Jane and Towser - Reward and Punishments.

Chapter 1

“Am I really sure I want to go through with this?” Jane asked herself for the umpteenth time. “For a full month? Are I sure it'll be safe?”

It was the dogs she was worried about. Was she absolutely certain that the automatic feeder she'd made would work perfectly? As for herself, she knew that she was taking an enormous risk, but she was confident that the training she'd given them would hold. Certainly Towser would do his best; he really enjoyed this new game. But a month - give or take a day or so - was a very long time to spend in the role she'd chosen. Water would be her main problem if things went awry, but she expected to have some freedom of movement and she'd taken the precaution of arranging alternative emergency supplies in various places around the premises. She was as certain as she could be that the training of the dogs would hold over the period, and that they would obey the various ultrasonic signals the timer would send to them even without the rewards they'd received when they'd been trained. Once more she went through the workings of the various mechanisms she'd installed and tested over the last few weeks. She was untroubled by the prospect of casual callers at this remote old farm, and even if a rare caller arrived Jane would have ample warning, giving her plenty of time to hide among the maze of sheds, barns and outbuildings. And few visitors would care to risk an encounter with two such large and apparently ferocious dogs!

Jane picked up her latest toy from the kitchen table; without this the whole scenario would be impossible. She it turned in her hands - a plain leather dog collar, slightly thicker than might have been expected and heavier than it seemed. The extra weight, as she knew, was due to the row of thin, flexible batteries sewn invisibly into the leather. Those, in conjunction with the the row of stainless steel studs around its interior circumference, would dealt the collar's wearer an agonising electric shock on receiving the appropriate signal from the computer. She checked the setting at which the signal would be emitted - two feet, ten inches. Getting down on all-fours, she buckled the collar around her neck with trembling fingers, wriggling her neck inside it and feeling the slick surface of least one of the studs continue to be in contact with her flesh. Then, her face a mixture of fear and determination, she attempted to stand. As she expected, the moment the crown of her head rose above the pre-set distance from the floor, she was knocked flat on her stomach by the powerful electric shock the collar delivered to her neck. She turned on to her side, her face screwed up in agony. But the pain of the shock swiftly passed, and Jane took off the collar and resumed her seat.

Picking up the compressed air hypodermic, she studied its colourless contents. This was another tour de force on her part; a drug which would change her body odour until an antidote was injected. This was been a master stroke, she thought. No change in her scent was detectable to human senses, but to the keen noses of the dogs Jane would no longer be their Mistress, but the oddly-shaped animal they'd been introduced to so often in the weeks of their training. Even her collar had spent six months around the neck of a young Spaniel bitch, and the warmth of Jane's flesh would be sending out a faint hint of the bitch's characteristic scent for a considerable time.

She glanced up at the kitchen clock. It would be two hours before the dogs would be released from the small brick shed they'd slept in for the last month. They would run straight to the long open-sided porch outside where their water bowl and feeding bowl were stationed. The water bowl was kept to a continous level of two inches, and the food would rattle down a metal chute in to the other bowl at eight o'clock in the morning and six o'clock at night.

Yet again she checked the amounts of food available, and tested the mechanism for dispensing it. All was in perfect order, and she walked out into the fresh early sunshine intended to inspect what she thought of as her tethering points. The nearest was about thirty feet from the bowls, set firmly in the hard-packed earth in the corner where the wall of the house met the wall of an adjoining barn. The post was of sturdy oak almost three inches in diameter and stood nearly three feet high. There was others set around the property, including one in the dogs' shed, but she didn't bother with them. Despite the bright sunlight, it was chilly standing there in her thin nightdress, and she shivered before hurrying back into the warmth of the kitchen.

She wandered about the house in restless indecision; did she really, REALLY, intend to go through with this? She made tea, and drank it thoughtfully. Then she checked the various timer settings yet again. The clock said seven - an hour before the dogs would be released - when she stood decisively and slipped out of her nightdress to stand naked on the cool, tiled floor. Seizing the hypdodermic, she rammed it against the flesh of her right buttock and pressed the trigger, hearing the short hiss as the drug was driven under her skin and knowing that it would take effect in half an hour or so.Everything was to hand upon the table before her, and her next action was to insert in her mouth the tiny plastic gag which would hold down her tongue without affecting her abilty to eat and drink. She practised speaking, but could only manage to gurgle incomprehensively. The short chain-leash she'd made for the occasion was next, clipping it to the collar, she allowed it dangle to her upper thigh. Collecting her padded mitts, she went outside. It was much warmer now, and she felt quite comfortable in the windless air as she locked the kitchen door and hung the key on its nail under the low eaves. Taking a last look through the kitchen window at the clock, she saw that the timer for her mitts would switch on in five minutes, at seven-thirty. Hastily she dropped to all-fours and buckled the collar around her neck before thrusting her hands into the mitts and settling the cuffs comfortably around her wrists. She had litle time to change her mind before the faint double click announced that her mitts were now locked on her hands, and she was irretrievably committed. Cautiously she raised her right hand - her right 'paw' now, she thought with a nervous giggle. Higher and higher she raised it, until it passed the invisible barrier that brought her instant, agonising pain. She found herself lying half-senseless on the hard earth, and it was some time before she managed to get back onto all-fours. She looked around her, once more struck by the difference in perspective from her present low level with her eyes no more that twenty inches or so from the ground. Then she walked off towards the small inner yard and the dogs' shed, her short leash trailing between her front paws.

She found the dogs sitting at the barred door of their tiny shed, expecting their freedom at any moment. Jane moved close to the bars and allowed them to sniff her thoroughly, noticing their immediate sense of recognition. With a loud click and a whirr of machinery, the door began to swing open, and Jane moved out of its way to sit on her haunches and wait for the dogs to emerge.

It was Bravo who reached her first. As he'd been trained so painstakingly to do, he seized the leather loop at the end of her leash in his powerful jaws and walked off, dragging her behind him by his shaggy side. Towser followed closely, occasionally sniffing her between her buttocks to reinforce his sense of her identity.

Bravo led her into the shade of the porch and up to its far end where he neatly dropped the loop of her leash over the top of the post before walking back to join Towser in lapping at the water and then sitting expectantly by their large food bowl.

Left alone, Jane sat 'doggy' fashion on her haunches and watched the dogs, guiltily aware of the warm, moist spot high up where her inner thighs joined. It had really happened, she thought with mingled amazement and apprehension; now she really was like them - naked, dumb and on all-fours. And she was collared like them too, as she was reminded whenever she moved her neck. But unlike them, she was tethered; dependant on them for food and water. That thought reminded her that she, too, was hungry, and she wondered, like the dogs, when she'd be able to feed.

A sudden movement on their part told her that the dogs' morning ration of food had been delivered, and she stretched out on her belly and watched them eat, but not before noticing that Towser had hung back a trifle before joining Bravo. Evidently the latter was the leader of their little pack - now of three animals - and she had no illusions about her place in the hierarchy. The dogs finished eating. Towser trotted off on some errand of his own, while Bravo lay on his stomach, his long, thick forelegs stretched out before him. Jane moved restlessly. It had become quite hot, her bladder needed emptying, and she squatted and relieved herself forthwith. After all, she was an animal now, she reminded herself, and animals had no inhibitions about such conduct. Also, although a most fastidious young woman, she secretly enjoyed the freedom of action she enjoyed in her present incarnation.

Bravo raised his head sharply to regard her, than came to his feet and walked over to sniff at the fast-disappearing little puddle of her urine. He raised a hindleg against the wall and added his contribution before taking the loop of her leash in his teeth and lifting it smoothly over the top of its post. This time Jane was ready for the dog's strong tug on her collar, and she followed him obediently to the water bowl. Bravo lay down on his stomach again, her leash trapped under his powerful right forepaw. Jane lowered her hot, sweaty face into the cool water and drank noisily before going on to the remains of the food the dogs had left uneaten. She already knew what she would find; the so-called vegetarian dog food had been left untouched except by the thrusting noses, and a good deal of the coarse cereal 'mixer' had been left too. Although her repast looked and smelt as disgusting as it tasted, Jane ate as much as she possibly could without actually vomiting. She'd steeled herself to do this, as she knew that the quantity of food she'd arranged to be dispensed would be barely enough for the three of them after a few days, and the dogs would make her eat last as she'd suspected they would. When she'd finished, she lay down by Bravo's side and considered what would happen next as her outraged stomach struggled to digest its recent meal.

The next signal to the dogs was programmed to remind them of their next feed at six in the evening; two hours later another signal would summon them to their shed for the night. What she was going to do until then depended on the whim of the dogs. Whichever of them held her leashed at the time might release her to wander off as they'd done in the past; she couldn't go far, being restricted to the small field between the outer yard and the moor, to the yard itself, and to the smaller yard beyond. In the meantime, she closed her eyes and waited upon Bravo's decision.

The huge body next to her moved suddenly, and she opened her eyes to see the great head lift and its eyes fix upon something in the field. The dog stood abruptly, still fixated on what only it could see, then walked off decisively. Jane rose too, and stood on all-fours watching Bravo's departure. But when he reached the open gate to the field, the big dog stopped, turned, and looked back at her. Seeming to come to some decision, he trotted back, took Jane's leash in his mouth, and pulled her with him to her post where he tethered her again. Then he ran off with the air of a job well done.

Jane watched him go, her heart sinking. It was already terribly hot and sticky in the angle where the walls met, and the post was set only a few inches out from the corner, effectively confining the movements of her head and neck to an area equal to a quarter of a circle some two feet in diameter. As the ground dropped gently into the corner, so both her own urine and that of the dog had run down and soaked into the ground there; already it was beginning to smell unpleasantly. Worse, so short was her chain, that when she squatted to empty her bowels - as she would have to on some occasions - she would deposit her droppings no further than about three feet from the post. She thought of what the tiny area of packed soil would be like if she was to be tethered there for long periods and shuddered. With nothing better to do, Jane stretched out on the hot, bare earth and closed her eyes, recalling the events of the morning so far.

