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Chiron was the oldest of the litter, which meant he was supposed to be the bravest, and the one who set an example for all his siblings who came after him.
His foster handler, Hannah, was adamant that Chiron was going to be a therapy dog for people with anxiety and PTSD. But for some dogs like Chiron, that career seemed… no offence to the people in need, but boring. He wanted a job where he could catch things and perhaps run around a little.
One of Hannah’s friends, the super loud chatty one with dark blond fur on half of his face, came around to the facility Chiron and his siblings lived at, named Centre-Barks, to have a look at him one day.
"This is Harris, the social media manager for the Centaurs," she told him, as if that explained anything. What was a Centaur? Chiron didn’t know. All he knew was that he was a dog, after all. "He wants to spend a day with you. He named you, actually."
He barked YES! as an answer. Chiron was fine with that, escaping Centre-Barks for the day.
And this guy, Harris, even named him!? Wow.
Harris was lovely. He took him to the ice rink, which was where everything changed.
The surface was super slippery and pretty cold, but wonderful, and Chiron figured out his footing faster than anyone expected, which Harris later on explained to him that was probably because he was part mountain dog (whatever that meant).
Then came the pucks!
Big black things, skidding toward him across the ice for him to race towards. He slipped a bit, but soon he ran after them on instinct, then somehow found skidding into a net, where he then saved every single one of them, which were hit towards him with long black sticks.
The crowd of humans around him cheered after each and every save.
"Congratulations," said Harris from the side of the rink. "You're our new goaltender."
It felt like something to live for.
The problem with Harris was that he was lonely.
Chiron was never lonely. He had lots of siblings and humans to hang out with (even though the humans kept making him do things he didn’t want to do, like sit still and shake a paw).
At least Harris took him on long walks around a parking lot where he could sniff at the crumbled Tim Hortons cups. He sighed a lot when he did so.
"One of my sisters is getting married," he said one afternoon to Chiron, staring at the McDonalds cup that Chiron had found that wasn’t there the day before (which made his day). “I wish I had someone to bring."
Chiron decided the McDonalds cup wasn’t worth it anymore, and sniffed Harris’s shoes sympathetically. Maybe one day, he wanted to let him know.
Then there was Troy. He was lonely, too. Maybe Harris could take him to the wedding?
Troy arrived with the Centaurs looking like the most miserable human Chiron had ever seen. Chiron made it his personal mission to make him smile by firstly taking/stealing his gloves, then attacking his skates, then hiding in his stall seat, which he probably shouldn’t have done, because Harris couldn’t find him for a while after that.
For the next few weeks, he made sure to always check up on Troy, to make sure he was okay. Troy started coming to Harris’s office with puppacinos, and Harris made lots of treats especially for him. He felt very adored and cared for and he loved being with Harris and Troy a lot more than being at Centre-Barks.
Then Troy turned up one day for Chiron at Centre-Barks, instead of Harris. He was so surprised he jumped all over his siblings and knocked them over as he attempted to jump clumsily into Troy’s arms.
“Aww,” said Hannah, smiling. “Chiron loves you.”
“Harris keeps dog treats in the office,” said Troy, as Chiron snuggled into his neck. He could smell that faint apple scent on him, that always hung around Harris like a cloud. That meant Harris had to be nearby. “We always give him some after he goes on the ice.”
Hannah looked at him in alarm. “Hang on - he’s going on the ice?”
Troy looked as if he’d been caught for something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. “...Is he not?”
“No! His paws aren’t developed! Not good for his joints, either! He’s much too young! And what sort of dog treats are they!?”
Troy shrugged. “...They’re from a jar with a bow on it?”
Harris popped his head around the corner. All the siblings ran towards him at once, banging their little paws on his jeans because they knew exactly what was in his jacket pockets (treats).
Harris stopped at the look of Hannah’s stern face. Both of Chiron’s favourite people were officially in trouble.
