Trapped on the trail between mommy and daddy with only one way to run, Rosie had a choice to make at a time when he was rapidly beginning to hate choices in general.
This is the third part of Rosie’s latest adventure. You can catch up on the first part here, the second here, and the third part here, or enjoy another of her adventures here.
Rosie the Three-Legged Dragon had another choice to make at a time when she was rapidly beginning to hate choices in general. After she attempted to run away from home, daddy was approaching her from behind on the trail and had her clearly in his sights with the little flashlight humans needed to see in the dark for reasons that made no sense as her own eyesight was excellent under almost any conditions. Mommy was up ahead waiting for her to approach, and if she kept going straight along the path, would surely have her in hand, leading her shamefully back to the munchkin-inspired gathering at the lair after running away for barely twenty minutes – not that dogs measured time in that fashion, she just knew it was way to short a period to make any kind of statement about her unfair treatment. There was, however, a line of much denser trees on her right, hidden from even the moon and the stars, where it would be very difficult for either mommy or daddy to follow. Daddy might be crazy enough to give it a try, he usually gave everything a try, much to mommy’s dismay at times, but he seemed far too tall and clumsy to navigate the area under the brush. This course was not without peril of its own, though. She’d scented coyote, fox, and even a bear passing through in the past day or so and while she didn’t think there was anything dangerous hidden in there now, their smells lingered in her mind like phantoms, even if Rosie wasn’t embarrassingly afraid of the dark and a part of her certainly wanted to run up to mommy and be taken home.
Regardless, shame can be a powerful thing even for dogs and dragons. The thought of being brought home so quickly and easily without making that statement she had sought in mounting the entire effort, largely as a result of tricking herself into thinking she was simply out on patrol, was too much to bare. After a few more moments practically paralyzed, shaking as dogs sometimes do when they are confused or frightened before deciding to act, she took off into the woods, but even then, wasn’t sure exactly what had been decided. Oddly it seemed even to her, the direction she’d taken might’ve been away from mommy and daddy, and it might have been difficult for them to follow her through the branches and the shrubbery at night, but it was technically closer to her lair, not further away. In other words, she was running home in a sense, though she hadn’t chosen that at the time. She could easily have followed the edge of the tree line and ended up back at her comfortable lair in a few minutes. Daddy, it seemed, thought she was doing exactly that when he muttered something under his breath before following after her, trying to keep a black dragon-dog in sight in the shadows of trees tall enough to block the little light from the moon. As she’d expected in her doglike way, centuries of breeding giving her some hunting skills even if she only used them to pilfer food or slaughter the occasional rabbit, he was able to follow her across the open patch to the tree line itself, but not any further in the dark, even with the little flashlight. As an added bonus, one Rosie most certainly didn’t expect and wouldn’t have entirely understood anyway, it turned out that he was standing almost in the middle of the neighbor’s yard, that is another nearby lair, which would make him an intruder himself.
It being late, daddy having imbibed several adult beverages by this point, and generally not being interested in explaining how their three-legged dog made it into their yard, much less what that dog might have done there, apparently didn’t want to be seen. Rather than following her any further and keeping her in sight with the flashlight, he stood there focused on the neighbor’s lair itself, looking for any kind of motion inside which might indicate they were alerted to their presence, as though the door would fly open and someone would start yelling and pointing a gun. For her part, Rosie wasn’t sure what was happening inside, but the lights were on, there were definitely humans moving around, doing whatever it is they do, and whatever the case, it gave her the chance to give daddy the slip as they say. Normally, she would’ve avoided getting so close to another lair, but this time she shot right past the front opening, as fast as her three legs could carry her, where she believed daddy wasn’t likely to follow, and sure enough he just stood there by the tree line, watching her vanish from the miniscule range of his little flashlight. She was free once again, completely out of sight where he seemed unwilling to follow, and as yet another added bonus, mommy had no idea where either of them were during this period. She hadn’t been able to see them from her spot on the trail, allowing the black-coated, sleek, beautiful Rosie to run past her as well before she knew what was happening, just the sound of something moving in the dark. With both mommy and daddy in the dust, Rosie shot down the trail as if she truly could fly and when she reached the path that would take her back to the lair, she just kept going. When daddy emerged a few minutes later, explaining that he’s lost Rosie – loud enough she could pick it up with her incredible dog and dragon hearing – she was long gone, but where?
