Part of me knows it’s time to get up and start the day, and the other part of me hopes that this is just another dream. Maybe it’s really Saturday. My head feels so heavy with sleepiness, I’m not sure I can lift it off the pillow. One eyelid tries to hoist itself up so I can see the clock on the nightstand. Just as the hands on the clock come into focus telling me that it’s six fifteen a.m., I feel a cold, wet nudge against my arm and I sense two eyes staring at me. How did she hear my eye open?

I finally manage to get both eyes open and I see that Sadie has her front legs on the bed, and she’s stretching her little body as far as she can. My dog, Sadie, has a black muzzle with some gray in it and brownish, red fur on the rest of her petite body. She has huge, pensive, brown eyes. Sadie practices yoga upon awakening. This morning her eyes seem to say I’ve gone outside and taken care of business myself, I did The Downward Facing Dog, and I’ve been waiting patiently since 6.00 a.m., so do you think you could please GET UP ALREADY? We need to see what’s going on out in the world. Come on, Alicia, carpe diem; let’s seize the day.

By now, Sadie’s brother, Mick, has joined the morning ritual. Mick and Sadie look almost exactly alike except that Mick is twice as big as Sadie. They both have thick fur and curly tails. I run my hand through Micky’s coat and in my fogginess I reach for my jeans, slide them on, throw on a tee shirt, then grab both leashes and we’re off. I love my morning walks with Mick and Sadie. I get to look at the glistening trees against the clear sky, while thinking about my day ahead. All three of us get exercise and walks assure Mick and Sadie that they are loved.

Our first stop is the big oak tree on the corner. When Mick and Sadie sniff each morning it’s like they’re getting the morning news. If I pull them away mid - sniff it would be like someone yanking a book out of my hand just as I get to the good part. I can almost see Sadie thinking, Hmmm, smells like the huge white poodle, has been by. Now Sadie runs over to get a whiff.

We go a few more yards when Sadie stops in her tracks for another sniff story. This one takes her a while to decipher. She sniffs more and more leading us further up the road. I think I know what’s going on in Mick and Sadies’ heads or I wonder if I’m superimposing my own thoughts onto them. I guess it doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that I know enough about dogs to know what they need each day. Suddenly, that cute puppy, Duke, approaches with the guy who acts like he’s walking a tiger. There is a huge choke chain around the cheerful little puppy, and he tugs him and shouts orders. “Sit. Stay. Heal,” he barks. Just as Duke is getting a good sniff and trying to greet us, the drill sergeant yanks the dog away and doesn’t let us visit. But Duke always seems hopeful that one day he’ll get to stop and play with us. Both Sadie and Mick look at me and it seems as though they are smiling and thinking… we love our life.

The three of us walk to Aroma Café. We love this place not only because the dogs are welcomed, but also the owner gives them fresh food. We enter the patio where bougainvillea is bursting with brilliant pink flowers. Mick and Sadie are popular here. People rush to greet the pups, “Hi, Mick. Hi, Sadie,” they chime in like a chorus. Finally, someone says, “Oh, hey, Alicia.”

Mick and Sadie love Aroma, because while I drink my berry juice, everyone dotes on them.

As I’m waiting for my fruity treat, trying to do some last minute math homework, a lady in a lime green rimmed hat stops us. The rim was so big, I thought a bird might sit on it.

“Oh what beeaautiful dogs you have,” she said, in very proper English. “What kind are they, love?”

“I really don’t know,” I tell her, “Maybe shepherd mixes. I found them in a park in New York City.” The lady’s lip purses and her forehead crinkles up, “Did you say you found them in New York City?” she says in disbelief.

“Yes, some lady threw them out of her car.”

Now the lady looked like she was going to fall over so she sat on a chair at our table, dabbing her lipstick. “Tell me everything,” she said dramatically, as she set her latte onto the table. Mick and Sadie hunker down and get comfortable, and it looks like they’re rolling their eyes, thinking…Uh boy, here she goes again, she’s going to tell this lady the whole doggoned story about us, and then she’ll be late for first period… again.

“Well, I was walking in a beautiful park not far from my house called Riverside Park. At the time I had another dog I had rescued from a junkyard in the Bronx. She was a Doberman boxer mix named Bula.”

“Please, tell me,” said the lady in the lime green hat in a stage whisper.

Riverside Park has tons of big trees on one side and a path on the other. It runs along the Hudson River, and when you are in it, you almost feel like you’re in the country, even though you’re in the city. This time of year, the park was especially gorgeous because there was a blanket of snow covering everything. Bula loved this park when it was snowing. She had short hair, so I would put a warm fleece coat on her so she could play and hang out in it. She got so excited watching the snow fly up in the air as she jumped in it. I would throw her snowballs and she seemed puzzled when she tried to catch them and they would fall apart in her mouth, unlike the firm toy balls she could hold in her muzzle. It was a perfect December day like many we had before.

Suddenly, I noticed two dogs running aimlessly through the snow. I looked around to see who they belonged to but there was nobody close by.

I stopped a lady who walked briskly and was bundled in a big orange parka and asked her, “Do you know who those dogs belong to?”

“I have no idea,” she said sharply and walked on. I stopped a man with a ski mask on. He looked like the guy in the ad for “Phantom of the Opera.”

“Excuse me sir, but do you know who those two dogs belong to?”

“I’m sorry,” he replied, “I’ve never seen them before.”

I started to worry, because nobody seemed to care about these stray dogs. The cold snapped at my face as I ran around trying to get people to stop long enough to answer my question. Everyone scurried to get home quickly, I guess because it was about to snow again, and also that’s how people tend to walk in New York City.

“Excuse me, excuse me, sorry to bother you but do you…” and before I could finish my sentence, a tall lady in a business suit said, “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

I couldn’t understand why people weren’t concerned. I looked back to where I had first seen them and they were gone.

I kicked the crusty top of the snow with the rubber sole of my boot, and fought back tears. One rolled down my face and I wondered if it would freeze en route to the ground.

I turned and looked everywhere. I ran here and there, spinning and looking and rubbing tears off my face with my mittens. Where could they go in this freezing cold? Were they lost? Did they run away from home? Why didn’t they have collars on?

It was starting to get dark and I knew my mother would be worried if Bula and I didn’t get home soon. There was nobody left in the park. I was straining and looking everywhere when, from a distance, I saw one last person.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the story so far. We are shopping for a publisher so we can’t put the entire book on-line yet. If we don’t have a commitment to have it published within six months, we’ll self-publish it and it will be available for you. Please check back so you can read the rest of it. It’s a wonderful story.

Thank you.