“They’re homemade treats,” Harris explained. “I make them myself. I even use bone cookie cutters so they’re even cuter.” He picked one out of his pocket and threw one. Chiron caught it in his mouth and ate it within about three seconds. “My family has lots of dogs, so we go through these a lot.”
“I also hear Chiron’s been on the ice, Harris?”
Chiron looked up at the sound of his name. Troy looked a bit uneasy. “...We didn’t know he was supposed to not be?”
Hannah then had to explain in great detail to both of them why Chiron shouldn’t be on the ice. Chiron was too busy feeding himself silly with the amount of treats Troy was stealing out of Harris’s pocket (which he didn’t notice, too busy trying to come up with excuses to keep Chiron on the ice).
“What about giving him little boots?” Harris suggested.
“He’d slip and could fall and break a bone.”
“What about if he only goes on when it's freshly resurfaced?"
"Still not a good idea!"
“But can he still come to the rink?” asked Harris. “The guys will all miss him if he's not allowed.”
She handed him the leash. “No ice!”
They went out the sliding doors and got into the truck that was parked in front of Centre-Barks. Chiron sat in Troy’s arms, nose pressed against the window leaving marks all over the glass as Harris drove the short distance to the rink, with Harris chatting about anything on his mind with Troy trying and failing to keep up with the conversation. Chiron then spent a few hours with Harris upstairs while Troy went to practice.
He scratched at the door, whinging, because all he wanted to do was go on the ice and chase pucks.
“It sucks you can’t go on the ice, I’m sorry,” he said. Chiron rolled over on the carpet, and Harris rubbed his belly with his foot, making him swing on his back side to side. He looked at his phone before looking back down at a swaying Chiron. “Troy’s just texted me. He's coming to get you in a bit so you can hang out with the others - I’ve got so much to do.”
Chiron desperately wanted to help. But instead, he got up, sighed and leaned his furry head on Harris’s boot shoelaces.
“You can keep a secret, can’t you?”
Chiron barked. Of course he could!
Harris’s voice went down to a whisper. “Troy’s like, the hottest guy here.”
If Chiron could reply, he’d be getting Harris to get Troy to be his + 1 to his sister’s wedding.
“And those eyes,” Harris continued. “Blue, just like yours.”
There was a knock at the door, and Chiron knew it was Troy by the way the footsteps sounded in the outside corridor. Harris, Chiron noticed, was a chatterbox, and Troy ended up staying in the office for about five minutes as Harris did a one sided running commentary on the research of dogs on the ice.
Hurry up! Chiron barked. I want to go on the ice!
About ten minutes later, Troy undid the leash and let Chiron loose, back onto the ice.
Finnaalllly. Chiron ran straight for the net, dodging players, skidding as he passed the crease and smacked his forehead into the right sidepost. He shook his ears a little and proceeded to save every puck that came his way.
He had a lot of fun, and he blocked every shot that went to him.
“You’re doing better than Wyatt,” said the captain, Ilya Rozanov, who was now Chiron’s third favourite Centaur. He enjoyed giving Chiron lots of scratches behind the ear. “Do you want to be our new goaltender? We’ll pay you in treats?”
Now that made Chiron's day. He got a treat each time he saved a puck, so therefore he was going to be a Fat Chiron when he got back to Centre-Barks tonight.
He didn’t really want to go back to Centre-Barks tonight. He loved his siblings, but it was fun here. Afterwards, Troy took him outside onto the lawn to sniff at things and reinspect the crumbled Tim Hortons cups on the ground. He cocked his leg up a few times around the arena, because it seemed the big tree and the fire hydrant outside had been marked by several other dogs since he’d last been there.
Troy watched with his own cup of coffee, then chased a pigeon which flew away immediately. “You’re a dog,” he said suddenly.
Chiron barked in response. Of course he was!
Troy sighed and leaned back on the bench. “I want to get to know Harris more.”
Chiron shot up and barked twice. I can definitely help you with that!
