Police Officer Saves a Dying Puppy—But Now the Little Dog Keeps Sulking at Him

Chapter 2

The clinic smelled of antiseptic and warm blankets and fear, and Dr. Harlan Oakes moved through it with the unhurried calm of a man who had been meeting animals in their worst moments for twenty-five years. He was fifty-six, with steady hands and a way of speaking that made panicked people feel foolish for having panicked at all. He took one look at the puppy and stopped being calm.

“Where did you find him?” he asked, already lifting the small body onto the exam table.

Declan told him. The trailer. The scratches on the door. The dry bowl.

Dr. Oakes worked without looking up — warming blankets, checking the little mouth, starting fluids into a vein too small to find without squinting. The puppy lay still through all of it, too weak to resist, his eyes open but fixed on nothing. Every few moments Declan found himself holding his breath, watching the chest, waiting for the rise that had to come.

After the first examination, the vet straightened and shook his head slowly. “This didn’t start last night, Declan.”

“What do you mean?”