My mother named me Poosh. I was born on one of the corners of the street in our town, it was raining and as far as I could remember. I had 2 more siblings but my memories were quite hazy when I was born, I never saw them when the light began shining in my eyes. It was like an illusion and so I believed that I was raised alone.

During my early days, I was blind, mother's smell was the only thing that I could follow. As soon as I found her she would guide me to her breast using her snout. She would let me suckle her breast until I was full, she would kindle me with her tongue and I would spend the whole day lying with her in the shadows of a broad wall hidden in an alley.

Every after few days, she would leave me alone and come back after a few hours. I would cry and cry while she was gone, and she would kindle me again with her tongue when she returned. I could never get used to her leaving me alone, never even understood why she did that.

Time passed quickly as I grew accustomed to the cycle of my life, all I knew was that I was already walking with my mom on the streets. She was teaching me some things. She said it was the law of the streets. Never cross the highways anytime, never steal anything even if you are hungry or not, never go near marked places or mark them, and finally always keep wary of humans, especially big ones.

We were walking down the slums and I whined that it did not smell nice. I could tell that this was a bad place to be, just by the look on my mother's face as we walked around. She was looking for food, from trashcans and plastic bags around the place.

After having our fill, we were about to leave the place when my mother saw something. It was a puppy like me and some humans. The humans were throwing rocks and some things at the puppy, I could see that he was screaming loud and running around the place.

In no time at all my mother raged, she barked loudly at the small humans and ran into them chasing them away, he took the puppy whose left hind leg was a little bit wounded by one of the rocks, and upon knowing that he was in safety he quickly fainted. My mother called him Rocky.

In a few days when he was already well, he started playing with me, we ran around the neighborhood around the wall where I was born, he gets tired easily, mother said it was because he has a weak heart. The dark corner of the street away from anyone's eyes was heaven for us, for the 3 of us, it seemed to be that it was the safest place in the world, we could jump and bite any junk that was thrown in there and no one would care.

Every day we could find new things.

We were looking at something my mother called a mirror, and we could see ourselves, it seemed that Rocky had some weird spots and I was all dark and with some gray spots the same as my mother. We now stay inside a cardboard, marked with our scents, my mother brought this one day and we really made it into our home.

It was a routine for us to play for the whole day. Waking up when mother was already gone, annoying each other as much as possible. We were all on our own while my mother would go around looking for food in the neighborhood, she would bring meat, fish, and our favorite... bones.

Rocky particularly had a crazy notion of rocking his head when he was holding the bone in his mouth. I would always try to pull it from him but he was really strong!

Sometimes a small human would drift and walk around our place. As our mother told us, we should hide whenever this happens but Rocky would bark and would always try to bite the small human.

If I had not been there, he would have already bitten one which mother forbids us to do.

As time passed, Mother walked us out of the cornered wall and she started teaching us where to pee or poop. She told us that we should do it in places where there was dirt since we would be covering it with it.

Then she told us about cats, they didn't like us, and we often try to evade places where there are cat scents. On rainy days we would go back to the same corner where I was born and take shelter on boxes together with our mother, she would lick and pull us closer... though the feeling of cold streamed into my skin, her warmth to me in contrast was my heaven.

Once she told us that she was once in her life a pet of a big human, the big human called her Shalla, it was one of the first things she understood while she was living with them, humans loved naming us when we stayed in their packed, it was the same reason she named the two of us. She was taught many things.

One day... it was a very sunny day and my mother left us to get some food, she said that she would be back around after the shadows on the walls disappeared. We waited for her return that day.

But even after the shadow was gone.... even after it returned... she did not come back. We waited for more but Rocky was starting to shake, he was getting hungry... I had to walk out of the wall, out of that safe corner to find food.

While walking to places familiar to me, a scent touched my nose and with a little mix of something odd. It was my mother's scent. I followed it down to a nearby creek and into the stream. What I found was my mother, oozing with red liquid lying on top of junk. Flies were already flying around her, feasting on her flesh.

I almost vomited, I cried and called her, but it seemed that some small humans heard me, they came to me, they started throwing rocks, I started running but they would always catch up and block my path. My legs were too short to outrun them.