He also knew, several weeks before either of them seemed to realise it themselves, that Troy had a thing for Harris. Chiron saw them smile at each other often, sit together in Harris's office, and even better, they took him on walks together, mostly around the parking lot, and once to the pond near Harris’s apartment that they'd stopped at for an emergency treat refill once.
Harris and Troy must have told Hannah that he wasn’t going on the ice (lie), because she was happy to hand him over while he was not rigorously training to be a therapy dog.
Then one day, Chiron was being taken on a walk when he decided to swirl around them while they were hugging after Troy gave Harris a gift. He watched, satisfied, as they almost kissed.
I wish you were both my dads, Chiron thought, leaning his whole weight against Harris's leg like he always did as Troy attempted to untangle the leash, apologising.
Harris said nothing, because he was oblivious, because humans were like that.
The assessment day arrived.
His siblings were ready! They were excited to go out into the world and make it a better place for people with mental health issues. They'd trained hard, learned to sit still, put their paws onto people's shoulders on command, and learned to be calm and quiet and present.
Except Chiron, who had not learned to be calm and quiet and present (too busy daydreaming of saving pucks).
"You'll never make it," one of his siblings told him. "You’ve been hanging around those hockey players for too long. You're going to end up at the shelter."
"What's a shelter?"
"It's where dogs go when they fail their assessments,” said another sibling, putting his nose up. He had not been impressed with Chiron’s dreams of being a goaltender. “Then they get adopted out to big families that don’t walk them. They get no walks, ever again.”
Chiron went very still.
No walks.
He lived for walks.
Oh no oh no oh no-
The thought of losing that, of losing the rink, of losing Harris and Troy and having to be in a house with no walks or worse, no ice.
He started to panic.
And then he suddenly smelled apples and he turned, to see Harris and Troy, standing together at the edge of the room, waving at him as he started his assessment.
Chiron put his head down and was determined to pass, to show off that he could be a smart good boy who could help people.
"He failed?" said Harris, picking up Chiron.
HE FAILED???? No!
Was Chiron going to be put in a shelter, then adopted out by a family that doesn’t do walks!??
What was with this world coming to!?
Before he started to panic, Hannah had a reasonable explanation. "It’s because he’s too friendly," she said, tapping her clipboard. Chiron looked down at his checklist and took her pen to chew on. "Likes chasing things. Probably spent too much time at the rink."
“Definitely not on the ice, nope! No way,” said Harris, obviously lying. Chiron licked his fingers. He put him carefully on the floor so that Chiron could potentially eat his shoelaces. "I'll take him?”
"Sure," she said, smiling. "Chiron’s a wonderful dog. Just not quite a therapy dog."
Harris and Troy crouched down in front of him. They each held one of his paws.
"You're with us now," said Harris.
Chiron noticed when they got into the truck together and drove away, that Troy and Harris were holding hands.
“Hey uh,” said Harris, looking nervously at Troy who had been feeding homemade treats to Chiron one handed. “It’s my sister’s wedding coming up. I need a plus one.”
Troy looked up from looking at their conjoined hands and pointed at his chest. “Me, or Chiron?”
You!!! Chiron wanted to say. Come on, Troy! Go with Harris!
“You, obviously! I want to go to my sisters wedding with you!”
They both laughed. Chiron barked in agreement. “I was hoping you’d ask me. It’s next week, right? We should take Chiron to the farm before then,” said Troy. “He can roam around with your family’s dogs.”
He perked up. Other dogs!?
“He can come to the wedding too?”
“Sure, if he behaves,” said Harris. He smiled down at Chiron. “Which, I think he will. Let’s get him on the ice first, I'm thinking about getting a cute goaltending suit made for him. He could stop a few pucks.”
In the end, Chiron didn't become a therapy dog. He became a goaltender, and he had a family with two awesome dads. He got to wake up to the scent of apples and the smell of his treats baking in the oven and go on walks. He made friends on Harris’s family farm, and got to see his sister getting married while wearing a cute little dog tuxedo made especially for him.
He was officially crowned the Centaurs Team Dog, and was loved by everyone he met.
He didn’t need anything else, after all.