me, and that is not acceptable."
The dad came back after he put his son in the car, but of course he was particularly upset at the sight of his son's toy frog in my cage, sitting there reminding him of his son's disobedience. He was far too emotional for my suggestive abilities to work on him. I couldn't even play the dad a mental movie of him calmly explaining the rules of a new place to the boy, before they entered the next new place, let alone of the dad picking me to take home with them.
Too bad.
I liked that boy, and I think he liked me.
* * *
Several adoption failures later, a young couple walked in, and I could tell they were going to take a dog home with them that day. It was just a question of which one of us would be the "lucky" one. What really caught my notice, though, was Skil's scent on them. These were Skil's humans!
Lido looked at me at the same time as I looked at him.
"Are those Skil's humans?"
"Yep," Lido told me, "She said they were planning on getting another dog."
Lido raised his eyebrows three times at me, and then turned to face the humans, wagging his tail.
I tried reaching out to the humans' minds, but they, too, were full of excitement and pity, just as the little boy's mind had been. I wasn't having any luck, but I kept trying.
These humans spoke softly and moved slowly. They stopped at the first cage, where as soon as the woman looked at him, a shaggy, untrimmed, standard black poodle rolled over onto his back and begged to have his belly rubbed. (Don't ask me how standard Kaxian poodles are related to toy Nique poodles. I really don't want to think about that!) The poodle wagged his tail at the nice couple, full of hope and encouragement.
The rest of us all started talking at once:
"Pick me!"
"Oh, choose me!"
"I'm a good girl!"
"I want to go home with you!"
Of course, the humans just heard a bunch of barking that was so loud they couldn't hear each other speaking. I liked these humans, though. They both smiled when we all started talking to them.
The man said to his mate, "Enthusiastic, aren't they!"
The man's mate smiled, nodded her head, and looked around at us all.
"Oh, look, Dear. Look at how lovable this poodle is."
"Yes, he is crying out to be petted, isn't he?"
"I can't explain it, but I feel almost compelled to pet him, right through the bars of this cage!"
"Heh! Yes, I agree, he is downright compelling."
The man smiled at his mate.
She said, "I suppose we should look at all the dogs, though."
"Yes, and don't forget we mostly are getting a dog for protecting the vineyard. Wanting to be petted is nice, but we need a dog who will make intruders think twice."
"I suppose, Honey."
Well, that did it. Most of us started trying to look tough, now: standing up straight, or pacing back and forth like lions inside our cages. It is difficult to look tough on intruders without looking scary to one's potential humans, though. Try it sometime.
The Rottweiler in the next cage took toughness to the extreme, growling and snarling so much that the female human almost fainted. Her mate took her hand and helped her quickly pass the Rottweiler by.
My friend Lido the portly bulldog was in the n
ext kennel they came to. He played it a little smarter, not growling or snarling, but standing up straight and alert. He spoke to Skil's male human in a businesslike voice.
"I'll watch your vineyard for you,"
The man seemed pleased.
"Well now, you seem like an alert fella."
"Oh no, George. Look how, um, big he is. He will eat us out of house and home!"
I prayed to Kax for a chance to help my friend Lido. Thank Kax, Skil's female human looked right at me when she turned away from Lido. She was focused on me, and her mind was temporarily open.
I looked over at Lido, wagged my tail, and played her a mental movie that suggested Lido was the best dog there. I showed him standing out, superimposed in front of all the other dogs. I emphasized his strong protective build, yet showed him being lovable and cuddly with her mate and her.
She smiled and turned back to Lido.
"Well hey there. Are you a good boy?"
"I am the best there is, Ma'am."
"Will you watch over us and our vineyard, and keep us safe?"
"It would be an honor, Ma'am."
Her mate had wandered down the aisle.
"George! This is the dog I want after all!"
Lido danced around in circles in his cage, wagging his tail so fast you couldn't see it.
"I owe you one, Clem! Anything you want! Anything you ever want for the rest of our days on Earth!"
"Aw Lido, we're best friends. You don't owe me anything. This is just what best friends do, help each other."
Lido's new humans went off to fill out the paperwork.
Lido sat down to wait, wearing the biggest grin any bulldog ever wore.
* * *
Next, a middle-aged couple of humans walked into our big-dog room. They looked at each of us in turn, making little comments on what they thought.
The memories help me at times like these, and I can mimic human expressions. Yes, I can!
OK, and after 98 lives, I know most of the common human commands already, so I know how to make humans happy. Most of the time. When my puppy body doesn't have an accident and I am with an actual dog person who is not just using me to impress a female.
Hoo boy.
When they came up to my kennel, I looked at the humans with the saddest human-like facial expression I could manage. I made my ears droop. I let my mouth go slack so that my lips hung down. I really laid it on thick with the body language, too: tail tip just barely tapping hopefully, sitting down with my shoulders hunched and head ducked, puppy eyes looking up at them expectantly.
"Aw, look at this one."
"Wow, he looks sad."
"I'll say! You would think he knew he was in the pound."
"Yeah, it's like he is begging us to take him home."
"How could he possibly know what the pound is?"
"Maybe he can smell something."
"Oh yeah. Dogs have a really good sense of smell. Some people say it is 100 times as powerful as a human's sense of smell."
Wow! They really knew a lot about us 'dogs.' That was nice. That meant they were dog people who would probably make a good home for us. I started daydreaming about what their home was like, and I almost missed the next thing they said. Good thing I heard it with at least part of my attention.
"I wonder if he always looks sad like that, though. That would be depressing."
