Due to the response from a few individuals stating that this was the hottest story they've read in a while (when it comes to Zoo stories), I decided to try to continue on in this endeavor. I hope that this story lives up to the precedent set by "Calypso". Although this story is a little more somber than Calypso and doesn't contain as hot-and-heavy a sex scene as Calypso, this story tells what one dog can do for another, among other things. Enjoy.

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This is the story of how Cricket came into my life. Cricket is the sweetest dogs I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, let alone owning, however, the way we met left more than something to be desired, but as you will see, everything worked out in the end.

I suppose it all started when I was going to visit a friend of mine in a nearby city, which is about 30 miles from where I live. From time to time, I take one or two of my dogs along with my on my car rides when I go someplace that they can enjoy. It really helps being semi-retired and fairly well-off (financially) to be able to spend significant amounts of time with my furry friends.

On this particular day, the weather was turning colder (for the northern Midwest, fall) after a decent rainfall during the day. Luckily, most of my dogs like to spend rainy days indoors with me enjoying simple pleasures: snoozing at my feet in front of the TV, patiently watching the sunset on the porch, gentle petting while they relax on my lap. A couple of them enjoy being outdoors in the rain, but then I have to clean them off before I can allow them in the majority of the house. This was the case with my male Rottweiler, Bud. His registered name is Capt. Heimlich das Teufel (Heimlich the Devil) but Buddy or Bud is what he responds to. Also my male German Shepherd, Max, is the same way, so neither of them could come with me on my short trip. Little Girl, an Arctic mix, loves jumping fences so she couldn't come, which just left Calypso. Now, after reading the first story about Calypso and I, you will be saying "You said you have 6 dogs, so where are the other two?" Well, this is the story of how those two dogs came into my life.

After making sure that Calypso was ready to take the trip with me, I locked the back door to the house and we made our way to the car, with Bud and Max following closely, wanting to go as well. Now, I'm not a neat freak or anything like that, but two large, kinda muddy dogs and one clean one stuffed with my into my Chevette hatchback would be a bit much for any trip. Max and Bud were sad to be left behind as I closed the gate separating the yard with the driveway where the car was parked, but they obeyed and perked up when I said that I might bring something back for them. Little did I know how right I would become.

At this point, you must understand something. I live in a rather rural area of the northern Midwest and there tends to be a fair amount of litter along the roads and highways through our state, much to the chagrin of the environmentalists. We do have "adopt a highway" programs that cut down on some of it, but there's still much more than could be picked up in anyone's lifetime. As we were traveling along the state highway to my friend's place, Calypso was laying curled on the back of the front seat as was her habit when traveling alone with me. "Back of the front seat, what was she doing, balancing or something?" Nope, I usually have the seat fully forward on the track and completely reclined so the dogs can have an extended area between the front and rear seats for them to lay on when I'm traveling with more than one animal in the car. The only exception is when Little Girl, Max or Bud get a little too wild, then I raise the seat and keep them only in the back of the car. Driving a Chevette, it would be way too easy to get seriously injured in an accident, seeing that any other vehicle (except for maybe a Geo or a Ford Festiva) would be significantly larger than mine.

Anyway, we were traveling along, me watching the road and noticing that the ditches were pretty full of standing and running water from the rainfall earlier, when Calypso leapt up and started whining loudly, staring out the window. Thinking she had to do her business, I stopped the car, opened the door and was about to put her on her leash when she darted past me and ran a couple of hundred feet back down the road to a sack which was mostly in the running water. With me running after her, she grabbed the burlap sack (which I thought was unusual, since I hadn't seen one of them in years) and began pulling it from the ditch. At the immediate moment I was kinda pissed at her for running off by a highway like that, being afraid that she might get injured by making a habit of it, but when I saw what she was doing I got really curious. What the hell did she want with a sack that was probably full of rubbish? When I got to where she was, I finished pulling the bulky and somewhat heavy waterlogged sack from the water while Calypso stood next to me, impatiently shifting her weight from leg to leg, anxious for me to finish.

Once the sack was out of the water, I opened it too see what kind of junk she ran back for, and to my surprise, there was a cold, shaking, frightened, half drowned, dog in the sack! Holy shit! If Calypso wouldn't have gone nuts in the car, everyone would have missed it and it would have drowned in the rising water draining from the nearby fields!

Quickly I carried it to the car, sack and all. Opening the back door, I laid a blanket out on the back seat and sluffed the dog out of the sack onto the blanket. And what a dog she was, too! A beautiful rotund golden-colored Yellow Lab bitch! Who in their right mind would throw away (literally) a dog like this?!? What assholes!

Moving rather swiftly, I checked her for broken bones and other problems that she might have. When I felt her abdomen, I realized the reason she was so wide: She was pregnant and soon to have a litter of pups! No wonder someone wanted to get rid of her, they didn't want to take care of little ones, so they figured that the dog was more disposable than their time and money! Now I knew that they were truly assholes, whoever they were!

