He stared back with icy gray eyes. He was bigger than Mother, with his muscles bulging out. His pure black coat gleamed in the faint light of the room. 

What struck me as odd, was his unusually long canines. They stuck out below his lip and were sharpened like daggers. One of his cropped ears, had a notch bitten out of it, along with scars trailing down his flank. His tail had clearly been mauled, for now all that remained was a stump. There were fresher scrapes too, including a savage bite mark on his neck. His paws were as big as my head, with razor claws at the end of each toe. He looked like he was the dog that had just returned from combat, and I realize that his shredded blood was the reason for today's craze.

He looked down upon me and shuffled closer to the bars that separated our cages. His mouth move slightly as he uttered a small woof, exposing his fangs. I squirmed backward to get away, unsure of what else I could do.

In return, he rolled his eyes, yawned, and sat down. His tongue lolled of his mouth and he panted stressful.  He continued to watch my unsure movement with keen eyes. I crawled back to Mother, trying to calm down. My heart felt like it was beating a mile a minute, and my breath came out in short gasps. Mother carefully nuzzled me to ensure I was safe, then she went back to lapping up her water.

Whoever that dog was, he was tough and probably mean. If I had gotten any closer to him, would have attacked me? I asked myself grimly. That dog seemed more curious than malicious. I started to wonder if I had judged him to quickly.

I started to turn back, but I realized there was no way for me to talk to him...yet. I decided once I could hear, I would start pestering him.

In the end I wanted I would at least look around and "meet" my neighbors. My eyes were almost perfectly clear, so when I turned away from mother I finally saw the horror of the room.

The room was filled with even more cages than I thought was possible! They all seemed to be about two feet wide, four feet long, and three feet tall. Each wall and three rows of five cages. That made for a whopping total of at least sixty cages!

Around a fourth of the cages held pregnant females, or mothers and their pups. The other three fourths held mostly males, and some females, that had scar etched along their bodies. Although I didn't see any they look as roughed up as my neighbor, who occupied the cage on my left.

What was strange was that each dog had a similar face and body structure to Mother. In a way I felt like we were all related somehow, being at least all the same breed on dog. A Pitbull.

I also saw a small window above the top row of cages, the only source of light in the over-crowed room.

A few cages remained empty, with their yawning doors open. They appeared to be waiting to slam shut to devour any unlucky victims.

Based on the cages across the room, I inferred that my family's cage, was in the middle row, and second cage to the left wall. 

The awful sight set me back into a panic, and I blindly stumbled away from the sight. I ended up running right into the right side of the cage bars. I blinked away the tears of fear and pain back, and glanced at the occupants of the next door cage.

A pretty white and tan female laid curled around a pair of day old puppies. She turned my way after my collision with the metal bars, and stretched sleepily. I nodded my head towards her is a silent acknowledgement. 

I gazed at the two perfect bundles. They were nearly identical with mainly with pelts and a few splotches of sandy brown. One had a big splotch over one eye, and a few smaller ones dotted across her flank and tail. The male pup had splotches across his shoulders, chest, and lower back. I wondered if I had looked just like them a week or two ago.

The sight gave me a lot of hope for the future, at least, there might be a possibility that when I got older, I would be aloud out to play with the twins and my litter mates.