And when when we're all together - there's nothing to fear
~This is Where I Belong, Bryan Adams

As it turned out?

Uncle reeked something fierce.

And she wasn't being dramatic when she said that he smelled as though he'd shat his pants before rolling around atop a rotting skunk, then eating a dinner consisting solely of a barrel of onions. And, oh, you can't forget the booze. So add a keg of booze with that.

He had her eyes watering and her stomach heaving.

Unfortunately, it was because of him that she discovered that she had the sense of smell of a dog, not just the nose, although she supposed she should have known that already, but when you're half-dead you're rather occupied with other things, aren't you?

Thankfully, it seemed that she had kept her human eyesight. Normally, that would have been a very bad thing, considering that she was near-blind without her glasses, but it seemed that her eyesight was as good as it got while she wore her glasses, nowhere near a dog's eyesight. At least, she assumed so—she'd seen those photos where people had overlaid what a dog would see, and things didn't seem blurry or washed out, but who knows how accurate they really are?

It took her days to grow nose-blind to Uncle's stench. Sadly, she spent a great deal of time in close-quarters to him, seeing as the shack provided the best shade on the ranch, and she wasn't much one for baking in the heat, especially seeing as she was still recovering. So they often found themselves sitting in the shade together, watching with no small amount of amusement as John hauled rocks around in that wheelbarrow of his, laughing at his rather creative cursing on the frequent occasions that rocks fell on his foot. She'd have helped him, really, she would have, but he hadn't asked her to, hadn't even seemed to consider it, and what could she do besides pick up and move a single rock at a time? Even if he did manage to figure out a way to hitch her to the wheelbarrow, she didn't think she could have hauled it, she was still so weak and fatigued from days in the sun, and while she was slowly building her strength up on the scraps from his meals and whatever Uncle tossed her way (she wasn't dumb enough, though, to drink the beer he thought it was funny to pour into her bowl; she's dumb, not stupid). He'd been quick to declare her his 'new favorite drinking buddy', giving her a nice thump on the back that had knocked the breath from her lungs and left her wheezing, seeming to think that she was like him, a lazy lay-about who did nothing but eat and drink all day.

Night quickly became her favorite time of day, she'd admit. While day burned with the sun, once it set the temperature dropped dramatically, and she felt as though she came to life, energy thrumming in her veins and the sluggishness of the day shed from her as though little more than fur. John had quickly discovered it, forgetting to grab his satchel before sitting down only to find her standing there holding it, and he'd nearly flipped shit when she'd initiated a game of keep-away (although he had, eventually, started to laugh after tripping over a rock and face-planting to the ground). He'd taken to amusing himself by throwing his scraps at her as he sat by the campfire and watching as she tried-and failed, badly-to catch them.

It was pretty fun. She was too large, too bulky, to twist and jump and catch them in mid-air, but that didn't stop her from trying. It let her test her awkward new body, try its limits and see what it could do. No matter how hard she tried she always ended up crashing to the ground on her side but, well, it was the thought that counted, right? Besides! By the end of the week she was landing on her paws almost a quarter of the time, so, progress!

And Uncle was particularly proud of himself for 'teaching' her to fetch him a beer. Not that any of them were actually teaching her anything, of course. She could understand every word they said (most of the time, at least, sometimes they drawled something awful and she could only wonder if they were having a stroke, or they used a phrase or saying that had died out before her time), but watching him get frustrated trying to figure out the words would make her magically understand what he wanted was hysterically.

His face when John had called to Uncle to 'pass me a beer' across the campfire, and she'd gotten up, trotted over, grabbed one and brought it to him? Even funnier. John had definitely agreed, laughing so hard he'd stopped making sound, while Uncle had looked baffled, vaguely offended, and somewhat constipated.

She'd always been rather lazy, and probably would have told him to get it himself Before, but it benefited her, too. It was easy to forget just how strong a dog's jaw is, how strong a dog is period! until you are one, and she needed to work on controlling her strength, on controlling her everything, really, including her fine motor skills. So getting only a single beer (a fragile glass bottle) out of a bunch and carrying it without breaking it? Surprisingly hard, but she managed to do it and considered it a job well done.

'They can smell fear just by lookin' atcha.'

'Don't panic, they can smell fear.'

How many times have you heard that? Maybe not those exact words, but most people are told 'they can smell fear' or 'they can sense fear' at some point in their lives. Maybe when getting on a horse, or when working with dogs, working with children or even just on TV.

Well, which one is it? Can 'they', whatever the 'they' you're talking about is, smell fear? Or can they sense it?

In all honesty, she'd always thought it was a saying. If you were tense, the animal would be tense, of course. But if you were afraid, how could they smell it? It just hadn't made any sense to her.

Just over a week after she'd met John—at least, she thought so, she hadn't quite been keeping track of the passing time but a week felt about right—something woke her from a deep sleep. There was no noise, well, that wasn't quite right. At first the lack of car horns and voices outside had disturbed her, she had missed that white noise, but she was slowly learning to look for the Hope's own type of white noise—the hooting of the owls, the yipping and howling of coyotes, the chattering of the bats overhead.