Rosie the Three-Legged Dragon had raced down the trail so fast she didn’t realize exactly when she left her territory behind, breaking through the invisible barrier without knowing it until she finally came to a halting, panting stop, suddenly aware of being on only three legs well outside her comfort zone. Further, Rosie wasn’t a blood hound with their even more incredible sense of smell, or a cat with a special organ in the mouth that can literally taste the air at close range. Her senses were superior to ours, but once she crossed that unseen line the world she knew and loved was only vaguely present. Sniffing the air, the dirt, and the shrubbery around her, cocking her ears, and listening as best she could, Rosie knew her lair wasn’t far away – she could smell it and to some extent, still hear the music in the backyard – but as though her senses were like a thin fog, surrounding her from all directions, it was unclear exactly how to get back. The lair was everywhere and nowhere, it seemed. While she was loath to admit the truth, she was lost and quickly became frightened, a part of her hoping that mommy and daddy would come save her after all. Unfortunately, she had tricked them far too successfully. After she took off down the trail, neither had any idea where she might have gone. They must’ve hoped she really was out on patrol and headed back to the lair itself to check. Whatever the case, they were nowhere to be found and she was alone as she’d been in about as long as she could remember. Though Rosie fancied herself a dragon, the fierceness, the independence, the courage, the power, all of it had helped her cope with losing her left front leg and being forced to relearn practically everything, she was still a dog and dogs in general hate being alone, isolated and separated from their pack. For her, being alone in an unfamiliar place – even if it wasn’t all that far from her rightful territory in human terms – could only be described as traumatic and the irony that running away was what she had planned only made things worse.
Still, Rosie was always a willful dog, prone to her own at times, unusual way of doing things, and she wouldn’t give up that easily. While she imagined other canines might curl up on the side of the trail, coming close to playing dead until someone found them, if someone found them – well not really, dogs having very little in the way of imaginations – she would not. She would press onward instead. She would keep moving. She would find her way home. Of course, the real question was how. She knew home was out there, but had no idea where and dogs do not have a particularly good sense of direction despite no shortage of stories about lost pets who found their way home under incredible circumstances. In most cases, it was simply blind luck. If they can smell their way back to the territory, as in a scent strong enough they know where it’s coming from and can follow it like a thread, they know exactly where they are going. If they can’t, if the smell was too diffuse as it was at the time, they get easily confused, having little understanding of how distance works or how different locations relate to one another in anything resembling a complex, human sense. Though they maintain mental maps complicated enough to navigate their territory with ease, anything outside those pretty clearly defined boundaries is the other, connected to nothing in any direct way, and Rosie the Three-legged Dragon was definitely outside at this moment. For a while, she had no idea what to do, vacillating between shaking uncontrollably in an embarrassing fear, panting in exhaustion having traveled so far on three legs, and hanging her head in worry, but then she heard something, drifting through the patch of trees on her left, emanating from an unfamiliar place. There was a gathering of some sort, in some ways similar to the one she had left, enough that she was a little confused there could be something similar happening somewhere else in the first place and figured it was worth investigating, so she set off into new territory for perhaps the first time in her life, now that she thought about it.
The sense of exploration overwhelmed her fear at first, and though she had to pick carefully through the dense patch of shrubbery, the way soon opened up into a proper yard, where gathered around the house in the near distance was another family. Would they know where she belonged somehow? There was, however, the scent of another dog as well, a male of another breed, and strangely it was not entirely unfamiliar to her even if she had never been to this territory in her doggie life, though that didn’t necessarily make her eager to approach. The humans hadn’t seen her yet, but of course, the canine picked up the smell long before she officially entered his territory, knowing another dog was coming and either willingly or unwillingly forced to decide what to do about the intruder. In that sense, it was a wonder she hadn’t picked up on his, except Rosie the Three-Legged Dragon wasn’t comfortably lounging in the yard as he was, watching the world go by as dogs sometimes do. Instead, she appeared to be on another adventure, whether fully intentional or not, and was suitably surprised to encounter a dog she knew in a place she didn’t. Surprised, but strangely, not afraid because she’d met this particular dog, an older male, squat and sturdy with a chestnut brown coat and an odd fleshy growth on his leg, several times even as she’d wandered into his territory accidentally. Prompted by his unique scent, images of their previous encounters floated into her mind. He’d been in her territory, back before Lily had left them and while he wasn’t unfriendly, indeed he might have been trying to mate with Lily herself, he was certifiably crazy. Not surprisingly, the unexpected arrival of a strange dog had prompted mommy and daddy to take immediate action. Fearing he would run away again, daddy had the brilliant idea of putting him in the fenced in area around the pool until his own mommy and daddy arrived, but once inside, the lunatic dog jumped into the pool itself and started swimming around as if it was the most fun thing in the world. Even after mommy fished him out the first time, he tried to jump back in again, much to Rosie and Lily’s ever lasting amazement given they both hated water and had a fear of drowning.
