Rick and Ruddy: The Story of a Boy and His Dog

by Howard Roger Garis

"Oh, he really is my dog; isn't he?" exclaimed Rick in delight. "I always wanted a dog but I never thought I'd get one. Now I have! Yes, I'll study good and hard to-day!" he promised.

Ruddy did not take very kindly to being tied to the side of the box in which Rick had once kept some pet rabbits. At first the dog tried to pull loose from the soft rope about his neck, and follow Rick and Mazie, who soon went down the street together to school. But Ruddy knew what it was to be tied up, though not since the happy days of his early puppyhood had he so wanted to break away and follow the beloved boy-master as he wanted to follow now.

"Stay there! I'll come back soon!" called Rick, as he turned for a last look at his new pet.

"Yes, and I'll come, too!" added Mazie. "I can like your dog; can't I, Rick?" she asked.

"Sure!" answered her brother. "We'll both like him and he'll like us, and he won't bite you, Mazie."

"I'm not afraid," she said.

Ruddy pulled and tugged at the rope once or twice and then, giving a sad little howl and whine, as if saying he would make the best of it, he began to look about his new home.

The first thing Ruddy noticed was the rabbit smell—the smell of wild creatures—about his kennel. For though Rick's rabbits were tame, still they had had that smell of the wild, of the open fields and the thick woods—a smell that made Ruddy want to tear loose and go racing among the trees, scattering the dried leaves about. Ruddy had never hunted wild things, but, coming from a race of hunting dogs, the feeling was there in his blood. He whimpered and whined as he smelt about the cracks of the box. He was trying to understand where the rabbits had gone, for they were not in sight, though the smell remained.

Then, as Rick's mother came out with some pieces of carpet to make a bed for the puppy, and as she gave him a large bone on which to gnaw, Ruddy forgot about the rabbits for the time.

The bone interested him more. It was a large bone, with very little meat on it, and what there was took a deal of gnawing to get off. But that was good for Ruddy, whether he knew it or not, for it made his teeth stronger. The more a dog gnaws the better his teeth become, and a dog's teeth are the only weapons he has. A cat has claws and also teeth, but a dog's claws are of scarcely any use to drive away anything that attacks him. He has only his teeth.