The Story of Luna

Once upon a long hot summer, there was a sweet little mutt named Luna. Luna was a little fluffy puppy. Some people came and bought her at a yard sale for $5 and gave her to some children when she was about 3 months old. They told her that she was very cute and petted her a lot for about a week.

But just as they tired of their toys and left them strewn across the yard forgotten, the children soon grew tired of Luna as well and tied her up in a small pen in the back yard with a barrel turned on its side for a house and left her there. They stopped petting her, and when the leaves started falling from the trees, the kids went back to school and left her alone all day without even anything to watch. Sometimes they forgot to feed her too. Sometimes, she didn't have any water in her bowl unless it rained. But she still loved them and hoped they'd come over to play with her every time they went outside. And everytime they went outside, they ignored her and left her there alone as it grew colder and colder. She spent more and more time in her barrel, hiding from the snow, trying to stay warm.

Then one day, the people started packing things in boxes and putting them in a big moving truck. They took everything away, including the toys from the yard and the Christmas lights from the front porch. But little Luna, who was not so little anymore, they left behind in the pen alone.

For three days and nights, she stayed alone in the pen in the cold, wondering when they'd come back. She had no food. She had no water. She had no shelter except for her barrel. She was all alone.

Finally, she became very frightened and hungry, so she wiggled and squirmed her way out of the collar they'd put on her and then dug her way out of the pen in search of food and water. She ate some bugs and found some old rotten corn in a field nearby that she ate too. It gave her a tummyache, but she was so hungry, she ate it anyway.

That evening, a man saw her in that field all alone, and she went to him, hoping he would be nice to her. He reached down to pet her and could feel all of her bones. She was fragile like a baby bird and so very tired. But her tail wagged happily as he stroked her fur, and he gave her some water at his back door. The man had four dogs of his own in a large yard who looked very friendly, but the man knew he could not keep little Luna for his own. He worried and fretted. And then he called a friend for advice.

That friend came right over to the house. Luna came up and licked the woman's hand, and the woman almost cried. Luna had been treated so badly and yet was still so sweet and loving. So the woman gently lifted Luna into her car and drove her home to live with her other two dogs.

Luna was so happy! She had someone to feed her and pet her and talk to her and she had friends to play with and a big yard for running in. Sometimes she got in trouble because she didn't know the rules since she'd never been around people or learned their ways. She also had to be taught how to play with toys because she'd never had any before. She had to learn that there would be food every day, so she didn't have to hide the food bowl or growl at the other dogs to stay away anymore. But Luna was smart and wanted to make the woman happy. She tried very hard to do what she was told, and she got along well with the other dogs. And after that, though they never found the first family to make them understand that what they'd done was wrong, she recovered well and lived happily ever after with her new family. The End.