After a long time in the back of the van while we travel slowly through the city, I am unloaded. The horrible guard from the court room quickly waves over a guard from the conversion centre, they both lift the crate out and put me on a small conveyor belt that quickly whisks me into a small opening in the side of the building. The small passageway is completely dark so I can see nothing around me, I shift uncomfortably in the crate, my legs having gone numb from the pressure of my body on top of them.
After a short journey, the crate is lifted off by two men who suddenly appear at the sides. The crate door is slid quickly open and the doorway aligned with another doorway. 'Move.' One of the guards say and kicks the cage at my rear. I shift quickly out of the crate and into my new enclosure. I look around at the sparse grey cell -- four concrete walls and one wall of glass that must lead to a corridor. The enclosure door is slammed shut and bolted after me. I sit on the meagre bed of blankets that are in the corner -- they are clean, and there is a clean bowl of water sitting next to it on the floor. I can't believe this is where I've landed myself now -- lets just hope that this won't be as horrible as it seems.
Just as my thoughts are dragged away thinking about how I'll be relegated to a life of being told to sit and stay, the glass door swiftly retracts into the wall and I startle, looking up wide-eyed at the tall dark featured man who enters. He allows the glass to close him in with me. He sits on the floor in front of me and takes a tablet out of his lab coat pocket and begins tapping away without saying a word. After a moment, he looks up and smiles.
'Hello April, my name is James and I'm going to be your conversion owner for the next few days. As I'm sure you know, you've been assigned to be converted into a dog bitch and then to be put up for re-selling. I will be responsible for your care and a brief period of re-retraining before we hand you over to your new owner. I must tell you -- I think it will end up in a bidding war. We haven't had any bitch dogs for quite some time and they're often requested.' I stare blandly at him while he rambles on oblivious to my disinterest in the bidding.
'Now,' he starts quickly, 'we will go over some of the procedures and I will explain them briefly to you. Since this is a court order and not an owner order -- you sadly don't get to pick any of your dog features, but I'm known to have very good design choices, so I hope you don't mind me taking some liberties.' Again, I sat in silence -- I knew it wasn't a question or a request, I knew this was not my decision to make so I saw no point in contributing to this.
'Now today and tomorrow will be dedicated to having your procedures done, and then the day after that will be the brief adjustment and training period. Today, you are scheduled in for having your voice box exchanged and your tail, nose and ears added. Tomorrow will be dedicated to reproduction and walking styles before we alter those too.' He glances up at me quickly and really looks at me for what I feel is the first time. His smile doesn't drop an inch as he takes in what must be my pallid complexion and says, 'Oh come now April, it isn't so bad, we're going to get you a lovely owner. We'll just have to work super hard on gaining you some good obedience points to start you off while you're here won't we!'
I nod mutely and tune out of his description of today's procedures, I've heard about these ones, they're all the common ones. The ones that have my attention are the reproduction and walking styles part -- I've never heard anything about either.
I sense James moving towards me as he removes my sheer white dress and then clips on a heavy collar around my neck. He quickly attaches a leash and says, 'Come along, we don't want to delay your first procedures!' I stumble up and walk after him to make sure he doesn't have to drag me.