She found herself unable to resist giving little wriggles of delight at her memories of being led by the the Alsation at her side, of the irresistible power of his jaws, of her own helplessness when he held her leash. And Towser, when his turn came, would be scarcely less powerful. She felt once more the guiltily delicious sensation of warm moistness high up between her thighs and clenched her eyes shut in ecstasy. Coming back to normality before she climaxed, she sighed, closed her eyes once more, and dozed off to wait for one of the dogs to return.This was by far the most dangerous part of the scenario – should the dogs' conditioning fail, she would stay tethered here to die of thirst. But she wasn't really concerned; there were plenty of stimuli available to persuade one of them to release her, if only to drink. As for the rest of her treatment, it would depend entirely on their training and their individual whims of the moment. Knowing that her best chance of getting through her ordeal was to spend as much time as possible asleep or dozing, she closed her eyes and turned off her mental activities one by one until she reached that state of half-trance she sought.

Chapter 2

She must have slept – or tranced – for quite a long time, for when she woke, she could see from the position of the sun that it was mid-afternoon. Congratulating herself on sleeping through the fierce heat of noon, she rose, stretched, and looked about her. Neither of the dogs were in sight, and her shoulders drooped in disappointment. She gave her tether a petulant tug before lying down again on her belly, her chin propped on her mitted hands, to stare miserably out onto the shimmering heat of the deserted yard. After a time she shifted uneasily at the urgings of her bladder; her gut, too, was ill at ease following her 'meal' of the morning. Rather than wait for a dog to take her to empty her bladder - if it even decided to - she went to end of her short halter and squatted on the hot ground. While she urinated, to her horror her bowels gave way, depositing a glistening pile of turds between her legs. Worse, the distance she'd been able to put between the pole she was tethered to and where she'd been able to deposit her wastes was so small, and the hard packed earth sloped down to the wall with the result that she was obliged to stand or lie in a puddle of her own urine. Tired and bored, her arms aching from bearing the unaccustomed weight of her upper body, she waited until the pool of urine had sunk into the thirsty soil before lying down tentatively on the damp ground. Her back to the pole, she stared out into the yard in a state of semi-hypnosis until the flies found her droppings, and then her sweaty flanks. She groaned in disgust, and covered her nose and mouth with a front paw while she waited in mindless patience, like a tethered beast, for one of the dogs to appear.

The shadows had lengthened considerably when Jane's prayers were answered and Towser appeared, loping easily over the yard towards her. He ran right to where she stood waiting, sniffed her vigorously – paying special attention to her collar and her cleft – then went to the water dish where he lapped thirstily. Waiting until he raised his dripping muzzle, Jane went down on her belly and whined as loudly as she could to attract his attention. Towser looked at her for a moment before trotting over and licking her back. Then he sat and looked thoughtfully at the short pole on which her leash was trapped. He gave a little shake of his head, as if remembering something, then raised his head and took up the end of her leash in his long jaws. He raised his head fully, and slipped the leash over the top of the pole, before sitting and dropping it at his feet. Jane roused herself and stood for a moment before moving tentatively in the direction of the water bowl, the end of her leash trailing after her. Towser followed her with his eyes, but other than that he made no move.

Slowly and carefully in order not to disturb him, Jane lowered her thirsty lips into the warm, flat water. Scarcely had she begun her noisy lapping when she heard a flurry of movement behind her, and the sudden crushing weight of Towser's front paws on her shoulder blades almost sent her toppling. She felt with horror the urgent pressure of the front of his hairy thighs aganist the backs of her own, and the warm, hard, slimy tip of his member between the lips of her vagina. In shock and terror she flung herself forward to lie face down across the water bowl before rolling on to her side and scrambling away from him. Then, with vague memories of dogs mating that she'd seen, she sat firmly on her haunches and stared at him, wide-eyed and panting with shock and exertion. Towser stared back at her from three feet away; his penis still erect and a drop of his sperm glistening on its tip. Then his member subsided, he seemed to give a philosphical shrug, and he lowered his head to drink.

Jane relaxed, feeling immensely cheered by this tame ending to the incident. Bitches couldn't be raped, she remembered being told. All they had to do was to sit on their haunches and the disappointed male would have to accept their decision - exactly what had just happened, in fact. She amused herself by imagining her dog's thoughts at that moment. The odd-looking bitch, with its fascinating scents, wasn't on heat yet, he'd be thinking; but it would come on heat eventually – after all, they always did! She giggled silently at the notion, heady with relief at her narrow escape, a good reference for the effectiveness of the scent-altering drug that she'd become an object of sexual attraction to her own dog! Her shoulders ached from the force of Towser's paws landing on them with such sudden heaviness, and she blessed her prescience on having the claws of both dogs clipped short previously – although it hadn't been the recent eventuality she'd had in mind, but the close bodily contact with them that she'd be obliged to endure.

Anyway, the danger had gone, and Jane slowly edged away to a position from which she could see the large clock on the kitchen wall through the window. It read nearly six, the time for the dogs to be fed for the second time that day, and, sure enough, Bravo appeared in the paddock running towards them. Jane was twenty feet out in the yard, and Bravo paused to sniff her before seizing her trailing leash and dragging her with him to the food bowl where he exchanged sniffs of recognition with Towser. When both dogs were satisfied that all three of the party were the same creatures they'd been a few hours ago, they sat side by side before their food bowl, their eyes fixed on the opening in the wall through which their ration of food would drop into the bowl.

The loop of Jane's leash was trapped around Bravo's left fore paw, and she had no alternative than to sit by his side and wait for the food to trundle down the chute.

When it arrived – the same mixture of meat and vegetarian dog food with a copious supply of the the coarse, gritty cereal, both the dogs fell to with a will. Jane, suddenly aware of the demands of her empty stomach, contemplated joining them. There wasn't quite enough room for her to insert her head in competition with the dogs – not without some uninhibited shoving, at any rate – and she was unsure of their reaction. But a large chunk of cereal mixer was lodged on the dirty rim of the bowl where she could take it without disturbing the dogs, and she ventured to lower her head and scoop it up in her lips. The dogs lifted their heads and gave her twin flat stares from their yellow eyes. Bravo growled deep in his throat, and Jane bellied down in sudden fright. Evidently pacified by the submissive attitude of his little pack's most recent member, the huge dog returned to his food.

Bravo ate swiftly, and he was sitting back licking his lips long before the Towser had finished. Jane looked up at pleadingly, alarmed at the speed at which the small remaining portion of food was diminishing under Towser's attentions. She tugged tentatively at her leash, and Bravo loosed his hold sufficiently to allow her to reach the bowl. Gingerly she lowered her head, all the time keeping a close and apprehensive eye on Towser. But, apart from a single dismissive glance, he ignored her – and so it was that Jane found herself bumping noses with her own dog in competition for the last scraps.

Bravoi stopped the game abruptly by grabbing Jane's halter and dragging her away with him to lie down. Jane lay in front of him,facing him to give her leash its maximum length. Bravo stared past her, her leash trapped between his great paws. Jane rolled onto her back, at which Towser strolled over to sniff at her breasts and genitals. Now confident in her ability to cope with any more serious manifestations of his amorousness, Jane lay still, shamelessly enjoying his attentions. She spread her legs hoping he would lick her clitoris, but he merely gave her a look of disgust before turning away. 'Wow!' she thought with a giggle. 'I'm actually coming on to my own dog! And I bet he thinks I'm a real tease!' She laughed silently at the thought, before recalling his earlier attempt at intercourse.

She sobered instantly, remembering the shock and terror of those moments, from the sudden weight of the dog and the brutal, urgent thursting of his thighs against her rump, to the terrifying feeling of his penis probing at the lips of her vagina. Had she not reacted with such instant energy, fired by by her instinctive horror, she might well have been penetrated by her own dog. The thought filled her with such shame and disgust that she almost vomited. In spite of the disgust she felt, her thoughts kept returning to the subject solely because, as she realised, a tiny seed of guilty enjoyment existed deep within.

At the thought she shuddered in shame; but even as she did she felt herself becoming wet between the thighs. Disgusted with herself, she rolled over on to her stomach and ground her groin into the gritty soil.

At last she relaxed and rolled onto her left side facing Bravo, her leash lying slack on the ground between her collar and his massive right paw. Even now she could scarcely believe her position, held leashed by a dog, to be led off wherever he wished, and she wondered what the dogs intended to do with her when they received the inaudible signal summoning them to the small shed where they'd be shut up all night. She devoutly hoped that Bravo wouldn't tether her to the pole where she'd spent a large part of the day; though there would be nothing she could do to prevent it. Come to think of it, she didn't know yet the full implications of what she'd trained the dogs to do, and how their behaviour would inevitably mutate over time without her constant correction – she'd been too busy persuading them to accept her as one of their own. And in that she had succeeded a little too well, she thought ruefully, glancing over to where Towser lay so innocently.

But the evening was too warm and peaceful for any prolonged thinking, and Jane joined the dogs in lying there in mindless contentment.

She was brought out of the pleasant vagueness she'd fallen into by the sudden stirring of both dogs simultaneously. Bravo's head was raised, and his large ears stood erect. He rose abruptly to his feet, then bent his head and picked up the loop of Jane's leash in his teeth. Seeing his intentions, Jane scrambled to all-fours in time to avoid a painful tug on her collar as Bravo walked slowly and purposefully away, Towser at his side. Jane padded obediently along at Bravo's other side, her flank bumped heavily at every step by his huge haunches. She was concentrating so much on her aching arms that she had no notion of where she was being taken until she recognised their surroundings as the stable yard beyond the main one, and was able to see that she was being led to the small shed at its far end. Its six foot wide, full height barred door stood open, and when Jane was led through it she was aware at once of the thick straw on the concrete floor – and the smell!

