Prompt: Sad Pomeranian

“Write a sad story about a Pomeranian.”– P.L.

Note: This piece contains direct references to animal cruelty. Please read at your own discretion. Also, thank you to the prompter for giving me this chance to revive beloved characters from an old story, but apologies for the poor quality of this piece… alright, enough self-criticizing, time to just post it.

It’s a cruel game.

In the face of murder, the humans only laugh.

Silence is Golden

He remembered the little pompom from back home. He recognized that under-curl to the tail, that ruffled muff around its neck, those round and scared black eyes. What confirmed it was the crook to the ear, the birth defect that had the pup put up ‘free to a good home’ by show-mongering owners.

So what Miles couldn’t understand was why the Pomeranian was here.

“Hey, why not give the gold one a turn, since you lugged it all the way here?”

“I’m telling you, Murphy, you can’t just drag any old house pet here and throw it in the ring – that’s not how this works. There’s a breeding process to it, and a retriever’s just—”

Too many voices, all of them unfamiliar. Too many words, some of them somewhat familiar, but the tone was wrong, and the meaning was lost. It had Miles reeling, ears pinned back to block everything out, but even then the sound of his blood muddled his mind. He just needed a moment, just one moment to think, to make sense of this all, to just figure out what this was, why the little one was here—

“Ow!” A vicious snap to his leash forced Miles forwards, stumbling over his legs. “Stop, let go – what are you doing!” he barked, a low rumble rising from his chest. The dog was dragged forward, regardless of his struggles or the concrete leaving raw scratches on his paws. Heart pounding, stuttering wildly in his fear, the golden retriever turned his gaze to the dogs at the sidelines.

All larger. All stronger. Some frothing at the mouths, snarling at the terrified little pompom. One particular caught his eye.

This one sits by his owner’s side, still, silent. Though he resembles the other dogs, with the same dense structure, cropped ears, docked tail, stiff coat, he was different. Miles saw that though this one didn’t move, it wasn’t self-restraint. There was no aggression to his bearing, instead carrying some fragile remnant of dignity, and those angled eyes cradled a dim light of revulsion.

And Miles knew this one’s name.

“Shale, help me!” the retriever barked, still struggling against the pull on his leash. “I don’t understand – what’s going on, say something!” He strained to hear a response over his own frantic pleading and the roar of those mongrels crying for blood or a kill or fresh meat, but one didn’t come. Instead, he was shoved into the ditch, sliding over dirt and concrete dust into a heap at the bottom of the pit.

He was back on his feet in an instant.

He wanted to climb out. He wanted to clamber out and run far, far away, back home to his owner, his owner who was waiting at home for her dog and father to return from the mountains that never existed in the first place. He could judge at a glance, however, that the ditch was too deep, and even if it wasn’t, Miles knew he couldn’t have left. There were too many humans… and there was no way he could abandon this little pompom again.

“Hey,” he whispers, quietly. It comes out a low whine from his throat, as he gently pads towards the little one. The Pomeranian’s breaths come faster now, its round eyes wide as teacup saucers, as it tries to scrabble away with duct-taped paws, and– and —“Sorry! No, no, it’s okay,” Miles says, still coaxing, his heart crumbling at the sight of the terrified little pup. “It’s me, Miles. I stumbled into your yard on a walk, trampled your owners’ flowers, remember?”

The small dog stiffened, and somehow its eyes grew even wider with realization before it blinked. Black eyes glittered over a muzzle wound with silver tape, and there was a muffled sound. Then it once again.

Miles’s heart shattered at the sound, his own strength oozing out of him. He didn’t have the will to keep his tail or ears high anymore. Instead, he said as gently as he could, “Yes, with the owner that smells like toffee apples.”

Through the tape and terror, the little pup sounded another noise, something queer and unintelligible, but it kept repeating it again and again, as if trying to beat the chants of the bloodthirsty mutts around them. The growl ripped through Miles’ chest before he knew it, and he rounded on the madness above him. “Stop that!” he snarled, disgust distorting his expression. “Keep quiet, shut up! Bloodthirsty, mindless mongrels!”

The golden retriever kept at it like that – it was easier to take out his anger onto the insanity rumbling above him than to look at the pup behind him. He’d seen that look in that pompom’s eyes before, but back then, things were different. He could have helped back then, and he had chosen not to. Now, Miles bore the burden of that choice, and that look hurt so much more than before.

“See? The goldie's a softie. Can't take out a bait dog."

