Doglands by Tim Willocks Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t sound much like a dog name. It must be the name the masters had given him. He said, “I’m Furgul.”
    Kinnear chuckled. “They’ll soon change that,” he said. “You’ve had a rough time, from the looks of you, but your luck’s just changed for the better. In fact, you’ve hit the jackpot.”
    “Where am I?” asked Furgul.
    “In the Household.”
    “What do they want?”
    “They want you to be a pet.”
    “I’m not a pet,” said Furgul. “I’m a free dog.”
    Kinnear chuckled again, in a way that made Furgul feel stupid.
    “You’ll learn,” he said. “Now, if it’s all right with you, I’m the dominant dog in the Household. At least, in theory, I should be. After all, you are only a puppy, whereas I’m a fully grown dog. And I have been here a lot longer than you, so you could say, in theory, that this is my territory.Although, of course, it’s the master’s house—or, I should say, the mistress’s—not ours.”
    Furgul stared at him. Compared to the dogs he had known at Dedbone’s Hole, Kinnear was about as dominant as a pigeon. Furgul’s stare seemed to make Kinnear feel uncomfortable.
    “However,” said Kinnear, “that’s always something we can reconsider, from time to time, especially if it causes conflict in the Household. In the Household only the Grown-Ups are allowed to have conflict.”
    Furgul had no idea what he was on about.
    “Let me go to sleep,” said Furgul.
    “Righty-ho,” said Kinnear. He all but bowed. “I’ll show you to your bed.”

P ART T WO
THE DOG
WHO RUNS IN
DARKNESS

C HAPTER F IVE
THE HOUSEHOLD
    N ine months later Furgul was fully grown. He was healthy, strong, solid with muscles, and could jump a four-foot fence from a standing start (though he kept this ability a secret). He was still living in the Household with the bulldog, Kinnear, and the two Grown-Ups—the kindly Fisherman and his wife, whose names, he had learned, were Gerry and Harriet. He had a soft, warm place to sleep and two large bowls of chicken-flavored food pellets per day. He got his share of patting and stroking, which he had to admit was rather nice. And from time to time he got crunchy treats and spectacularly tasty leftovers from Gerry and Harriet’s meals.
    In short he had everything that any pet dog could wish for. Yet bit by bit Furgul realized that if you want a share ofthe treats from the Grown-Ups’ table, your soul has to pay the price. And day by day he felt as if his spirit was dying inside him.
    In his first few days in the Household—after he’d recovered from the sleepy drugs the Vet had given him—Furgul had found that he had a lot to learn. He found himself living in a world of rules. Rules that either didn’t make much sense or, even worse, were completely unfair. These rules were as follows.
    Don’t do this and don’t do that.
    Don’t go here and don’t go there.
    If you have an impulse, restrain it.
    If you want something, you can’t have it.
    Keep quiet.
    Don’t disturb the Grown-Ups when they’re staring at the noise-screen.
    Don’t lick your sack in front of the mistress.
    And even if Grown-Ups do something, it doesn’t mean that you can.
    As Kinnear put it: “If you have the natural urge to do something fun—anything fun at all—then it’s a safe bet that you’ve broken another rule, even if no one has told you what it is.”
    First of all came the rules of peeing. Furgul learned—after much yelling, shock and horror from the Grown-Ups—that he couldn’t pee on tables or chairs, on Harriet’s bike, on thepiano, or on Gerry’s leg. Indeed, he couldn’t pee anywhere inside the house at all. The Grown-Ups could, but they had special peeing rooms, called bathrooms, which the dogs weren’t allowed to use. He couldn’t even pee on the grass in the garden, or on the gardens of any of the neighbors, even though it was clear to Furgul that plenty of other dogs were doing it when Harriet wasn’t looking.
    Kinnear, who was an expert