She had no time for further observations, for Bravo at once dragged her to the rear wall of the gloomy little shed and thrust the loop of her leash over just such another pole as had held it before and once more she was tethered helplessly on her two foot leash.

She heard a loud clang from the entrance; unable to turn around due to the shortness of her tether, she stood parallel to the wall and turned her head to see that the barred door had now closed and that she and the dogs were shut up for the night in this dark, foul-smelling shed.

The dogs seemed unperturbed by their imprisonment; but they'd been trained to accept it over the last month or so. Both of them padded through the damp, dirty straw and flopped down on their bellies, one on either side of her. Towser turned on his side with his hairy back to her, while Bravo lowered his great head, propped it on his outstretched paws, and fell asleep.

Jane stood for a moment, not relishing the thought of lying down on the straw, faintly damp with the dogs' urine and hiding nameless horrors mixed in with it – an aversion that became all the stronger when she shifted position and felt something soft and unpleasantly squashy under a thin layer of damp straw beneath her left knee. She cursed herself for not remembering to give them fresh bedding before she'd begun her adventure. Another horrible possibility arising from her enforced close proximity to the dogs struck her – fleas! It had been some time since she'd de-fleaed her own dog, and she'd no idea when Bravo had been done the same service by his owner, at present out of the country for an extended period. She didn't think that either dog had fleas at the moment, but both roamed the moor at will, and the animals out there were certainly not as fortunate.

But she couldn't possibly stand here all night; her arm muscles were screaming at her for relief, and she gingerly lowered her body into the prickly straw, shrinking at its clammy embrace. It smelt even worse at close quarters, but she shut her eyes and tried to sleep nontheless.

Chapter 3

She woke during the night to feel the heavy warmth of Bravo's thigh lying across her own. A thick foreleg rested on her shoulder, and his broad lower jaw on her head. She and the dog were facing each other, their chests and bellies so close that she could feel the heat from his huge body. Tower lay with his back touching hers, and she drifted back to sleep grateful for the warmth of the dogs, her fear of fleas forgotten.

It grew colder as the night wore on, and the three bedfellows came still closer together for warmth. When Jane awoke for the second time she found that Towser had turned on his side during the night, and now he and she lay like two spoons, her haunches surrounded by his, her buttocks hard against his hairy groin and the rear of her thighs against the the front of the dog's. His chest was pressed to her back, and a foreleg lay across her neck, while she could feel the warmth of his soft breathing on the back of her head. Bravo, too, had moved in his sleep; now the back of his head was pressed into her stomach with his hairy ears tickling her breasts, and his curved spine aganist her belly. Jane lay for several minutes, enjoying the warmth before she fell asleep again.

The next time she woke it was daylight, though from what she could see through the bars the sun had not yet risen, and she wondered when the door would open and free them, hoping that it would not be long. Like the dogs, she composed herself to wait – but some things would not wait, as she realised to her dismay when her bladder sent her an urgent message. Nor was she the only one, for Towser abruptly rose and walked to the nearby wall where he lifted his leg. Freed of his embrace, Jane stood hastily, backed away as far as her tether would allow her, and squatted. She and the dog glanced at each other as they urinated, and Jane felt another of the tiny shivers of guilty pleasure at thus being forced to carry out her natural functions in the company of her own dog. The powerful reek of dog urine filled the still air as Bravo rose and followed their example, then all three lay down together and waited patiently to be released.

The stable yard was filled with sunlight when there came a sharp click, a whirr of machinery, and the barred door swung slowly open. The dogs trotted outside immediately, shaking themselves to rid their coats of clinging straw, ignoring Jane's despairing whines. She tugged desperately on her leash until her neck and shoulder muscles ached, but to no avail. She stood for a moment in the filthy straw before lying down in tears of despair.

How long she lay there, staring hopelessly out into the sunlight, she never knew; but when Towser returned and released her she stumbled out into the clean fresh air to find that the shadows were still chilly, and the warmth from the sun on her damp, smelly body was still pleasant, instead of the burning heat it would become later.

Towser padded slowly away, turning his head frequently as if to check on Jane's progress. She followed him docilely – since this was what he seemed to expect – her leash trailing in the dirt at her side. As they walked through the sunlight, Jane was dully aware of the tiny bits of straw that clung to her body falling from it, and a slow puckering of the skin on her lower back announced the drying of a quantity of dog excrement she had rolled in during the night.But she was beyond caring, her only thought was for the food and water bowls she was being taken too, and even when Bravo came bounding up to seize her leash in his jaws she only accepted it as the natural order of things, and obeyed his tugs on her collar without resentment. Once at the bowls, Bravo stood with her leash dangling from his jaws while she drank and snuffled down greedily the small amount of food the dogs had left uneaten. When she lifted her head, she was dragged off and tethered in the same place where she'd been the day before. The dogs trotted off together, leaving her to herself.

She watched them vanish into the moor, then sprawled listlessly on the hard ground, disturbing the flies crawling over her turds of yesterday.

She must have fallen asleep, and when she woke it was with a peculiar feeling of peace. She rose and yawned, then emptied her bladder where she stood. As she watched the liquid slowly disappear into the dry ground, she pondered lazily on the cause of her sudden contentment with her condition. Perhaps, while she slept, something had happened deep within her unconscious mind, she speculated. She yawned again, and lay down on her belly with her back to the wall and her head propped on her paws, looking out over the shimmering heat of the yard, ignoring the flies that had begun to crawl on her back and legs, attracted by her dirt and the sweat on her skin.

After an unknown period a speck in the distance resolved itself as Towser. He trotted slowly across the yard, keeping to the shade, and went immediately to the water bowl to lap thirstily. Jane bellied down and whimpered at him from thirty feet away, When he finished, he shook the excess water from his muzzle, then sat and stared at her curiously. Jane redoubled her efforts, and, finally, Towser gave a baffled little shake of his head before walking over to her and releasing her.

Jane crouched over the bowl and drank, keeping a wary eye on her dog for a repetition of his behaviour of the day before. But Towser merely lay and watched, and, when she'd finished drinking, he rose and walked slowly away, turning his head frequently to check that she was following him as he obviously expected. He led the way all round the yard and into the paddock. When they had to walk through the sunlight it struck Jane's back and shoulders like a hammer-blow, and she was glad when Towser led them into the small grove of trees in one corner. The grass was greener and taller in the shade of the trees, and it was cool under her skin when she lay down on it. There they lay peacefully side by side until Jane felt a familiar stirring in her colon. Without more ado she rose and walked out into the hot sunlight, where she squatted and emptied her bowels in a continual gush on to the short, brown turf of the paddock. Towser was watching her, his head raised, but when she began to walk back to him he lowered his head again.

Jane was filled with a sudden, strong affection for her dog. He wasn't a strict jailor like the absent Bravo. Towser didn't hold her by her leash in his immoveable jaws all the time – or tether her when he grew tired of her - and he'd taken her with him to this blessedly cool spot and let her roam around at will; although she was very careful not to move too far away from him.

She was beginning to enjoying the experience, in a passive sort of way ; she thought as she sprawled lazily on the cool grass. She was learning how to lie comfortably on the hard ground of the yard, and she was fast learning to accept her place as the inferior in this tiny pack of three in which Bravo, by virtue of his size and strength, was the Alpha male whenever the real pack leader - herself in her human manifestation - was absent.

Rising, she walked slowly the few feet to where Towser lay on his side. His eyes were closed, though she saw one of his ears prick up immediately at the sound of her rising, then droop as she neared him. Standing over him, on an impulse she lowered her head and licked his muzzle, then buried her nose in the thick fur of his neck. He rolled lazily onto his back, and she nuzzled his stomach. Then, daringly, she tentatively nuzzled and licked the short thick fuzz on his member. Towser made a little sound deep in his throat as his penis gently rose, but Jane withdrew to lie on her belly by his side, her head propped on her paws. There she dozed off.

Chapter 4

It was late afternoon when Towser rose to his feet. He sniffed her head, then began to walk slowly away across the paddock. Jane scrambled to her feet and followed him. He paused to urinate on the fence, and she squatted and followed suit before they passed through the gate into the yard. There Towser led the way to the kitchen porch where Bravo already lay panting in the shade. The big dog raised his head alertly at the sight of Jane, but when she walked up to him, turned around, and lay by his side, he relaxed, not even bothering to put a paw on the loop of her trailing leash.

Lying there in the hot, still air between the dogs, patiently waiting to be fed, Jane felt strangely, lazily content. She was vaguely aware of her condition, and of the strange sight the group presented of a naked, collared, dirty and smelly woman lying in the dirt flanked by two large dogs, but she didn't care. Like them, she ignored the flies that buzzed around their heads and crawled on their bodies, though she envied them their tails, which every now and then disturbed the flies on her own haunches as the dogs occasionally twitched them .

As if at some invisible signal the dogs rose and sat before their feeding bowl, staring at the mouth of the chute down which their food would come . After a few seconds Jane joined them, sitting on her haunches a little way further off. The food plopped into the bowl, and the dogs lowered their muzzles into it eagerly. But Jane made no move. Her stomach roiling in hunger, she waited patiently until they'd finished eating and drunk from their water bowl. Then she gave a little whine of enquiry, looking from one dog to the other in mute appeal. Bravo stared at her dismissively before lowering his head between his paws, and Tower merely spared her a glance before walking slowly away around the corner of the house.

Taking this for permission, Jane slowly went to the bowls and, after a further glance at Bravo, she lowered her head and ate. Then she lapped from the water bowl before going back to Bravo and lying by his side again. He turned his head to look at her, but once again he made no move to trap her leash.

When the evening sky began to darken Bravo rose abruptly. Seizing her leash, he led the passive Jane slowly across the yard and into the small shed in which they spent their nights. Towser was already there, and the barred door closed behind them as Bravo thrust the loop on Jane's short leash onto its securing pole. Jane lay down and wriggled her body into the damp, smelly straw. Closing her eyes, she prepared to sleep.

