Until then…
“I’m going to get him better,” I declared.
A week later, we were no better than when we started.
Well, mostly.
I could get him out of his kennel. I could get him to eat. I could get him to drink.
But I could not get close to him while he did any of those things.
I could not trust him with other people besides myself. Though Gentry was able to get close to him. Just not touch him.
He hadn’t threatened to bite me yet, but he was scared to death of me nonetheless.
It made me feel awful.
I should’ve been able to save him.
Yet, there I was, trying to talk to him and get him to tolerate me enough to come home.
“He can stay here however long he wants,” Holly assured me. “He has this nice little kennel area. You don’t have to pay us. We just want him to get better.”
I looked at Holly and smiled, though it didn’t reach my eyes.
“Tell it to me straight,” I said, tearing the rawhide into strips. “Do you think he can get better? Do you think that he’ll ever get to the point where he can be around other people without attacking?”
She thought about that for a long moment before she said, “I think that he’s shown remarkable change in just a week. I think that, given enough time and incentive, he’ll learn to be more than okay with you. And probably Gentry. What I do not think he’ll ever be able to do is trust other people.”
My head ached.
“That’s fine and good for now, but he has to be able to go to the vet. And I have to be able to take him outside. He can’t stay cooped up in my trailer all day or he’ll go mad.”
“Gentry has a fenced-in yard, and a large house that you could take him,” Holly suggested. “I also think that this kennel he’s in isn’t the best thing after he’s been held in it as a punishment while he was at that dog fighting ring. I think that it would do him a world of good if he could go out and be in a space that wasn’t concrete floors and chain-link fence.”
That was the same thought I had.
Only, minus the bringing Gentry into it part.
My stomach was in knots as I walked closer to the kennel where Neo was staying in the very corner of the large room.
Neo looked up at me and stared.
He didn’t snarl, but he definitely wasn’t welcoming, either.
His tail didn’t thump in happiness once.
What I wouldn’t do to see his tail wag for me one more time.
“I would recommend a muzzle if you’re out in public,” Holly said. “They’re not always a bad thing. They can be both a comfort and a safeguard for others and Neo. He gets to be out of that kennel, but he also has to be safe. If he bites another person, Sage…”
I didn’t need to be told what would happen.
I knew.
“Get him outside, get him to go on walks. Hell, bring him to the search and rescue meeting to get him some socialization without the pressure,” she said. “You’re going to that, right?”
I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten roped into it.