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Jerry was a pitbull with pink skin and tufts of white hair. His little cropped ears were still red with some crusty scabs on them, but his cloudy eyes stared in the direction of Bwat’s voice, and his entire body vibrated with happiness.

“He’s an old guy,” I commented. “Poor thing. Will he ever be adopted?”

“He will,” Bwat vowed.

I had my doubts. Old with skin and ear issues. Probably blind and almost deaf. I had a soft spot for pitbulls, but not everyone did and the shelters around here were filled with them. Potential adopters who were fond of the breed had plenty of healthy and younger dogs to choose from. I feared that Jerry would spend the rest of his life in the shelter.

“We have adopters who specifically request older dogs and cats,” Bwat assured me. “They know that older animals come with some health issues. And Jerry will only require some inexpensive medication once his skin is cleared of this problem.”

“I hope so.” I reached through the bars to let the dog sniff me, then scratched his fuzz-covered cheek as he pushed his face into my hand.

“This is one of my favorites.” Bwat whispered as he moved on to the next cage, looking around as if he didn’t want the other dogs to overhear. “Spartacus.”

I barely held back a snort-laugh. “Spartacus” was a tiny Yorkshire Terrier mix whose tongue protruded due to missing teeth. He’d been shaved except for his head and a ruff of fur around his neck, so he looked like a tiny, toothless lion.

And he was as fierce as a lion. Spartacus charged the door of his cage, barking and snapping his gums and telling me that he would absolutely kill me if only this metal fence was not in the way.

Undeterred, Bwat opened the door and scooped up the little terror, who snarled and attempted to bite the orc’s arm. Then he sniffed, froze for a second, and went into a frenzy of joy. Suddenly the dog was licking the arm he’d just tried to bite, whining and pressing his body against Bwat’s chest.

And thankfully, I’d gotten it all on video. Bwat, the Yorkie Whisperer.

“Spartacus arrived with twenty other little dogs like him,” Bwat said. “The shelter was able to find foster homes for ten, and five were adopted while I was gone. There are five that still need to find their humans, including this small warrior.”

“You should adopt him. He clearly loves you.” And just with Jerry, I feared no one else would be coming for a toothless, shaved Yorkie with an attitude problem.

“Who would take care of him when I travel with the team?” Bwat asked. “The owner told me I could not bring an animal companion with me on the bus to our away games.”

“Maybe one of the volunteers at the shelter can pet sit for you. Lots of people do that, especially if they can stay in your house while you’re gone. I did pet sitting for a bit when I was in college. It was good money and I got to stay in homes that were a whole lot more luxurious than my college dorm.” I reached out to pet Spartacus, then withdrew my hand when the dog fixed me with a glare.

“Spartacus does not like all humans, or probably all orcs. It would be terrible if he chased my pet sitter away and I was away for a week. It would be better if he had a loving home with a human–one who didn’t travel.” Bwat stroked the animal’s head and Spartacus’s little tongue curled up to lick his palm.

“I’m not sure he’d find anyone else to love him.” I kept taking pictures because a giant, muscular orc being affectionate to a tiny fierce dog was just golden.

“Everyone can find someone to love them,” Bwat insisted. “Humans, orcs, dogs. Love is there, if someone is brave enough to reach out and take the chance. And Spartacus is a brave dog.”

The yorkie’s bravery wasn’t in question, it was the likelihood that he’d bite love in the face rather than embrace it. I still felt Bwat was the dog’s only chance at a life outside the shelter, but I understood his reluctance to adopt a pet. I didn’t have a dog for the same reason. My work was all consuming, and the times when I wasn’t working, I was with my friends or my mother. A dog wouldn’t thrive of the little scraps I had left to give him or her.

And that fact bothered me more than it should have. Growing up I’d pestered my mother for a dog, and she’d refused. As an adult, I could look back and see that I hadn’t been responsible enough to take care of a pet, and my mother certainly didn’t have the time working multiple jobs. Plus our housing situation had been very unstable, even though Mom had managed to keep that fact from me at the time. It would have devastated me to have to give up a beloved pet because we’d needed to move to a no-pet apartment or even live in Mom’s car for a few months.

Bwat introduced me to a Bernese Mountain Dog he’d named Cake and half-a-dozen poodles that the shelter was holding pending the outcome of animal cruelty investigation, then three puppies of indeterminate lineage that had been surrendered over the weekend.

Maybe I should get a cat, I thought. Jordan worked crazy hours and had a cat, but then again, Jordan never went on vacation where she’d require a cat sitter. The longest she’d been away was for a three-day dental conference in Vegas. I hadn’t been on a vacation in a long time, but it was something I really wanted to start making regular time for. Bwat’s talk of travel, exploration, and cultural experience had me yearning to do the same. Would that be fair to a pet? People took vacations all the time and boarded their pets, or sometimes even went with them. From what I knew about cats, they didn’t seem as if they’d like to travel, but a dog? A small dog that could fit in a carrier under an airline seat?

I wasn’t home much aside from sleep, but maybe I’d spend more time in my apartment if I had a pet there to keep me company. I could work from home some days.

When I briefly imagined what that would look like, I envisioned a condo with a beautiful view over the harbor, a home office, light jazz in the background, a small dog curled up by my feet…an oddly enough, Bwat sitting on the couch, typing away on a laptop then glancing up to meet my gaze with a warm smile.

26

BWAT

After our visit with the animals, Abby allowed me to buy her small, spicy meat pies from a food truck. We went back to the arena even though it was dark and everyone else would be gone. Abby said she needed to finish up some things at work, and I claimed the same although I really didn’t want her to be in the giant building with no one else but the security guard. Without anything to occupy my time, I strapped on my skates and took to the ice.

I’d posted some videos and pictures earlier of our grueling morning workout, but none of our skating workout. Alone on the ice with no one to yell at me to pay attention, I took out my phone and began to film short clips of my skates as I tried to go around the ring as fast as possible. It turned out to be a whole lot of me skating a few feet then falling since I couldn’t manage to film my feet and focus on moving forward at the same time. Ozar was clearly right with his insistence on paying attention and not looking at my feet, or up in the stands for Abby wondering what she might be doing.

Thinking of a better way to achieve this video, I propped my phone up against a ledge, angled it appropriately, then filmed twenty minutes of me skating back and forth past the camera. When I reviewed the video, it seemed rather boring, so I chopped it up into only the clips of me passing in front of the camera. Hitting save, I accidentally pushed the button to speed the images up, resulting in a video of me skating as if I were a bolt of lightning. I added a caption warning our future opponents that I was ready to beat them on the ice. Setting it all to a random selection of music, I posted the video, then went to check the huge number of comments and messages that had piled up since this morning.

There were many wide-eyed emojis to the video of us with the chains along with lots of what I’d realized were called “stitches” of human females drinking beverages in a split screen with us working out. Others showed us with the chains, then an attached video of a human doing the same motions with a ribbon or a thin piece of rope tied to a doorknob or bedpost. I gave all of them a heart and replied to as many comments as I could.