She dozed and woke all through the interminable night, as patient as the dogs she lay with, waiting to be released. Once she had to rise to empty her bladder, turning to face the wall she sqatted to urinate, and when she lay down again her hips lay in the wet straw so short was her tether.

When the first, faint light of dawn relieved the pitch darkness of their prison, the dogs rose to lift their legs against the wall, then went and sat in front of the bars to wait for the door to swing open.

The first rays of sunlight illuminated the stable yard, and the whirr of the electric motor announced the opening of the door. The dogs rose to depart. Jane uttered a frantic whimper, and Bravo stopped, turned, and looked back at her. Seeming to come to a sudden decision, he trotted across the straw and released her. Then he walked out of the shed. He hadn't bothered to grab her leash in his jaws as he always had before, but Jane lost no time in scrambling after him, and she tried to keep pace with him as he trotted away. She was a long way behind him when she came into the big farm yard, but, apart from an occasional glance behind him, Bravo didn't seem perturbed, and he and Towser were already eating when she arrived panting to join them.

When they'd finished she was permitted to eat and drink without incident, then she lay down at Bravo's side and joined him in what seemed to be his favourite activity of staring drowsily into space. She was getting used to this mindless pastime; it was becoming quite pleasant to lie there motionless, all her mental activities switched off. And the time seemed to pass much quicker too. It was getting hard to remember how long she'd been like this – was this the third or the fourth morning of her ordeal? But it wasn't important, and she laid her head on the dog's thick left fore-leg and closed her eyes.

It was mid-morning when Bravo stirred at last. Getting to his feet, he yawned and stretched. Then he turned to look at her. Divining his intention, Jane picked the end of her leash just below its loop in her mouth and rose to her feet, offering the loop to him. He stared at her curiously for a moment before taking the loop and leading away. When he'd secured the end of her tether in the usual place, he licked her shoulder and trotted away. Jane stood and watched him out of sight, absurdly glad that she'd won the dog's approval. Then she lay down again, ignoring the flies and the smells of the immediate area, now being used by the dogs to urinate in, and with the turds she'd there deposited a day or so earlier now drying and crusted.

Once again it was Towser who rescued her in mid-afternoon. He paused to cock a leg against the wall while Jane squatted and emptied her bowels as unselfconsciously as if she'd been alone and sceened from any observation. There was a certain freedom, she decided, in no longer being forced to obey human social restrictions, and she compounded her lack of inhibitions by wriggling her haunches before her dog's eyes as she led the way to the water bowl. He seemed to lack interest, but she kept a wary eye on him as she lapped.

As on the day before, he led her to the cool grove in the paddock. There, Jane experimented with the limits of his trust in her by running around him in ever-widening circles. To her vast delight she found she could run quite quickly on the tips of her toes and the tips of her mitted hands – though with little forward vision. Further and further away she got, always keeping an anxious eye on the dog's reactions, until at a distance of thirty feet from where he lay watching her he gave a low growl and made to rise. Jane instantly changed course to become nearer to him, at which he visibly relaxed.

Tired and panting, Jane lay down by her dog, her head near his rump to take advantage of the occasional flicks of his tail to ward off the flies.

Shortly after he rose, and stared fixedly across the paddock, and Jane tensed, fearing she'd be led back and tethered, but whatever had attracted the dog's attention had vanished – if it had ever existed – and he made to lie down again. But Jane, in relief mixed with gratitude, plus a generous dash of sheer mischief, had risen to all-fours and gone down on her elbows, her head low to observe him between the arch of her spread thighs. She felt again the warm moistness well from her genitals, and saw Towser, intrigued both by her smell and her inviting posture, approach her from the rear. Seconds later she felt the cool dampness of his nose, and then the warm, wet roughness of his tongue. Then he withdrew a little, and Jane steeled herself for what she knew he would attempt to do.

He was astonishingly quick. One moment she could see him standing a foot or so behind her; the next his paws skidded across her shoulder blade to dangle around her neck, and his hairy chest and belly lay heavily on her back. The front of his hairy thighs pressed hard against the back of hers, and she experienced once again the sick the horrror of his member urgently probing her vagina for access. As before, she flung herself violently forward to escape, but it was more difficult this time as Towser had distributed his weight on her back more evenly. She succeeded in falling flat on her face in the cool grass, and lay there panting at the nearness of her escape. Towser had withdrawn; he sat on his haunches, his spine bent and his head lowered to his groin. licking his genitals as if in consolation.

Then he lay down on his belly,and stared at her philosophically. Jane, recovering her poise, turned on her side and faced him, giggling as she imagined the doggy thoughts running though his shaggy head. But another dog would have known them. His shapeless, slow thoughts – if that was how they could be described – were that this oddly-shaped, hairless bitch, with her intriguing mixture of smells, was fast coming on heat, and he meant to be there when she did. Some of the half-wild dogs of the neighbouring farms had been as difficult to mate with, but he'd always succeeded in the end. He paused to stare jealously around for competitors, discounting Bravo, whom he sensed was now too old. Finding none, either in view or within scenting range of his sensitive nose, he relaxed.

They dozed away the hot afternoon, and when the shadows lengthened Towser led the way back to the kitchen porch where Bravo already lay waiting to be fed. Food! At the very thought Jane's belly rumbled loudly and her mouth filled with saliva. She lay down at Bravo's side and hoped devoutly that the dogs would leave her enough of their meal.

The dogs rose to sit at their feeding bowl, their eyes fixed on the chute. When their rations slithered into the bowl, their noses thrust in to it together, and the only sounds were of their noisy eating.

Towser finished first. Giving Jane an absent glance as he passed, he trotted away into the evening. Jane debated whether to join Bravo at the bowl, but decided against it. As pack leader, he should not be disturbed while he ate, and she waited patiently for him to finish.

Bravo raised his huge head from the bowl, and licked his lips and muzzle. Then he walked slowly away without sparing Jane a glance. She waited a few moments then moved to the bowl. As usual, the dogs had eaten very little of the vegetarian dog food, except that they'd pushed it around in their search for the meat, and there was quite a lot of the coarse cereal mixer uneaten. Lowering her head, she snuffled up the remains of their meal. When it had all gone, she wiped her face with her forearm and licked the smears of food from her skin.

Sitting, she realised with surprise that she was alone. Bravo had gone, and for the first time Jane was left untethered and unsupervised by a dog. It felt strange not to have to wait for one of them to take her where they wanted her to go, and she wondered what to do with her new freedom.

In the end, she lay down where she was, and when Bravo poked his head around the corner on the other side of the yard, she obeyed his short bark and scurried over to him, the loop of her leash in her mouth. Later, tethered on the stinking straw, she drowsily wondered at her unthinking subservience.

She was aware that Bravo, in his dim, doggy fashion, was pleased with her. The bitch he'd been charged with caring for was obedient. He licked her flank affectionately; she was coming on heat, he noted, but he wasn't too interested. He was old, and there was something about her smell that put him off, somehow. Towser, on her other side, slept with his left foreleg flung over her waist, his nose buried between her breasts.

Huddled together for warmth, the three slept on.

Chapter 5

The endless days passed identically for Jane. She discovered a real talent for lying comfortably on the bare ground and dozing the time away. Her dirt and smell no longer troubled her, and Bravo had become convinced of her docility, and rarely tethered her now, nor held her by her leash, but Jane took great care not to wander off out the sight of at least one of the dogs, and she came running whenever they barked for her. The hot, lazy afternoons in the grove with Towser were her favourite times, when she lay with her head on his shaggy thigh after going through her usual routine of teasing him sexually. And then – disaster!

It was the hottest day so far; so humid that Towser lay panting and Jane felt hot and sticky even in the relative coolness of the grove. They were lying side by side on their bellies in the grass, dozing in the lazy heat. Jane rolled over on to her side and licked Tower's muzzle for the salty taste of the ever-present thin film of mucus on his damp nose, then, with the warm moistness beginning to well high up between her thighs, she rolled onto her other side. Her back to the dog, she hitched her thighs level with his head and lay with her legs splayed. Towser prodded her cleft with his cool nose, and she gave a little squeal of drowsy delight. Almost by instinct, Jane rose to all-fours and stretched, then walked slowly in front of her dog and went down on her elbows with her back to him. Her rump raised invitingly in the air, her knees spread, she lowered her head and lazily regarded Towser through the gap between her thighs. He rose and stretched, then sniffed at her crotch before seeming to lose interest and lie down again. Jane was disappointed, perhaps she'd teased him too often, perhaps he'd lost interest in her.

But it was so comfortable in this position, bearing the weight of her upper body on her elbows with a tiny current of cooler air brushing gently past her belly and the damp skin of her inner thighs. Placing her forehead on her mitts, she closed her eyes whilst behind her, unnoticed, Towser's member stiffened and grew.

Jane gave a little gasp of surprise and shock as the dog's weight landed on her back and his upper forelegs slid down on either side of her neck, gripping it firmly between them. His rear paws had planted themselves in front of her knees, and his chest ground down on her back, his warm, shaggy belly draped over her buttocks. She felt the slimy tip of his penis probe at the opening to her vagina, and she struggled violently to escape. But all the air had been dashed from her lungs by his sudden assault, and his forelegs gripped her neck so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. Jane uttered a little cry of horror and despair as Towser's fuzzy, enlarged penis slipped past the lips of her vagina, then her senses reeled as his thighs thumped the backs of her own in an urgent rhythm. Her body shuddering under his frantic attack, she felt herself responding automatically, and, filled with a terrible mixture of guilt and desire, she responded in her own fashion, grinding her buttocks against his pumping thighs, feeling the pressure of his lower jaw holding down her head and the panting of his hot breath in her hair, until she climaxed at the the same time he did. With a sob of exhaustion, she went limp. Towser, as is the way with animals, didn't linger. Jane felt his member shrink and grow soft before he heaved himself from her back and withdrew it.

