Susie is a white bulldog, and she has lived behind this convenience store ever since her human family set her out on the side of the road in front of it.  Susie was pregnant at the time; so she needed to find a safe place to sleep and to have her puppies.  She found an old metal cooler laying on its side in the woods behind the store and some old cloths behind the dumpster which she placed in the cooler.   It was a good place because it was safe and there was plenty of food in the trash bins.  Soon she had her puppies, well it was just one pup a white boy she named Buddy. Right after she had him while she was getting something to eat in the parking lot someone saw her, caught her and took her home with them; not realizing she was a new mother.

Farther up the road is an apartment complex, it is very large and therefore there was a caretaker couple that lived there to take care of all the appartments and the grounds.  John was a retired electrician

and his wife Jane was a retired school teacher; they were very nice and everyone loved them.  They had no children and about a year ago they took in a stray cat named Sadie and now she has kittens, three kittens to be exact and they are only a week old.  Sadie's little ones  were colorful; she had two almost twin boys named Mike and Max and one girl named Grace.   Sadie liked to walk up to the convenience store on weekends because there was always plenty of food laying around, and today is Saturday so off she went.

   While eating a leftover tuna sandwich she kept hearing a small cry so she slowly walked toward the cry and when she stepped into the bushes, there in a large box was a tiny white puppy a new baby couldn’t have been more than a day old, but it’s mother was nowhere around. Sadie figured the mother would be back soon so she left him there and went back to eating. Well it was getting late and close to time to feed her little ones so she started home when she realized the baby was still crying it’s mother still hadn’t showed up. Being a mother herself she couldn’t just leave him crying and if he didn’t eat soon he would die.

      So she walked back to the box and very carefully picked him up by the skin on the back of his neck and slowly carried him home (he was heavy to be so young). By the time she got him home her babies were crying as loud as he was. She placed him in the bed with hers and carefully crawled in with them and laid down, they all crawled to her and began eating even Buddy- he was just glad his mother was finally feeding him. So everyday Sadie took good care of her children and they played and slept together neither one noticed any difference.

      Soon they were old enough to go outside and she watched over them and taught them important stuff like where the best hiding places were, watching out for dogs and how to catch mice. As time went by the kids grew up and were weaned, they were a lot bigger, especially Buddy he was bigger than all his siblings, but they didn’t seem to care in fact they liked to use him as a ladder to get higher up although he didn’t like high places.  Buddy and the three kittens were playing outside one morning when all of a sudden they heard barking a dog was after them so they scattered to each ones favorite hiding place and stayed hid until they felt safe again, then all four meet up and talked about how scary that was. Buddy was so scared that he thought his heart would jump out of his chest, it was beating so hard.

They decided to go home for the rest of the day. The next day they went back outside and while playing a game of hide and pounce they ended up in a corner where two buildings connect, there was some bushes and flowers there- a great place to play they thought. Meanwhile a couple apartments above them Gina was going out to do her business and while making her rounds she spotted another dog; well it looked like a dog so she ran over to meet him. It was a small dog like her (only fatter), when she got closer she noticed the cats around him and she thought they were attacking him so she started barking and running toward them.

      Grace, Mike and Max all ran into a small hole where a vent use to be and hid but Buddy had gotten too big and didn’t fit so he ran into the bushes and laid down so no one could see him. Gina saw where he went so after making sure those mean cats were gone she walked right up to Buddy and said “Hi!” Buddy jumped up and yelped landed on his back with his feet in the air and froze, he was too afraid to move when she came closer and said “I’m Gina, what’s your name?” Buddy was too afraid to speak, she continued “I live up there (pointing with her paw)” “I seen those cats picking on you, are you okay?” Did they hurt you?”

    That upset Buddy so bad that he jumped up – well he rolled over and then jumped up and he began to fuss at her, he said “they are not mean cats, they are my siblings! You’re a bad dog coming over here barking and scaring us! Who do you think you are bulling us? We didn’t bother you!”

Gina was shocked, what did he mean by “his siblings” and calling her “a bad dog” she was trying to help him. Finally he calmed down and said “My name is Buddy and those three are my sister Grace, and my two brothers Mike and Max. Why were you chasing us?” Gina who was still shocked said “What do you mean your sister and brothers? You are a dog and they are cats!”