Free Saving Gracie by Carol Bradley

could share one kennel. The Havanese could bunk with one of the Cavaliers. That left eight more Cavs, and it occurred to Bair that if she separated them by color—if she put a tricolor and a chestnut and white Blenheim in each three-by-three-foot kennel—it would be easier to tell them apart.
    She had to admit, the thought of caring for a dozen new dogs at once was a little overwhelming. Bair knew something about English Bulldogs, but next to nothing about Havanese and Cavaliers. They were considered toy breeds, and when it came time for the Toy Group to trot around the ring at the Westminster Kennel Club Show, well, that’s when she turned off the TV, got up off the couch, and went to do the laundry. “Toy” dogs weren’t real dogs, as far as she was concerned.
    Bair could see that one of the Blenheim Cavaliers was close to giving birth. Despite her distended belly, the dog looked puny and seemed overcome with fatigue. One of the mostly black and white Cavaliers, number 132, was also smaller and more sickly looking than the rest. She must have had a litter recently—her mammary glands practically swept the ground. Bair especially wanted to keep an eye on that one. She assigned the pregnant dog the kennel on the end, closest to the aisle, and the black and white dog the second kennel from the end—the dogs would be easier to see there, even from a distance.
    McGlory gently lowered the crate containing Dog 132 onto the cement floor, unlatched the door, removed the foul-smelling creature, and set her down in her new home. Folded neatly and tucked into one corner of the kennel was a faded pink blanket, Bair’s favorite color. In the far corner sat a bowl of clean water.
    After years of living on a hard wire floor, her paws raw from being splayed out, the solid feel of the cool cement floors must have felt strange but good to the little dog. Outwardly, though, the Cavalier registered nothing; she stood motionless. Minutes later, McGlory delivered her roommate: a Blenheim Cavalier, another female. If Dog 132 recognized the other dog, she didn’t show it; she ignored the Blenheim, and the Blenheim ignored her. “Oh, great,” thought Bair, “now there are two dogs standing side by side like statues.”
    She shook her head. The Bulldogs and the Havanese would be easy enough to bond with, but the Cavaliers were going to be high maintenance. She just knew it.
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    Even the best-intentioned shelters can be dimly lit, smelly, and raucous—light years better than a puppy mill, certainly, but a far cry from a real home. But if most shelters could be likened to a Motel 6, the Berks County Rescue League shelter was more along the lines of a Marriott. It sat on ten acres of lush, wooded grounds crisscrossed with tree-lined walking paths. In addition to the kennels and a crematorium, the main building offered a grooming room and a surgical suite. Outside, a small barn housed a rotating parade of horses, llamas, and other large animals. On a grassy spot halfway up a bank sat a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, and next to it was a saying of Assisi’s that had been carved into stone: “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.” It was a gentle reminder that any animal brought there deserved to be treated with respect.
    The timing of the rescue was fortuitous. It was February, the off-season for the rescue league’s boarding business. As a result, that wing of the shelter was only half full, giving Bair and her associates extra time to devote to the puppy mill survivors. It was obvious the dogs were going to need as much as attention as the staff was able to give.
    The Berks County shelter usually dealt with lost or abandoned dogs, or dogs whose owners no longer wanted them. Either the dogs had grown too old and feeble, or they didn’t get along with the family’s new