Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 95080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Bo turned his massive head and looked at me. The closest the vet could tell was that Bo was a mix of Rhodesian ridgeback, Rottweiler, and pittie. There might be some kind of mastiff in there as well, but really, he was just a damn big dog. He weighed a good hundred pounds and was all muscle. Every time my dad walked him, he got offers to buy him. People just loved Bo. And as long as Bo saw my old man greet you, and smile at you, and better yet, hug you, he was fine. If, however, you startled my father, or if Bo thought you were trying to hurt him, you’d be in trouble. Not that there’d been more than some growling so far.
A while back, a couple of stoned college guys were in the park, asking for money, and when my dad jogged by, they reached out to get his attention. They didn’t mean to trip him—even my dad said it was an accident—but he went down anyway, and the moment one of the guys reached down to help him up, Bo came flying across the grass in a brindle blur. My dad had let him sit and play with some children while he did laps on the jogging path, but apparently the dog was keeping an eye on my old man. He came with teeth bared, growling, snarling, and the guys forgot about my dad and ran. The women at the park with their children cheered. My dad called Bo back with a whistle and accepted the help from the young mothers. They all knew my dad and Bo, and when the policemen came around and asked if Bo was a vicious dog, the chorus of outrage was deafening. How could a dog that patiently allowed himself to be buried in a sand pile by three-year-olds be vicious? Those guys had, in fact, frightened a few of the mothers with their belligerent requests for money. They all had their children with them, and it was creepy. If Bo had rousted them, well, good for Bo.
Bo’s loyalty was well deserved. Returning home from his usual Wednesday-night bowling with friends, my dad had seen the dog lying in the gutter on the side of the road. Instead of racing by like everyone else, or driving on as the one who had hit Bo had done, he stopped. He carried the massive weight to the car and drove the dog directly to the emergency animal clinic twenty miles away. Amazingly, Bo’s only injury was a broken back leg that the vet on duty said would mend cleanly. The water he had swallowed from what was rushing down the storm drain had been more life threatening, and he was in shock from hypothermia. He would need to be admitted to the hospital and monitored for perhaps as long as forty-eight hours. Three grand right there.
My dad paid the bill, and two days later collected his dog. He put an ad in the paper, and when the owner called, my dad explained to him what happened. The man was touched by what my dad had done and even offered to pay him the money for the vet bill, but then he pleaded with my dad to keep him. Sadly, the dog had been his daughter’s pet, and she had been hit on her bicycle by a drunk driver and killed. She had named him Bo and had lavished much loving attention on him. It was painful for the man and his wife to see the dog every day, and in fact, they had been on their way to the local shelter to drop him off when he had bolted en route to the car and leaped over their fence. The dog had been looking for the little girl for weeks, the man told my father, pacing the house anxiously. With a story like that, my dad was a goner.
Bo was still a gem with children, but he was devoted to my father. The only time he left my father’s side was when we all came to visit. Instead of sleeping in his dog bed covered by his favorite blanket next to my dad’s bed, he was forced by either curiosity or a compulsion to protect, to go from room to room the entire night and make sure everyone was fine.
As I’d touched him, he’d checked on me, and I anticipated him rising to his feet and thrusting his muzzle into my face. I was surprised when he regarded me for only moments before shifting his attention toward the sliding glass door. It was strange, and so I followed his gaze.
It looked like there was a disembodied black-gloved hand trying to soundlessly remove the chain from the door that was covered by a curtain. Usually, my father didn’t draw the curtain across the door that led from the living room into his large flower garden. He’d probably pulled it in deference to me. If I slept there all night, the sun in the morning would have blinded me, and so he’d made sure I would be all right. In his haste, though, he’d forgotten to put the dowel in the track to keep it from sliding, making it an easy target.