She stayed where she was, feeling his semen, mixed with her own blood and fluids, seep from her vagina down the inside of her thighs. She was still in a state of shock, scarcely able to believe what had just happened. 'I've lost my virginity to my own dog!' she thought, dazedly. 'And I enjoyed it!'

And she HAD enjoyed it; she had enjoyed his physical urgency, and the brutal and efficient manner in which he'd entered her, and even his rank male-animal smell which still clung to her body. Straightening her front legs, she slowly raised her upper body and turned to face him, finding hin lying a few feet away, looking at her with a complacent expression on his doggy face. She couldn't resist a choked gurgle of laughter; he looked so pleased with himself!

Jane squatted and urinated into the grass, then lay down and rolled in the wet patch, after which she walked over to the dog and licked his muzzle while she enjoyed the coolness of her urine evaporating from her back in the heat. She lay down by his side again, trying to get to grips with her recent experience. No-one will ever know, she thought, except me and Towser, but she wondered how her dog would regard her when she re-assumed her human persona as his Mistress, and she suddenly giggled at the notion of him trying to rape her in some public place, or trying to rape some other woman once he acquired the taste for it.

Towser watched her through eyes half-closed in drowsiness. The oddly-smelling bitch had come on heat at last, he thought in his fuzzy fashion. He wondered how long she'd stay on heat, for he'd considerably enjoyed the experience. Her tightness was a revelation to him, used to the rangy middle-aged bitches he met on the few and scattered neighbouring farms, and his penis began to rise slowly in remembrance. Jane turned her head a little to regard him lazily, then rolled on to her belly and yawned. Towser subsided, and they fell asleep together under the trees.

Chapter 6

Later, as Towser led the way to the kitchen porch to drink and to wait to be fed, Jane walked by his side, holding her leash in her mouth. Bravo was there already, lying down with his head on his front paws. He raised his head, alerted by the smell of recent sex, and Towser stopped and lay before him on his back in submission, as if asking his pardon for having taken their bitch in advance of the pack leader and Bravo licked his belly as if in forgiveness. Towser rose and went to the water bowl, where he allowed Jane to drink by his side. On their return to join the big Alsatian, Jane, with some vague idea of paying homage to the leader of the pack, turned her back on him and went down on her elbows in mute invitation. Watching him between her thighs, she saw him rise and walk towards her. But Bravo still wasn't really interested in this odd bitch; she didn't smell right to him, and, though his member rose, it soon subsided and the big dog contented himself with licking her buttocks and thighs.

The dogs ate, then Jane, and then they lay together until it was time for them to go to their little shed to be shut in for the night. Bravo led the way, with Towser at his side, and Jane followed closely behind them, carrying her leash in her mouth. Once they were behind the barred door of their pen, Jane sprawled luxuriously in the dirty straw, at peace with the world and herself.

She woke several times during the night, her head pillowed on Towser's flank, her nose buried in his fur. Her behaviour didn't seem so terrible to her now, though she was a little sore between her thighs, and she was glad that the bigger dog hadn't taken advantage of her offer. But the soreness inside her would quickly pass, and she even found herself wondering if she would give Towser another opportunity.

There was a change in the next day or so. Not in the weather, which remained enervatingly hot and increasingly humid, but in the relationship between the three of them and in Jane's treatment by the dogs. Towser, perhaps by virtue of being the only sexually active male in their tiny pack, seemed to Jane to have taken over the position of leader. At any rate, it became he who now controlled her movements, leading her back and forth, and tethering her to the wall in the mornings after she'd fed. Jane had thought him a less hard master than the big Alsatian, but this proved to be no longer the case once he'd taken over mastery of her. There were no more excursions to the paddock for Jane, instead, except for the daily walk to and from the the shed where they were kennelled – during which her leash was held firmly in her dog's powerful jaws - she was now kept tethered all the time, either in the shed at nights, or to the pole in the yard during the days.

Worse, it was clear that Towser, having once bent her to his will sexually, was intent on more of the same. One afternoon, as she lay drowsing surrounded by her own excreta on the little patch of hard ground to which she was confined by her tether, Towser trotted into the yard to drink. Jane stood and waited for him to finish and come to lead her to drink in her turn. And so he did, but in a very different manner from which he'd ever approached her before. His member was already stiff, and he nudged her shoulder with his nose in an obvious order to her to turn her back on him. Jane stared at him in dismay. His confidence that he would be obeyed unsettled her, and the the flat yellow glare in his eyes frightened her. Towser nudged her flank impatiently and growled at her, opening his mouth to show his sharp white teeth

With a little sob of fear and helplessness, Jane turned her back on him and went down on her elbows, resting her forehead on the dirt between her mitts. Closing her eyes in resignation, she waited for the inevitable. As before, he was brutally quick, and when he withdrew and cocked a hind leg against the wall a foot or so from her to empty his bladder, he left her sobbing with shame and horror, not even moving when an occasional drop of his strong-smelling urine splashed on her skin.

Jostling her aside, the dog then seized her leash and dragged her to water. A few minutes later, when he'd tethered her again, he went back to the feeding area and lay on his belly with his head on his paws regarding her with satisfaction. Jane straightened her aching arms and turned to face him, wincing at the soreness between her thighs. She could read his muzzy, doggy thoughts like a book. For a moment she hated her dog for his self-satisfied male complacency, for his obvious confidence in his domination over this strange bitch that he could take whenever he pleased, and she hated herself for her own forced acceptance of the situation.

Bravo walked slowly around the corner of the house. Panting audibly in the heat, he lowered his head into the water bowl and drank. Raising his head to shake the water from his muzzle, he sniffed the air and turned to look sharply in Jane's direction. Purposefully, the big dog walked over to where she stood passively. She felt Bravo's nose probe her vagina, and she saw Towser lift his head a little to stare at them before lowing it again and closing his eyes in apparent boredom.

When the Alsatian's big, heavy paws landed on her shoulder blades Jane went down on her elbows almost with indifference. The larger dog took her with surprising gentleness, and the experience was not nearly as painful as she'd feared. When he climbed down, he gave her thigh a friendly lick before urinating in the same spot as Towser had used and walking off to lie down by the other dog.

Jane stared at the dogs with dull eyes, too shocked and dispirited even to cry. Slowly and painfully, she turned to regard the tiny, filthy patch of bare earth she was confined to. The puddle of dog urine lay only a foot from the hole where her short tether was secured. It had spread, and was slow to soak into the hard-packed soil. Finally Jane lay down on the still damp ground with her back to the dogs and wept in misery and despair.

Up until then, she realised, despite her mitts, her gag, her nakedness and her collar, and despite her being able to walk only on all-fours, she had still been unconsciously expecting the dogs to regard her as a human being and their superior. Bitterly she realised her real position in their eyes; an oddly-shaped, hairless female animal. Her recent rape by the dogs had been much worse than the first one a day previously, then she'd been able to tell herself that she had brought it on by her own choice. But there had no choice this time, nor would there be in the future. Towser must be in doggy heaven, she thought dispassionately, with unlimited access to a tethered bitch. Incredibly, she dozed off, and was only woken by the sound the dogs made as they ate.

She stood and waited to be led off to feed on their leavings, but they ignored her desperate whinings, and it was only when they were due to be shut up in the shed that Towser led her off to eat as quickly as she could while he stood over her, twitching her leash impatiently.

The pattern of her existence became set. Every morning the dogs were freed, but Jane was left tethered. An hour or so later, after the dogs had eaten, Towser would return and lead her over to feed. Then he'd tether her to the pole until mid-afternoon when he'd lead her to drink. When he'd secured her again, he'd demand his reward and she'd go down on her elbows docilely and endure his attentions.

She became dull-eyed and indifferent – her mind shutting down to preserve her sanity – and even the appearence on her body of the first fleabites didn't register with her at first. She ignored them, as she'd long ignored the flies crawling on her body.

By now she had no idea of how many days had passed, and even in her brief moments of lucidity she no longer bothered to try to calculate them; instead, like any other animal, she lived passively in the present, minute by minute, no longer capable of anticipating her future.

Chapter 7

One day around noon she heard a faint, once familiar sound. She raised her head and frowned; it was a noise that she seemed to remember; it had some significance but she was much too hot and tired to recall it. Instead, she closed her eyes and slept, waiting for Towser to return and lead her to water, and the price he would exact for it.

It was earlier than usual when the dog trotted to drink, this time accompanied by the older and larger Bravo. His thirst satisfied, Towser walked up to her and freed her from the pole. By now he was so convinced of her submissiveness that he no longer bothered to hold her by her leash and she turned her back on the dogs, lowering her head into the water bowl more intent on slaking her terrible thirst than anything the dogs might do to her.

They left her to drink unmolested, but once she raised her dripping face and hair from the bowl, Towser uttered an impatient and minatory little bark. Jane listlessly went down upon her elbows and spread her knees apart. Her dog took her at once in his usual frenzy, but she stayed passive standing under his attentions, and, when he'd withdrawn, she stayed where she was in case Bravo required servicing - for that was how she'd come to think of it - too. In the event, the bigger dog didn't follow the new pack-leader's example; instead he probed Jane's distended vagina with his nose before licking the mixture of her's and her dog's fluids from between her thighs.

Towser led her back to the post and secured her. They stood for several moments regarding each other, Jane with weary indifference, he with the pride of ownership. Dog though he was, Towser knew that the hard, thin, flexible thing with the loop at one end and her collar at the other would keep her from wandering off. He had never even approached the degree of sexual satisfaction he'd been getting from this bitch, despite her odd shape; and he'd become used to her subtly off-putting smell, so often had he covered her. She was quite docile, not snapping at him as another bitch might, nor plumping down on her haunches to deny him access and obliging him to snarl and snap at her. Now that he had gained the unrestricted use of her body when ever he pleased, he had no intention of allowing her to wander off.