At first, it didn't seem as though there was anything that had woken her. She raised her head from her paws, ears twitching this way and that, looking around as her heart pounded in her throat. Something was wrong, and she looked, first, for Uncle, finding him slumped near the campfire, bottle of whisky still clutched in his fist; John was stretched out on top of his bed roll, hat pulled down low over his head.

Though everything looked fine, wrong itched in her bones, thrummed in her blood, and the need to move screamed from some part of her she couldn't name, so she stood without her normal stretching or yawning, a whine she didn't intend to make spilling from her chest as she began to pace around the campfire—was Uncle too close to it? But, no, he was close but not that close, even if he fell straight forward he'd just flop onto the grass, and the fire hadn't escaped its rock circle, hadn't set the dry grass alight.

She paced one loop, then two, around the pair, before turning her attention outwards. This wasn't her home, wasn't safe, where danger was only something you saw on TV, that happened only to other people. Where all you had to do was lock your doors, where you could call the police and they'd be there in a heartbeat (okay, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration). This was the Wild West, where danger lurked at the edge of the firelight, stalked at your heels.

Was there something watching them? Had she felt someone's-some thing's-gaze on her back? A snake? A bear, even a puma? They all spawned nearby, after all, and so she stilled, squinting and staring outwards, sweeping her gaze low across the ground, the grass was tall but not tall enough to hide a puma even if it was low to the ground, trying to stalk them, much less a bear. John had been working to pick up twigs, though, for exactly this reason, and a snake would have stood out, would have started to rattle or fled at her approach, and so she turned her gaze upwards again, seeking the gleam of firelight against a cat's eyes; a black bear, the only type of bear she could think of that would have come this far from the forest, would have fled at her approach as well, they were cowards unless cornered but, no, no matter how hard she looked, how long she stared, she saw nothing.

She paced around the pair again, legs stiff and fur standing on end, a growl beginning to rumble in her chest as her anxiety only worsened, staring outward, looking, looking, looking, staring at the grass, staring above it, seeking a snake, a puma, even a too-curious fox or coyote.

Her fourth loop drew her close to John, and she couldn't say why but he caught her attention. Maybe it was the way he laid, or perhaps she had subconsciously noticed a tenseness to his figure. Maybe he had made a noise so soft that she'd just barely heard it, or she'd seen him move out of the corner of her eye. As it were, he drew her attention, and she approached him as though he were a snake coiled to strike, fighting the urge to bare her teeth when the anxiety in her chest tightened, tightened, tightened until she stood at his side.

Finally, she could see him. Could see the firelight dancing on his face, the shadow the brim of his hat cast on him. His face was twisted in a nasty grimace and, as she watched, his brow furrowed, and he bared his teeth, the grimace worsening, before he shuddered with a funny sound low in his chest. The coil in her own clenched tight and, without meaning to, she balked, dancing a few steps away from him. He stilled, fingers twitching, and she forced herself forward, slinking as though she were trying to sneak up on him though he were asleep, and pressed her cold nose against his neck in an attempt at waking him without waking Uncle.

She recoiled immediately, heaving. He smelled of sweat, of some awful sort of body odor far worse than she'd ever smelled before, far worse than she'd ever smelled on Uncle, than she'd ever smelled on anyone, smelled unlike anything she'd smelled before, and what it smelled like she couldn't put a name on. Shaking her head, the smell clung stubbornly, metallic and lingering, and as she reached up to rub at her nose with her paw she could only call it fear, her own anxiety ratcheting up until, finally, she jammed her nose into the ground, scraping it from side to side. She had to sneeze, over and over, to free herself from the sand and dirt, but it was well worth it because the smell was finally, blessedly gone.

Fearful of getting that scent on her again, she approached him hesitantly. He was beginning to shift, and her own anxiety began to spike but, knowing this time what it was, she shoved it down ('not today, Satan!') and butted her head into his side in a manner more cat-like than dog, but she wasn't exactly a dog, was she? trying to find his hand in the dark. Thankfully it was gloved so, when she found it, she had no qualms about shoving her head into it repeatedly, slamming it into his leg until, finally, it twitched, cupping before instinctively beginning to stroke her fur.

He groaned, raising his head and looking around wide-eyed, before rubbing them with his free-hand, still stroking her head absent-mindlessly. John shook his head, hissing "Jesus!" as he reached to grab a nearby beer-bottle, throwing back what remained.

Unable to help herself, she huffed, "No, just me," though she knew he couldn't understand her. Shame, really, because she was incredibly funny, at least if you asked her. John tossed the bottle aside, slumping back down onto the bedroll, and she followed him, curling up against his side.

He shoved her away, scowling as he huffed "No Gin, bad dog! No dogs on the bed," and she gave the ungrateful bastard a Look, though what look she wasn't entirely sure, she still wasn't used to emoting as a dog, which was surprisingly hard, and thought about pointing out that it was a bedroll not a bed, but he wouldn't understand her either way, but he gave into her Look, whether it was pitiful, exasperated, or straight-up puppy-dog eyes, dropping his hand to let her flop her massive head across his chest.

John folded one arm under his head to cushion it as he stared up at the stars, his other hand coming up to scratch between her ears. The fear-scent nearly gone, she had little trouble falling asleep, basking in some of the first human affection she'd received since all of this had begun.