Fiona Harrison - A Pug Like Percy - A heartwarming tale for the whole family

‘Why didn’t they take you with them?’ Barney quizzed reasonably.

I shrugged my little shoulders and felt my bottom lip tremble. I had wondered the same thing as I had barked my throat out at the time, begging him to take me, but Javier ignored my pleas. Instead, he gathered my things together and then called a taxi and dropped me off here.

‘That’s horrible,’ Boris said quietly. ‘You must have been terrified.’

Sadness coursed through my fur as I remembered watching Javier walk away and how my little body had pulsed with fear as I realised he really was going to desert me in a shelter, somewhere in the far reaches of South London. My wrinkled cheeks burned with shame as I recalled how I had barked at him not to leave me, that I was sorry for whatever I had done and that I would be a good boy, if only he would come back for me and take me with him to Argentina. But my undignified and desperate barks had fallen on deaf ears as my former master climbed into the back of the taxi, without so much as a backward glance.

‘I was terrified,’ I barked quietly. ‘I still am.’

In fact, I was so terrified I had not yet confessed my greatest fear to anyone here, not even to Kelly. That even if she did find someone who would love and adore me, there was nothing to stop them leaving me too. Who was to say that they would keep me for ever and ever? Javier had taught me one thing, that sometimes love was not enough.

As the days turned into weeks and most of the friends I had made left the shelter for pastures new, I wondered if Barney, Boris and Kelly had in fact been wrong and that not everyone loved pugs. Over the last few days, I had watched Frank the spaniel walk away with a lovely young couple from Cheam; Maggie, a Weimaraner, disappear with an elderly gentleman from Hove; and even Daisy the Highland terrier, with flatulence evil enough to clear a room, adopted by a seemingly lovely family from Chelmsford.

Now it seemed Barney was all set to leave me too, as he had hit it off with a young single lady from Clapham, who was now here to take him home. As the woman bent down to fondle his ears, Barney whined and wagged his tail with such excitement he made the floor vibrate beneath me. Of course I was happy Barney had found someone to give him the love he deserved, but deep down I was sorry it was not me.

As Barney walked away with his new owner, he shot me a hopeful stare. ‘A special family are coming for you, I promise.’

I watched him walk through the large glass doors that opened up to the exercise yard and the outside world beyond. Deflated, I trotted back to my squishy bed, and dived under my soft blanket. All I wanted was to shut everyone out. Even though it was Saturday and I knew the shelter would be full of prospective families, I was not in the mood to perform. Over the past few weeks, I had done all the cute pug-like things you could imagine to try and get a family to take me. I had uncurled my tail to give it a little waggle, exposed my belly to show I loved a stroke and even stared longingly with my big brown eyes at passing children. Of course I had received my fair share of cuddles and, as my time here grew longer and longer, I had even stopped moaning when the bigger children pulled my tail or stepped on my delicate paws. But while everyone had been kind enough to shower me with love, I had heard them talk in hushed tones about the health problems my short face would cause, along with worries about gassiness.

I was broken-hearted. I had lost my home, my owner, and hope was deserting me. Kelly had done her best to cheer me up, by telling me how loveable I was, but I knew that was untrue. I no longer felt like putting a brave face on my little snout. Instead, I shut my eyes and dreamed of a different life. Little walks in big green parks, tummy tickles with a loving child, snuggles in bed with a cuddly mum and man-to-man chats with the dad of the house in a shed at the bottom of the garden.

But those thoughts seemed little more than fantasy to me now, and I closed my eyes tightly, wanting nothing more than to forget the world. My time here at the tails of the forgotten had been fine, nice even, but it was no substitute for a real home. Seeing all my friends apart from Boris adopted left me with a lot of questions, namely, what was wrong with me?

Since revealing the story of how I had arrived at the shelter with Boris and Barney all those weeks ago, I had been unable to forget how Javier had ignored the way I begged him to take me with him and had gone over and over all the things I could have done to upset him. I knew Gabriella had never been particularly fond of me and perhaps that was the reason he had not fought to take me to Argentina, to start a new life.

Doubt nagged away at me as I realised that even if I found a family who would take me in, there could still be one person who disliked me enough to send me away again. There were so many reasons a dog could end up at the tails of the forgotten, I wanted to howl in despair. It seemed to me we pooches were doomed no matter how adorable or well behaved we were. Feeling sad, I did what I always did in a crisis and gave in to the land of nod, hoping against hope that when I woke there would be a change in fortunes.

*

‘Oh, isn’t he gorgeous,’ a woman’s voice murmured, gently waking me with a start from my slumber.

Turning around, with sleepy eyes, I looked at the woman peering through the glass. Short and thin, her brown hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders and her blue eyes radiated a kind of warmth and love I had not seen in a long time. I felt a sudden sense of hope and, glancing up at Kelly, who was standing with a smile a mile wide next to this woman, I shook the sleep from my eyes, got out of bed and trotted over to the glass to let out a little bark of welcome. The woman grinned as she crouched down, her red-wool coat pooling on the floor behind her. She tapped excitedly on the glass.

‘Hello, young man.’ She grinned before turning to look back up to Kelly. ‘I think I’m in love. Can I go and see him, please?’

Kelly laughed, fishing into her pocket for one of the treats she knew I loved. ‘Of course. This is Percy,’ Kelly explained to the woman as I snaffled the treat from her warm palm. ‘He’s very special to me – handsome, gorgeous and bursting with love, he’s my idea of a perfect man.’

After picking me up, Kelly gave me a comforting squeeze and invited the woman to sit on the old easy chair in the corner. When she was settled, Kelly placed me gently on the woman’s lap and tickled me under my chin.

‘This is Gail,’ Kelly explained to me. ‘We’ve just been talking nineteen to the dozen about you, because like me, Perce, she’s a woman with excellent taste who loves pugs.’

I barked appreciatively. This was the most promising news I had received since I had arrived. Shuffling around in Gail’s lap, so I could get a proper look at her, I drank in her appearance. She appeared to be in her late thirties, her skin was creamy white, and the few freckles on her nose gave her a cute, vulnerable appearance. But the soft lines around her twinkling blue eyes and the grey circles that were forming underneath told me life had not always been kind and that perhaps, like me, she was tired of battling to find her place in the world. I liked her immediately and, as Gail looked back at me, her blue eyes teeming with warmth, I felt a whoosh in my tummy and a pang in my heart. I sensed Gail was a woman who was simply bursting with love and, as I let out another little bark of excitement, she tickled me gently behind the ears and laughed.

‘How would you like to go for a little walk with me, Percy?’ she asked, gently. ‘I’d really like to get to know you better.’