Jane lay on the filthy ground, drearily considering her wretched existence; continually chained up, her dirt-caked, stinking body a sexual toy for her own dog. Weeping to herself quietly and despairingly at the knowledge of what she'd become, she sobbed herself to sleep.

She woke reluctantly; at least in her sleep she wasn't constantly confronted with her degradation, and stared vacantly out across the yard. It was late afternoon, and her stomach rumbled in anticipation of the few scraps the dogs would leave for her after they'd eaten. But it was yet too early, and neither dog was in sight when she rose to all-fours and emptied her bladder. She lay down again, her right paw supporting her head, and her left outflung upon the ground. Focussing idly upon her left mitt, she pondered once more on how restricted the mitts made her human hands; wearing them, she was no more than an animal. A fly landed upon her wrist-cuff and she stared at absently. The memory of the sound she'd heard that morning surfaced in her mind. She frowned once more, idly watching the fly probe a hairline crack between the leather-cover steel surrounding her wrist. Then she stiffened in shock as the significance of combination of the crack and the faint clicks of the morning fully struck home. Scarcely daring to hope, she wriggled her wrist inside its imprisoning cuff. Did she deceive herself, or was there more play around her wrist. Slowly she rose and sat on her haunches. Bringing her left wrist up to her eyes, she examined it closely. It was true, the mitt was open - she was free at last!

She carefully placed her left paw on the ground by the side of her right, and sat for long minutes in a daze, entirely unable to believe that her ordeal might be at an end. Eventually she lifted her paw again, tucked it between her upper right arm and her ribs, and pulled hard. Her left mitt came off with a faint - perhaps imaginary - whoosh and she held her freed hand up and examined it unbelievingly.

Finally she summoned up her courage. After glancing furtively around for any sight of her gaolers, and without even bothering to remove her right-hand cuff, she lifted her leash over the post and scurried to the kitchen door on all-fours. With an effort she stood upright for the first time for more than a month. Grasping dizzily at the door frame for support, she took down the key she'd hung up so many days ago and unlocked the kitchen door. Stumbling through into the stale-smelling kitchen, she hurriedly closed and locked the door behind her in delirious, ludicrous terror that, even at this moment, the dogs might come running up to herd her out into the yard and tether her to the post again. Dropping to all-fours, she scrambled over the hard, tiled floor and butted her head against the half-open door of her downstairs bathroom. She had to stand, clinging to the wall, to turn on the shower, but she reverted to all-fours once more as the warm, clean water battered her body. Pulling off her remaining mitt in one frantic gesture, she hurled it from her into a corner of the room. There was a full bottle of shampoo on a tiny stand near the floor, and she poured it all over herself, rubbing it well into the dirt on her body. She had used it all before the water gurgling down the drain had begun to run clear, and she was obliged to crawl, dripping wet and shivering, out into the kitchen where she took a plastic bottle of liquid soap from the cupboard below the sink and returned to the shower. By now she was able to stand again, though the muscles and small bones of her spine were protesting against having to carry the weight of her upper body after so long on all-fours.Finally she towelled herself dry, and steeled herself to look into the huge wall-mirror. She was surprised to see herself so little altered by her experience; though her face was tired and drawn, and her ribs were more prominent than before, and she found from the bathroom scales that she had lost twelve pounds in weight.

Slipping on sandals, she peered out of the window before venturing outside. But it was well past eight o'clock, and the dogs had long gone to their shed. Still supporting herself with a hand against the wall against a fall, she made her slow way along the porch to the stinking corner where she'd spent so many daylight hours. Her collar was still around her neck and her leash still dangled fom it so used was she to their presence, and she shivered with terror as she looked down at the post where it stood among the filth covering the ground. For one mad moment she imagined herself placing the loop of her leash over the post again, and refitting her mitts in order to volountarily re-enter her captivity. She shivered in the suddenly cool air; so long had she been without clothing that she hadn't even realised she was still naked.

Returning to the kitchen, she locked the door firmly behind her and put on the kettle for tea. She sat long over it, taking it milkless for she had no fresh provisions in the house. After injecting herself with the antidate to the peculiar body odour which had so successfully disguised her own, she felt totally drained. Despite her hunger, she went to bed. After only a few minutes of trying to get comfortable under the covers on the soft mattress, she climbed out of her bed and lay naked on the floor. There she fell asleep, still wearing her collar and leash.

She slept the sleep of the dead, and it was only her hunger which drove her downstairs in the mid-morning of the next day. She drank milkless tea, then heated a tin of soup and ate it with cheese and crackers. The air in the kitchen was warm and close, and, once more, she didn't realise that she was naked. Previously, except for her ventures into Self-Bondage, Jane had hardly ever been naked except in the privacy of her own bathroom, even putting on a bathrobe to walk the few feet into her bedroom to dress. She showered again, this time standing upright, and, when she felt brave enough, she peeped out the kitchen window into the yard to catch sight of the dogs. Bravo was lying in his usual position near the feeding and water bowls; of Towser there was no sign. Jane shivered; sooner or later she'd have to face them both and hope that they remembered her only as a human being and their Mistress. But not yet; she just lacked the moral courage to look them in the eye.

For three days she moped around the house, at last summoning up the will-power to remove her collar but unwilling to venture outside. Finally she pulled herself together, telling herself sharply that this wouldn't do at all; she needed fresh food, and she couldn't stay in here for ever - for one thing she had to return Bravo to his owner.

The next day she rose early, showered, and dressed for the first time since she'd slipped out of her nightdress on that fateful morning in her kitchen. She chose her clothing carefully, electing to wear her oldest dress and sandals on the grounds that they would the deepest imbued with her unique personal scents. No pains must be spared to assure the dogs that their Mistress was indeed returned. She practised speaking, at first not realising that the little plastic gag was still in her mouth, she who had been dumb for so long, until she could snap out the words of command with authority, for she knew that self-assurance was essential when dealing with the dogs.

She went out into the yard just as the dogs finished eating from the still functioning automatic feeder. They spotted her at once and bounded towards her from thirty feet away, delighted to see their pack leader again. Bravo was the first to reach her. At her feet he paused to look up at her, dim puzzlement in his brown eyes. He bent his head and sniffed her feet thoroughly before raising his nose to sniff the hem of her dress. Jane leaned down a little and scratched his head roughly, all the time talking softly to him. He seemed satisfied with her identity for the moment, and Jane put down his confusion to her long absence. She raised her eyes to see Towser stationary a few yards away. He was coming to her from downwind, and he, too, seemed confused and uncertain; so much so that she distinctly saw the look of joy and devotion in his eyes change to puzzled suspicion. Carefully, Towser came to his feet and walked stiff-legged towards her. "Here, boy!" snapped Jane, and she was relieved to see the dog's head come up automatically in response to her familiar voice.

He came doubtfully to her feet and imitated the larger dog in investigating her various scents. Her went further,and, while Jane stood patiently still, her dog sniffed her crotch through the thin cloth of her sole garment both at her front and rear before withdrawing a few feet to sit and look at her thoughtfully. Jane watched him in fascination, wondering what thoughts were going through his doggy mind. Whatever his thoughts, he seemed to conclude them after a few minutes, for he sat upright and stared his Mistress full in the eyes. Jane met his stare steadily before shame and guilt made her drop her gaze. "He knows!" she thought wretchedly. "He knows that I'm the same creature he was keeping on tethered for his sexual pleasure just a few days ago. HE KNOWS!"

Towser gave a little shake of his head, looking vaguely pleased with himself as if he'd won a small victory, before trotting back to Jane where he allowed her to fondle his ears just as he normally would, but Jane had the feeling that something had subtly changed in their relationship.

After a doubtful glance at her dog, she stripped naked as she usually did to wash the dogs, washing them over and over again, until they were quite clean. When they were quite dried off, she dusted them with flea-powder, working it well into their coats, nor she neglect this precaution for herself. She'd been put more at ease by Towser's behaviour throughout this procedure; he'd been quite as normal, and when she'd ushered Bravo into the barred-off rear of her Land Rover, she called out to Towser to come to her. Confining him any longer in the filthy shed where he and Bravo had been forced to sleep was not necessary now, and she decided to shut him up in his old kennel while she went to take Bravo home to his owner. He would enjoy it, she thought; the kennel was large, warm and weather-proof, with thick layers of old carpet for him to lie on. Best of all, it had a chain and an electrically operated sliding door of thick steel bars which she'd taught him to operate - well, he could open the door from outside by pressing a large floor-mounted button with a front paw, but was then unable to reach it to let himself out. Pleased with her notion, for she was secretly a little worried by his new attitude and she would feel a lot easier in her mind if he was safely confined, she led the way to where the kennel stood in a sunny corner of the inner yard facing East.

Towser accompanied her readily enough, or so she thought, but when she stooped and picked up the end of his chain he was no longer with her. She turned and saw him sitting watching her from ten feet away. She called him to her again and again, but he merely stared back at her defiantly. Angrily, Jane strode over to him and bent to grasp him by his collar. He growled and bared his teeth, and she straightened up in astonishment tinged with fear. Looking down at him, she saw a yellow glare die in his eyes before he stood deliberately and walked away from her. Tentatively, she called him back, but he seemed to ignore her, and, apart turning for a moment to favour her with a dismissive stare, he walked off into the small field and out across the moor.

At a loss, and with a certain fear, his Mistress stared after him for several moments. Then she remembered Bravo, and got into her Land Rover to drive away.

