Free Buddy by Ellen Miles

CHAPTER ONE
    Lizzie Peterson pushed open the door of Caring Paws, the animal shelter where she volunteered.
    “Lizzie! Is it already three o’clock?” The director, Ms. Dobbins, looked tired and distracted. “We have been so busy here today!”
    “Actually, it’s only two-thirty,” Lizzie said. “I’m a little early.” She wrote her name on the volunteer sign-in sheet and checked the wipe-off board for new names. “Who’s Skipper?” she asked when she saw the name written in red, the color for dogs. “And what does that mean, Skipper and Company?”
    It was always exciting when a new animal arrived at the shelter. Maybe one of the new dogs would be her family’s next foster puppy! Lizziehad been volunteering at Caring Paws for two months. She came every Saturday afternoon. She loved being around all the dogs and cats and the people who cared for them.
    Caring Paws was a place for animals that needed homes. Some were strays who had been found on country roads or in parking lots. The shelter staff tried hard to find their owners. Other cats or dogs had been abandoned, left near a farm or on someone’s porch. And some were beloved pets that the owners had to give up.
    Ms. Dobbins did her best to help find the perfect home for every animal that came to Caring Paws. But while they waited to find their forever families, the animals needed exercise, love, and care. That was where the volunteers came in. There was always work to do: answering the phone, cleaning cages, feeding animals, giving them baths. Because Lizzie was only in fourth grade, she didn’t do any of those jobs. She got to do the best job of all: exercising the dogs!
    Lizzie was crazy about dogs. She loved to play with them, read about them, make up stories about them, and learn everything she could about them. She and her younger brother Charles wanted their own dog more than anything, and they had been bugging their parents about it for years. Lizzie’s dad loved dogs, too — but Mom was more of a cat person. So far, both parents agreed that the family was not ready for a fulltime dog.
    That was partly because of Lizzie’s other brother, the Bean. (His real name was Adam, but nobody ever called him that.) He was just a toddler, and keeping him out of trouble took up a lot of everyone’s energy. The funny thing was that the Bean loved dogs, too. He loved them so much that he liked to pretend he
was
one. He crawled around during mealtimes, barked at visitors, and played with dog toys more than kid toys.
    “The Bean is enough dog for now,” Mom alwayssaid. She liked to point out that the Bean did not shed fur all over the place, make messes, or chew up their shoes, the way a real dog would.
    For now, Lizzie and Charles had to be happy with part-time puppies. The Petersons had become a foster family, taking care of puppies until the perfect home could be found for each one. So far, they had fostered four different puppies.
    Goldie, the first puppy, was a happy golden retriever who had belonged to a family whose house had burned down. Mr. Peterson was a fireman, and he brought her home after putting out the fire. Goldie ended up living next door with Sammy, Charles’s best friend. She was the perfect pal for Sammy’s older dog, Rufus.
    The next pup was Snowball, a fluffy little West Highland white terrier. He had a lot of energy and a big, big personality. The Petersons found Snowball an excellent home with a nice lady named Mrs. Peabody.
    Shadow, the serious black Lab puppy, camenext. With help from Maria, her new best friend, Lizzie found him a home with a family that would train him to be a guide dog for a blind person.
    Then there was Rascal, the wild child. He was an energetic Jack Russell terrier who could
not
learn to behave well enough to live with a regular family in a regular house. Rascal had ended up living at a riding stable, where he didn’t need to have “indoor manners.” It was the perfect home for a rascally dog.
    Lizzie,