During my examination, the dog was shivering uncontrollably and nervously glancing at me, but looking away whenever I looked at her face. When I was done, she practically leapt to the far corner where the back seat and front seat met and sort of cowered there. I patiently covered and wrapped her in a different blanket covering the torn seat, so she could warm up. Calypso leapt in and laid down next to the Lab, curling as close as she could. I quickly shut the door, jumped in my seat and took off, turning the heater on full blast to help the Lab to try to warm up.

Knowing that the Lab was in no immediate medical danger, I quickly continued on my trip to my friend's place. Frequently, I glanced back over my shoulder to look at the Lab, but whenever I did, she would look away from me, afraid. "What did you just get yourself into?" I though to myself. "You already have too many dogs for the neighbors' taste and you're already at the legal limit for where you live!"

"Aw, fuck it!" I said out loud, and decided that it was for the best for me to have rescued her from an uncertain fate.

Soon we made it to my friend's house and I opened the door to let Calypso out of the car. Strangely, instead of dashing to greet my friend, she remained laying there with the Lab on the seat of the car. I climbed in and petted the head of the Lab, who jerked away from the initial physical contact, even though she was in no trouble. Obviously she'd been beat or something that she would fear humans so much. She cautiously let me pet her, still avoiding my gaze and shivering at my touch. I carried her inside and Calypso calmly followed.

Once inside, Patsy gave me one of her towels to dry the Lab off with, and we re-bundled her in a special black sheet and placed her in front of the wood stove to get warm. Again, Calypso curled up with her, this time wrapping her massive frame around behind the Lab, warming her backside.

I quickly concluded my business in town and shortened my visit with Patsy. By that time the Lab was dried off an moving around a bit, investigating her surroundings. When I was ready to go, I carried her to the car with Calypso following close behind. On the way home they cuddled in the back seat as before, giving me no trouble whatsoever.

Upon arrival back home, the other dogs sensed something different and were extremely excited, bouncing against the gate and surrounding fencing. When I carried the Lab, which I started calling Cricket, into the house, all of them tried to follow. I let them in with me, as was usual in the household, and proceeded to the couch and lay Cricket down there. Max and Bud cam over to investigate and Cricket started to stand, growling at them. Not wanting a fight between them and the disoriented Cricket, I told Max and Bud to go outside, which they did, without question. That in itself was kind of different, because they usually want to hang around me and usually enthusiastically greet (read that as knock down and slobber over) all visitors, human and animal alike. Little Girl cautiously came over for a sniff and Cricket looked at her and Little Girl left too. I guess she understood that Cricket didn't want her around either.

After taking care of a few other things at home, I returned to Cricket to greet her properly. When I approached her, she cowered again and looked away. Judging from this continued behavior, she must have been beaten or something by her former owner, probably a man. Being a thoughtful person, I placed an ad in the local paper the she was found, but no one answered the ad. Just as I had expected, confirming my low opinion of society.

A few days passed, with me sleeping on the floor with Cricket and Calypso in the spare bedroom. I had prevented the other dogs from coming in there spare to allow Cricket her own space. Through the course of two weeks, she grew more accustomed to my presence and at times actually seemed to appreciate it. Towards the end of that time, I had invited Patsy to stay over at my house to help me by watching Cricket when I wasn't there and to help with the whelping of the pups.

The decision seemed to be perfectly timed, for it wasn't but two days after Patsy came over that Cricket started nesting and in a few of hours she had given birth to a litter of 11 perfect puppies, and one not-so-perfect. The one pup was born without two legs and probably missing some internal organs as well. He lived only 1/2 an hour, which made the happy occasion a slightly sad one. It was probably as well that the pup hadn't lived, for he wouldn't have survived the night anyway, not with all his siblings milling around like they were. There were 4 female pups and 7 males, making it a pretty well-rounded litter.

Cricket seemed to be a good mother, but due to her small size, she probably got knocked up at her first heat and never really got a chance to grow up herself. She took care of the pups with fervor and soon we had 11 little shitters running all around the room. Thankfully, when they put carpet in the house in the early '50s (the house was originally built in the 1890s) they didn't secure it whatsoever and also oversewed the carpet edges to prevent unraveling. To prevent any problems with the pups, I removed all the furniture from the room (to remove the carpet), rolled the carpet up, and moved it to another room before Cricket whelped. I do love pups dearly, but I don't have the patience to housetrain them. That's one of my foibles, that's all. Patsy, on the other hand, was very patient and by the end of the second month the pups were on a regular schedule of going in and out at specific times (about every two hours during the day). Cricket remained relatively isolated from the rest of the dogs, save Calypso and infrequent visits from Little Girl.

During this time, I continued my sexual activities with the other dogs (and Patsy as well, since she was there) but kept such activities out of sight of Cricket, not wanting to disturb her back into her complete fright of men. Calypso was out of heat at that time so we weren't making too much commotion in the adjoining bedroom. Thankfully, the walls are plaster so there is very little sound that can permeate into other areas of the house, including the other bedroom. When Little Girl came into heat about two months after Cricket whelped, a little more commotion was occurring than usual.