Such was the novelty of seeing and talking to other people after so long, and of being welcomed and thanked by Bravo's owner, that she quite forgot her own dog's odd behaviour. It was only after she'd finished shopping for fresh food in the neighbouring village, and arranged for her usual weekly order, along with her post, to be delivered every week as usual, that she began to consider her options on the six-mile drive home. She was becoming more and more concerned with what she recalled of his manner as he'd walked away from her. He'd disobeyed such orders in the past - as all dogs did occasionally - and, like them, he had slunk off guiltily trying hard to give her the impression that he'd not heard her orders. But not this time; this time he'd shown deliberate defiance of her. Still wondering how to deal with him, she drove into the barn and locked the big doors behind her.

To her surprise, when she came from the barn with her shopping, Towser was waiting for her across the yard by the kitchen door. He followed her into the kitchen as he usually did, and all seemed normal as she began to put away her provisions, but, looking back on events later, she recognised that it was when she bent to put the fresh milk in her refrigerator that the new regime could be said to have begun.

From behind her she felt Towser's nose prodding her violently between her buttocks. She gave a little squeal of shock and outrage and rounded on him angrily. "You bad, bad dog!" she shouted at him, raising a hand to cuff him on the head. The dog's response to her threat was immediate. Jane shrank back as he growled menacingly and bared his teeth, the yellow light flaring in his eyes. Stiff-legged, he moved slowly towards her, his growl deepening and becoming louder. She stumbled back into a corner of the room, her own eyes wide with surprise and fear. With his Mistress trapped in the corner, Towser sat and stared up at her for a moment. Then, with a loud growl, he sprang at her waist, seized her dress in his teeth, and snatched at it violently. The thin shoulder-straps dug painfully into Jane's flesh before they parted and the flimsy fabric fell about her bare ankles. Shocked beyond measure by this incident, she automatically reached down to pull on her torn dress. Towser growled again, following it by a deafening bark of menace and warning. Jane straightened and looked at her angry dog in terror, but, after only a few seconds, he turned away and went to lie on his old blanket by the Aga from where he stared steadily at her.

Jane stood in indecision. She dared not pick up her dress to cover her nakedness, and she had no notion of what behaviour the dog - in his apparent madness, would tolerate from her. Raising her head, she glanced at his reclining figure with apprehension. He looked exactly as normal. He wasn't frothing at the mouth or anything of the sort, and when her gaze met his, he looked at her quite sanely before she dropped her eyes. She sensed rather than saw a self-satisfied little shake of his head following this exchange of looks, as if he'd proved something to himself. This was the second time she'd felt obliged to avoid his steady gaze, and he seemed to be drawing certain conclusions from the events.

Tired of standing motionless in her corner, she took a tentative step out of the crumpled dress at her feet and away from the wall. At once Towser rose to sit before the Aga and watch her attentively. She froze, but when the dog remained still, she came a few feet further towards the centre of the room.

Towser leapt at her without warning, knocking her from her feet. She landed heavily on the tiled floor of the kitchen, banging her head painfully against the wall in her fall. She lay there semi-stunned, bright lights floating before her closed eyes. Groaning, she raised her lids to see Towser standing over her. Seemingly relieved at these signs of continuing life, the dog withdrew a few feet to lie down on its belly and regard her, his powerful hindlegs coiled ready for instant action.

Jane repeated her groan, then lifted a hand to gingerly feel her aching head. Her side where she'd landed hurt too, and she rolled over to massage it. Finally she made to get up to her feet, keeping an anxious eye on the dog as she did so. She came to all-fours without incident, but when she attempted to rise further Towser growled at her and bared his long, sharp teeth in warning. This was a nightmare, Jane thought, when tentative experiments had discovered those postures the dog would allow her and those he would not. She was allowed to lie down, to stand on all fours, and to sit upright in the best approximation of a dog she could manage, but any other configuration of her body was forbidden her, especially rising to her feet. By the end of her 'training' by her dog; when he was finally satisfied that the limits of permitted postures had been learnt by her, she was standing on all-fours by where he lay on his blanket.

Jane was at a loss what to do. The tiles were uncomfortably hard under her knees, and she looked with longing at the comfortable, padded kitchen chair a few feet away. In the end, she crawled slowly and fearfully on to Towser's blanket, halting every few inches to test his reactions. Much to her relief, he seemed to have no objection to sharing his blanket with her; he even seemed to expect it, for he obligingly moved to make room for her at his side when she ventured to lie down.

It was much more comfortable with the thick, smelly blanket between her skin and the tiled floor, and, in the quiet companionship of her dog, Jane could even imagine that they were together in her living room before the fire in the evening as they so often had been in the past. She considered her position carefully. Escape from her dog's presence seemed impossible. Of the three doors out of the room, only the one to the outside was a little ajar, while the other two, entrances to the ground-floor bathroom and the to the rest of her house were firmly closed, and she already suspected that Towser would forcibly prevent her from trying to open them and get out of his reach. She was bruised from her fall, but the ache in her head had subsided. Worst of all, she was hungry - for she'd eaten nothing that day except a slice of cake offered by Bravo's owner. And she was terribly thirsty! With that thought came a ray of hope which grew in intensity as she fully grasped the simple solution to her present problem. Sooner or later Towser would be thirsty too. He was still being fed and watered automatically, and he would have to go outside to drink. Then she would be alone; then she could rise to her feet, open the door to the interior, and close it safely behind her. A few minutes on the telephone, and men with guns would take care of Towser for good. Before that time, he may even need to leave to relieve himself; thinking of which reminded her that her own bladder was growing uncomfortably full. Waiting for her chance, she mused on what had triggered Towser's strange behaviour since her release. She began to suspect that the antidote to the body-scent which she'd injected while she'd trained the dogs to treat her as an animal had not worked properly. Recalling Towser's, and, to a lesser extent, Bravo's, ambivalent attitude towards her earlier that day turned supicion into certainty. Towser, she now clearly realised, had firmly decided that she was still the odd-looking bitch whose body he'd enjoyed so much when he'd had her at his disposal, and he meant to repeat the experience. He was used to her naked and on all-fours, and that was why he'd pulled her dress from her body and forbade her to rise to her feet. But she'd forgotten that Towser was accustomed to something more about her appearance, and that was to be the cause of her continuing degradation. Her dog had not forgotten. Rising suddenly, he bent his head and nipped Jane painfully on her upper arm before walking off a few feet and turning to look back at her in peremptory summons. Blinking away tears of pain, Jane rose and followed the dog to a low cupboard. He nosed at the latch, then turned to her with a yelp of command. Obviously he wanted her to open the cupboard and she did so. Immediately he shouldered her aside and pulled out with his teeth the large plastic oddment-box in which she kept her self-bondage equipment. It scraped across the floor to a halt and the dog thrust his head inside to emerge with the old collar Jane had stolen from the Spaniel still with the short chain-leash attached to it. Dropping it next to her, he drew back and growled at her. As if in a dreadful dream, Jane picked up the collar, sat, and buckled it around her neck with trembling fingers. Then Towser sat and raised a paw to his own collar, scratching at it and growling, his eyes fixed on hers. As if under a spell, she raised shaking hands to his collar and clumsily unbuckled it. It fell from around his neck to the floor, and he bent his head, picked it up in his mouth and dropped it into the box. Jane came to all-fours, the loop on the leash dangling to the floor and Towser lost no time in darting forward and picking it up in his powerful jaws.

He tugged hard on her leash just as he'd been doing several days ago, and she followed him docilely just as she had done then. It was like a horrible repeat performance of a nightmare to Jane as she sat helplessly at the dog's side while he lapped noisily with her leash trapped under his heavy paw. He allowed her to drink when he'd finished, and while doing so she began to hope that he'd loop her leash over the low pole in the corner of the yard as he'd been used to. Then, once he'd gone out of sight, she would lift off the loop and escape to the house. It was with a feeling of hopeful anticipation that she raised her head and sent her wet hair swirling about her face to dislodge the drops of water which clung to it.

Towser seized the end of her leash and led her off, but not to the pole a few yards away, as she'd hoped. Instead, her dog trotted off across the yard and into the smaller one beyond it with Jane scrambling breathlessly at his side. They passed the evil-smelling little shed she and the dogs had slept in and stopped when Towser reached the corner where his old kennel stood. It seemed that the intention Jane had had earlier of keeping him there had jogged Towser's memory of previous captivities, and the first thing he did was to scrabble at the end of the chain lying in the dust with the obvious intention that Jane should pick it up and clip it to her collar. She obeyed with that feeling of being in a nightmare which was becoming so familiar, and Towser pulled on her leash, indicating that he wanted her to remove it. Fumbling with its spring-clip, she did so and laid it on the ground, upon which Towser placed a heavy paw on the large floor-mounted button which controlled the barred door of the kennel. It was obvious what he meant her to do, and Jane obeyed meekly as he barked at her to enter the kennel. The descending door brushed her toes as she went in, and she turned to see Towser trotting away, her leash dangling from his jaws. In a daze of incomprehension, she lay down on the floor of the kennel and, unbelievably, fell into a deep sleep.

Waking later, for a moment she wondered where she was on seeing the bars a few inches from her eyes. When her memories came back, she realised that she was trapped in the barred kennel, and for a moment she felt real fear. Then she calmed down. Towser had only put her in here to keep her from escaping while he was away; when he returned he'd know that she'd want feeding and access to water. But, she thought gloomily, he might not release her until he himself was fed, and that wouldn't be for hours yet. Worst of all, it suddenly ocurred to her that the dog might not return at all; he might be prevented by accident or sudden illness. Then, she realised in terror, she would be trapped behind the bars of the kennel to die of thirst. That possibility had concerned her previously, but then she'd had two dogs to look after her in her self-imposed helplessness. But now, if Towser was to die, or to be injured, or even simply forget about her, she would suffer a painful death. She shivered at the prospect, then resolutely turned her attention back to escaping her dog's attentions. She wondered why, if her attraction as a captive sexual partner had been the spring of Towser's behaviour, he hadn't yet taken advantage of her in that manner, but found no answer except a vague suspicion that maybe his sexual urges needed to be first triggered by the faint scent of canine females on heat somewhere on the moor. Then she realised with a dismal groan that she'd neglected the opportunity to empty her bladder when she'd been led out to drink. Now there was no help for it, and she relieved herself on her already smelly bedding in a corner of the kennel before lying down listlessly to wait for her dog to release her.