Uh oh!
Time to show them I can be a fun-loving guy, too. I stood up and wagged my tail happily, put my ears up in a jaunty way, hung my tongue out of my mouth in the expression humans call a smile, and danced around in a circle.
"Wow!"
"Yeah!"
"Look how happy he looks now!"
"It's as if he understood what we said!"
"Did you understand us, Boy?"
"Yep, I did. I understand every word you say."
Even more, I understand what your body language is saying, even if you don't intend your body to say things. I can tell when humans are lying, just by their posture. If you humans would pay attention to your own body language, you would know this, too. You watch our body language much more closely than you watch each other's. Why is that?
Anyway, I wanted out of this kennel, like, yesterday.
I wagged my tail emphatically, including my bottom in the wag so that my whole body shook with happiness that they were talking to me. I made the crying noises in the back of my throat. Still sitting down, I inched my whole body closer and closer to my kennel door, the door that stood between me and these two friendly humans.
The woman gestured for the man to follow her outside the room.
Silly human. Didn't she know I could have heard them even if they left the building and talked in their vehicle? They just went out into the hallway.
"I can tell you really like that last one, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do."
"I do, too," she said, "But I don't really know why!"
"I think it's because he seems to really be in tune with us. I doubt he can really understand what we say, but it seems like he is really good at reading our body language and knowing what we want him to do. I like obedience in a dog."
"Well, do you want to get him?"
"Yeah, let's get him!"
Woo Hoo!
I did my own happy dance inside my kennel. I was going home with my new humans! I had finally convinced some humans to pick me!
Really, that should have been it, but then the Niques did something sneaky.
Chapter 9: Pig in Spanish
My humans went to the front room of the pound, the one with the big counter, to fill out my adoption paperwork. I was pleased with these humans. They spoke softly to me, like they cared about me. They weren't going to leave me alone for nine hours without any way to relieve myself.
I could tell the man was a real dog person. He was going to take me for walks every day and play with me and pet me and let me sleep in the same room with him. I just knew it.
His female was supportive of him. She wanted him to have a dog so that he would be happy. She would help him remember to feed me and make sure I always had water.
Yep, I was getting a great new home! In return, I would learn any new commands they taught me the first time they said them. I would come right away when they called me. I would watch them whenever they were in the room with me, to see if they wanted me to do anything.
I would also conduct my Kaxian business, of course, whatever that turned out to be. That was my main priority and the whole reason I was here on Earth, but I was ready to think of these new humans as my family. I already loved them. I thought they would come to love me, too.
Once my humans left our big-dog room and walked down the hall a ways, they were out of my suggestion range. I could see, in my newly discovered "mind's eye," their happy blue minds as they walked out, and then these gradually faded away from my mental sight.
I could hear one of the little dogs, the Niques, panting in the front-counter room. I heard my humans walking in there. When my humans walked past where the Nique was panting, I heard them change direction to walk over and wait behind a bunch of other humans who were lined up at the counter. I could hear my new humans waiting in that line.
"Wow! I am so excited we found a dog to adopt!" the woman said, getting into the line.
"I know! Do you think he looks like a pig?"
What? I look like a pig? I wasn't sure if I liked that!
"Yeah! I thought it was only me, but he does look like a pig! Want to name him 'Piggy'?"
"No, I don't like 'Piggy'."
The line moved up and they advanced toward the counter.
The woman asked a lady in front of her, "Hey, how do you say 'pig' in Spanish?"
"You won't like it," the lady said.
"No? Try us, please."
"'Pig' in Spanish is 'puerco'."
"You're right; I don't like that."
"I don't either," said the man.
Thank Kax!
I would be the laughing stock of every Kaxian ever (and every Nique, too, but who cares about them?), for all my lives, if I had to be called 'Puerco'!
Do I really look like a pig?
I turned and looked at my hindquarters, which admittedly did look a little porcine. I looked at my snout, I mean my mouth, in the reflection in my water dish.
Hm! I guess I do look a little like a pig!
Please don't call me 'Piggy'.
Please!
I heard my humans get to the front of the line where they were handed a bunch of forms to fill out. They accepted all the forms the woman handed them without questioning what they were for. I knew their peril because I could hear the rest of the humans talking.
"Wow! There sure are a lot of people entering the lottery to win the Chihuahua!"
"Yeah, look, that couple even just came out of the big-dog room and took an entry form."
"Well, the Chihuahua is awfully cute! Did you see all the tricks it can do?"
"Yes! I really want it!"
"Me, too!"
I have never felt so frustrated in all my 99 lives. These were MY humans! I had them ready to take me home, and I could hear the enemy in the little dog room, gloating.
"Priox, this is the best placement for you."
"Intel has it you will have half an acre whenever you tell them you need to go outside!"
"We've got this rigged. They will win the raffle and take you home."
"How do you big dogs like them apples!"
"Ha ha!"
"Your humans are so stupid they just entered a raffle for a dog they haven't even seen!"
"We're going to prevail, Kaxians. Just you wait and see."
"We will get all the best placements!"
"It will be our jex going from Earth, not yours!"
"Yeah, because when it comes right down to it, we Niques are smarter. Uh huh!"
I so wanted to go over there and show those little dogs how much difference being smarter makes in close quarters, against someone who is much bigger! I confess, I imagined myself looming up on one of them inside his kennel. He was cringing in fear because I was so big and he was so small. Let's see how smart he thought he was then, huh?
But what would happen then? This new six-month-old dog body would be put down, is what.