Roku awoke with a loud ringing in his ears. He blinked several times to bring his surroundings into focus. He suddenly jumped to his feet, looking around wildly. He was in a small kennel, with concrete floors, a small bed, and a bowl of water on the floor.

All around him, there were dogs, wolves, and even some wolf dogs like him. He cried out terrified " Where am I?! I want to go from here! Who took me here?!!" All around him dogs grumbled and said " Oh shut up you good for nothing mutt! Your in the pound." Roku let out a lone mournful "Aaaaaooooooooooooooollll!!!" and then the other wolves joined in with their mournful notes, the dogs barked, and the other animals made thier own complaints.

Roku mostly just layed in his kennel. It was cold, rainy and hard, but it matched his mood. The wolf/dog was ignored by most, and he liked it that way. He had been here for about 2 weeks. For the first few days, he had paced the kennel, chewed on the wire fence, and howled. Now, his throat was sore from howling continiously, his gums were cut and swollen from the chewing, and his nails were worn down from the pacing. So, he was silent, still, and so bored.

A few days later, a man in a uniform came to his door. Roku tensed and growled. The man opened the door. Roku snarled, showing his gleaming teeth and injured gums. The man went into the kennel saying," Come on mutt. We're gonna take you out back." And then he put the long stick with the loop on the end into the kennel. He put the thing around the wolfdog's neck in one quick movement. At that moment, Roku lunged, aiming for the man's throat. However, the pole kept him from reaching his target. But the impact of the lunge yanked the pole from the man's paws, which Roku took advantage of, and bounded through the open gate and down the corridor.

As Roku bounded down the endless rows of kennels, he could hear more and more people chasing after him as he ran. Finally, he turned around a corner and saw that he had come to a dead end. There was a tall wire gate, with barbed wire on the top. He skidded to a stop. He was trying to think of what to do, when he looked around to see the men come running around the corner. The one he had knocked down was in the front, and he had an extremely mad look on his face. Roku walked toward them a little, but when he was just out of reach of the mob, he whirled around and bounded forward toward the big gate. Behind him, he could hear the men shouting, but over it all he heard the barking and howling of the doomed prisoners, cheering him on to what they themselves had dreamed of doing.
And then Roku leapt up onto the gate and scrambled to the top, got tangled in the barbed wire and half jumped down the ten foot drop onto the gravel below, a mess of fur, barbed wire, and a little bit of blood. But he was safe on the other side, and FREE from the place where he nearly met his end.

The people on the other side of the gate were trying to get the gate unlocked, but unfortinately for them, it was padlocked, and none had the key.

Roku struggled to his feet, but yelped when the wire cut into his neck and leg. As he tried to untangle himself, the humans started to laugh at him. Then he realized that he was attatched to the gate, from the wire.

/I was tangled in the wire that was still on the gate. The stupid humans were laughing at me, so I snarled and made like I was going to jump at them. They jumped back. I barked and laughed at them. Then I began to work the wire off. Finally, I got it all off. Then I growled at them again. They looked afraid. That was good.Then I limped away because my leg was hurt./

Roku had decided that the city was not the place for him. The problem was that he had never lived in the wild, and wolf packs probably didn't accept half-breeds. The sad fact was that he couldn't belong anywhere. He couldn't be a pet, because he was part wolf. And he couldn't be part of a pack, because he was part dog, and wolves despised dogs. So, he would spend life a loner, hunt alone, sleep alone, live alone, die alone. The was the cold hard truth. So, he trotted away toward the wilderness. He still hadn't realized that he wouldn't be excepted into a pack. So on he went.