"Here, look at how it should be done, Murph. Shale, c'mon boy. Sic'im."

He was so pained by the sight of this pup before him that he almost missed the human's words. He didn't know what most of them meant, but two of them he'd grown far too used to over the past few days. His fur bristled when he heard the last sound, and immediately he snapped around, tail lashing, teeth bared as he barked, "No!" His eyes wild, he glowered at the dog that had just leapt into the pit, daring the fighter to carry through with the command.

Shale only gave him a fleeting glance.

As the denser dog padded past him, Miles's growl faded to a rumble as panic rattled his ribs. "Shale," he choked out. "Shale, I know this pup. He's a good dog and he's lost too many chances already – please, if you have any respect for what we've been through these last three days—" but the words were lost on the fighting dog who came to a stop right before the trembling, terrified little pompom. "Shale, please, don't do this. I know you're not a monster."

The other dog froze at that, threw a look over his shoulder, and Miles felt his blood cool with relief.

"Shale," he said, a smile in his words. "Thank—"

He spoke too soon. Before the word could end, Shale had snapped around and taken the little pompom by the neck and there was an all too audible crack before the pup went limp. Miles' blood was cold now, too cold. He could only stare as the fighting dog lowered the pup, with an ill-fitting gentleness, to the hard, dust-stained concrete.

Miles could only stare, but then he pulled his gaze up, an unspoken question curled upon his tongue, eyes wide yet hard and accusing, unmoving from the other dog's. Moments passed in silence, and with each passing second, his heart began to pump again, and each beat brought forth a new surge of confusion, anger, and betrayal. His tongue uncurled to unleash the question, but clearly there was no need.

"They remove the bait dogs' teeth," Shale said, eyes cold and unyielding. He didn't look away. "Break them on bricks or pull them out. They would have been infected. The pup would've just died a more painful death."

“No, that’s an excuse,” Miles hissed. “You were just scared.”

The fighting dog narrowed his eyes, lip curling in a growl and for a moment, Miles flinched. Immediately, the other dog stopped, sharply turning away. “Think what you want.” With that he began to walk away. And then, almost as an afterthought, and perhaps Miles imagined it for how quiet it was, but… well, the retriever thought he heard the dog say:

“I don’t think you can blame me if I was.”

~*~*~

“Miles, slow down!”

Slow down? Why would he slow down when the sky was so blue and the air was so fresh? There was so much energy in the air, it was practically buzzing, and this was his first walk in days – he couldn’t slow down when there was so much to do! Miles shook out his fur before stretching, his tail beating a mile a minute all the while.

Jubilant, jovial, the golden retriever bounded further ahead, relishing the heat glistening across his fur. A flash of color caught his eye and, panting, he zipped to the right, felt the concrete change to cool grass beneath his paws. Digging his claws into the dirt, he leapt into the flowerbed, breathing in the fragrance. Drunk on the bliss of just being alive, Miles rolled onto his back, let the soft earth cake his ears and face.

"Who are you?"

He froze at the question, leapt to his feet to find a small creature by his feet. Too small, the size of a rabbit, barely a dog, more a ball of fluff. However, Miles noticed it had the most curious glint to its eyes, and being observed so intently by such a little thing, he found himself bashful of his unabashed behavior.

"I'm Miles," he said, shaking the dirt from his fur. "And what's your name?"

The wag of the pup's curled tail stopped. However, eyes bright and wide, it said with only a trace of wistfulness in its voice, "Don't got one."

And that's when Miles noticed the sign across the yard, one he couldn't read but the box beneath with half-chewed dog toys around it revealed more or less the answer. "You don't have an owner."

"My owners don't want me." Such a stark response, Miles found himself surprised, and pity pooled in his chest. "My ears aren't as pretty as my sisters'." The pup said this with such matter-of-factness, it was painful, and its crooked ear folded back just a bit, betraying the pup's true feelings.

For a moment, Miles wondered. His owner would take the pup in. She would love it and cherish it, he knew that, if he could convince her. It would be easy to convince her. An easy task. But when his owner caught up and he saw her eyes light up at the sight of the tiny creature, a twinge of something spiteful struck in his chest. He didn't want to share the girl's attention.

"Oh, it's a Pomeranian," his human said, petting the pup once before urging Miles away. If he was stubborn, he could convince her. If he stayed put, he could help the pup. In the end, he turned and walked away.

He could help the little pompom another day.