As you can imagine, the scene left an impression and the strange dog wandered over several more times, a little wild but always friendly and eager to say hello. At the same time, meeting under these conditions – at night, at his lair – was an altogether different experience and Rosie approached him with no shortage of trepidation even as he exhibited no obvious signs of being upset with her presence. He was much larger than her, not taller, but bulkier and more muscled. His snout was shorter as well, but lined with fleshy outcroppings that suggested he could bite an arm off. Where Rosie was lithe, he lumbered, ambling about like an old giant scratching himself. The unlikely pair, a three-legged super model and the bouncer from some dive bar, circled each other for a while before exchanging the usual greeting, which generally meant a lot of sniffing to determine where each had been all this time and what their intentions might have been. Rosie had actually lost her leg during this period, but perhaps needless to say, the other dog didn’t notice. She could have grown another and it wouldn’t have mattered in the canine world. After this was completed, the male dog laid himself back down with a sigh that expressed all of his experience as perhaps only a dog can do, as though he was a furry boulder being placed on a field forever, and indicated Rosie should join him on the grass with his snout. She hesitated for a moment, but being rather exhausted herself and with nothing much else to do except be frightened, soon squatted beside him for a while and the two sat in the comfortable silence of dogs, looking out at the forest around them, basking in the light from the gathering behind. Incredibly, the humans didn’t notice them or simply didn’t care their dog had an unlikely visitor.
If dogs could speak the story they might have told each other and indeed what Rosie imagined in a way in her own mind, would’ve gone something like this: The older dog, technically a mottled, grizzled pit bull, but one who was very friendly, had made a habit of running away himself when he was a little younger, believing there was life beyond his territory. In fact, that’s how he found himself in Rosie the Three-Legged Dragon’s lair in the first place, indeed in her pool, yes, that was crazy, but he loved swimming. Like Rosie herself, however, he too had trouble finding his way home, once he crossed beyond his own domain. There was a certain thrill to it being an explorer, but especially as an older dog whose adventuring days were behind him, there was also fear and loneliness, the pain of being separated from the pack. While he still had a certain wanderlust and he was glad Rosie could join him on this glorious evening, he’d decided it was better to stay put and if she would take his advice, she should go home as soon as she could, and simply love her family for who they are. No, humans aren’t perfect. Every dog knows that, but they do love us and care for us in return. Isn’t that enough?
Rosie thought about this for a while, and after being gone for almost an hour at this point – just short of eternity in her mind – she was inclined to agree and she wanted most desperately to go home, but how to get there when she was lost? At this, something ineffable must’ve passed between them because the pit bull solemnly rose, and on his old and achy legs, began leading her to edge of his domain, after lifting his leg and taking a suitably large pee, of course, back onto the trail, and up far enough Rosie could scent her own lair, prompting her ears to perk up and her tail to wag. Upon saying goodbye to the wise old dog, perhaps wondering if they would ever see each other again, which like their greeting involved no small amount of sniffing, she bolted back home, looking back only once to see the brown shape standing their, eyes glowing and glistening. As she ran, she was filled with a strange mix of emotions for either a dog or a dragon. On the one hand, she was proud of herself for finding her way without her human servants, and for making the decision to make a statement in the first place. On the other, she was ashamed for getting lost, for almost having a panic attack, and yes for leaving mommy and daddy in the first place. Thus, she approached the house unsure of the reception she would receive and when it appeared to be the equivalent of a hero’s welcome, everyone cheering her arrival, mommy and daddy hugging her like one of the munchkins themselves, thrilled she was home, she was both pleased her plan had worked in a sense and uneasy that she was being cheered for leaving them all behind. The actual munchkins, who had set the whole thing off, were nowhere to be found as well, and she could make no real sense of it until the following day.
The next morning, something incredible happened. The younger munchkin, who had been the one to pet her during the gathering in the enchanted forest, was seated at the table eating something Rosie would’ve preferred herself, but she’d learned at least a little bit of a lesson and was keeping a safe distance. Carlitos, however, had apparently learned nothing, which was not surprising. Instead of staying away as mommy wanted, he marched himself up right beside her and proceeded to watch the food go from the plate to the mouth for a while, the puppy dog eyes suggesting he wanted some, badly. Mommy and daddy looked on, unsure what might happen, but at some point the little girl, not yet two years old in human terms, noticed Carlitos beside her. She looked at him curiously for a moment, glanced at the piece of food in her hand – Rosie had forgotten what it was, a piece of syrupy pancake or something – and gently offered it to Carlitos. Strangely, Rosie wasn’t upset that she was excluded from the offering. Instead, she marveled at the child’s simple generosity, especially when she offered Carlitos another piece and he took it eagerly, remaining seated on the floor beside her as though he was standing guard when what he truly wanted was more food. Somewhere in the back of her mind, where dogs have thoughts they aren’t capable of, something struck Rosie deeply. Is this the meaning of the munchkins? Why mommy and daddy treated them so special? Was this the meaning of life or something even deeper? Rosie the Three-legged Dragon couldn’t quite say, but afterwards she took a long, comfortable, well-deserved nap thinking about it.
THE END
Check out Rosie the three-legged dragon and the three days of endless night, and enjoy another adventure with the world’s favorite dragon dog.
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