Over the next few days she slipped imperceptibly back into her old condition; the submissive and docile inferior in the little pack of two. Although she could easily have done so, she lacked the spirit to unclip her chain or take off her collar when shut up in her kennel, Just as before, when she'd been kept tethered to the pole in the yard, the dog released her only to lead her to be fed on his leavings and drink from his bowl morning and evening. A tiny flame of rebellion still flickered, but it diminished daily as her condition became to seem natural to her. In vain she told herself that she didn't have to endure this, that she was a human being with the faculty of speech and an opposable thumb, that she could do things impossible to even the brightest animal. Her dog's will controlled her own with such contemptuous ease that he no longer bothered to threaten her to enforce her obedience. So complete was his dominance over her that he tethered her to the pole in the yard, where she'd spent so many weary hours in the past, and left her within easy reach of the kitchen door and her freedom. With the pain circuits in her collar no longer active and her fingers free, she could have easily gained the house while he was away. But she didn't even attempt it, so deeply ingrained had the habit of obedience to her dog become, and so terrified she was of the minute chance of being discoved by him free from where he'd tethered her.

A few days passed, and what she'd been dreading occurred. Early one afternoon, while the noon heat still lingered, Jane was dozing behind the bars of her kennel when Towser's arrival awoke her. She lay and gazed at him blearily as he put down a determined paw on the button which controlled her kennel's door. Even before it was fully risen, the dog seized her chain in his jaws and tugged at it urgently. This was the usual prelude to her being led off to eat and drink, but it was far too early, and Towser hadn't taken down the leash he would make her wear to be led by from its hook on the nearby wall.

She obeyed the tugs on her chain, emerging from her kennel into the hot, still air. Towser, seemingly impatient with her progress, dropped her chain and sank his teeth around her collar, painfully nipping the flesh of her neck as he did so. He dragged her as far as her chain would allow before pulling her around so that she faced the entrance to her kennel. Then he let go of her collar and moved behind her to sniff urgently at her cleft. Jane knew what her dog intended, she had seen his state of sexual excitement all too often before, with his member extended and stiff and a drop of semen glistening at its tip. In response to an impatient bark from behind her, she went down obediently on her elbows. Her rump in the air, she shuffled her knees apart and waited meekly.

Towser took her swiftly and brutally. She gasped in shock and pain as his front paws landed hard on her shoulder blades before slipping around her neck to grasp it tightly. The weight of his hairy chest and belly fell upon her back, and she felt the tip of his penis probing urgently at the lips of her vagina, already slippery with her own fluids as her own body betrayed her. She gasped again when he entered her, then she responded as - shamefully - she always did, grinding the backs of her thighs against the hot, shaggy front of her dog's, frenziedly willing him to probe into her deeper and deeper. Then she felt the heat of his sperm as he ejaculated deep inside her, his deflation, and his slow, panting, withdrawal.

Towser lay for a moment, his full weight upon her back, before going up on his hindlegs and slipping off her to lie panting on the ground at her side while she slowly keeled over to lie facing him. They lay there with eyes closed, their chests rising and falling in unison, for several minutes. Towser finally stirred. Opening his eyes, he stared at Jane before licking her hot and sweaty face roughly. She opened her own eyes at this and stared upwards into those of her dog for a moment before lowering her gaze in submission. He made a little noise of satisfaction deep in his throat, then walked behind her prone body and nipped her gently on the calf of her left leg. Taking this as a signal, she pulled her knees up to her belly and rose to all-fours whereupon another, more painful nip, ordered her into her kennel. A few seconds later, she was standing at the bars watching the dog walked slowly away, complacent self-satisfaction oozing from every pore.

Jnae found herself crying, the hot tears falling straight down to splash upon the her filthy bedding. Her upper arms and shoulders ached from bearing Towser's weight, her shoulder blades stung from the scratches his growing claws had inflicted, and she could sense the slow seeping of the dog's semen from her vagina to join the mixture of their joint fluids dampening her inner thighs. She tood unmoving, weeping in helpless misery and despair, for a long time before she went down on the damp, smelly bedding and lay there staring hopelessly outwards through the bars of her prison.

In the days after this first assault, Jane, her spirit broken, reverted entirely to the submissive animal she'd been previously. Towser, as if scenting his total control over her, even allowed her to follow him to be fed holding the loop of her leash in her mouth as she'd been trained to do, and, in order to slake his sexual appetite faster, he no longer shut her in her kennel in the daylight hours, but allowed her the limited freedom of the chain she could have so easily removed, only appearing now and then as if to check up on her.

He took her twice more, on alternative days, then left her outside all kennel one morning unsupervised all day until long past her normal evening feeding time. When he returned, just before darkness fell, he had a companion.

Jane had little opportunity for observation, for Towser shut her in her kennel immediately, and she was too busy sobbing in disappointment at not being fed that she forgot to watch the two dogs disappear into the darkening evening.

At first light the dogs returned from wherever they'd spent the night. Again Jane was denied an opportunity for observation as her dog raised the door of her kennel and dragged her out by her chain. Once she was clear of the kennel, he stood by her side, holding her chain in his mouth while his companion sniffed Jan's body all over with its cold, damp nose. It withdrew at last, and Towser dropped her chain from his jaws. Jane, with some vague idea of reassuring the strange dog of her complete submission, lay down on her side and rolled over onto her back with her head turned away from it and her vulnerable genitals, belly and throat exposed to its teeth. This appeared to have been the correct reponse, for the strange dog, visibly relaxed, gave a whine of satisfaction before resuming its examination of Jane's body, concluding it with a gentle nip on Jane's thigh in token of her inferior position in the new and larger pack.

The dogs stood side by side, looking down at her where she lay at their feet on the cold, hard ground. At last Jane could see the stranger clearly. A bitch past her youth, tall and rangy, her coat long and matted with neglect, she was the usual moorland cross of sheepdog and any village dog big enough and brave enough to roam the moor in search of a mate. She wore no collar; obviously she was one of the feral dogs who lived on the moor the year around, in constant danger of being shot by the shepherds in charge of the scattered flocks of sheep.

Towser fetched her leash from the hook on the wall where he hung it and laid it before her; his signal that she was to attach it to her collar and remove her chain. When she'd done so, the dog barked softly at the strange bitch and she bent to pick up Jane's short chain-leash. She tugged at it, and Jane followed obediently in her wake as she walked with Towser back to where their food and water dishes waited.

Jane slipped easily into her position in the larger pack - that of the inferior, the last to feed. But there were changes, too. Towser, now apparently convinced of his ex-Mistress's tameness, and now with the help of the bitch to control her, gradually allowed her more and more freedom of movement. He even allowed her to stand upright now and then, especially to take in the provisions that were delivered weekly and left in the little shed at the head of the track just outside the tall locked doors of the main yard. He and the bitch would eat all the meat in an orgy of feasting, leaving Jane to eat the rest. It never occurred to her, when she heard her grocer's little van stop outside the yard, to shout for help - and, perhaps, even it had, she no longer had the will-power to defy her dog.

She was no longer shut up on her kennel at night; instead she was permitted to share Tower's blanket in the kitchen along with the bitch. The kitchen itself was in a filthy condition, mud and dirt tracked in by the dogs covered the floor, and the body-odour of the unwashed dogs - along with Jane's own rank smell - competed with that of the vegetables rotting in their racks. But it was better than her kennel, and warmer too as Autumn approached.

While the bitch was on heat Towser took them both indiscriminately, as and when he chose, but when she came off he no longer pestered Jane - indeed, he largely ignored her except when she'd inadvertently show some sign of independent action. Then he would growl and snap at her - the bitch too - and she would grovel at their feet in terror, dreading that they'd return her to her kennel. Occasionally a small inner voice would scream in outrage at her degradation. Of the three, she was the only one collared. At nights she slept in the coldest place, on the outside of the little huddled of fur and flesh, and she went hungry when the automatically supplied food - deliberately designed not to be quite sufficient to feed three animals - was mostly eaten by the dogs. But she was now too broken to care, and the little inner voice would fade into silence.

Then things changed for ever, although it was unrecognised at the time. One cold, sunny morning the bitch ran off as usual across the field and onto the moor on another of the dogs' daily errands of exploration. She didn't return; neither that day, nor the day after. Towser whined and whimpered, spending long hours staring out across the moor in search of his canine companion. But she didn't come back. One morning a few days later, after he'd eaten and Jane had been fed, he took her leash and dropped its loop over the top of the low post in a corner of the yard. Then he trotted off, stopping and turning before he entered the field to see Jane on all-fours leashed to her post. Apparently satisfied of her captivity, he ran though the field and onto the moor.

Jnae sat back on her haunches, the ground cold beneath her, and watched the tiny figure of her dog melt away into the distant bluey-green of the moor. She yawned and stood to give a token tug on her tether, then lay down in the cool sunlight. Long afterwards she would marvel at her failure to take advantage of his absence to free herself, now she merely lay in the dirt patiently waiting to be released. Later she rose and emptied both her bowels and her bladder in the familiar places before lying down again.

She woke from a doze with a shiver. The afternoon was far advanced, and the sun had moved on and sunk lower in the sky. It was chilly, and she longed for Towser's return. The shadows implacably lengthened, and the cold in the still air increased. Food rumbled down the chute into the empty bowl, and Jane's stomach growled in hunger. Still she lay there, now curled up against the cold, and still Towser didn't come.

The night air was bitter, with a full moon flooding the yard with its bleak light and silvering Jane's shaking body where it lay under the cold stars. When the sky finally paled and the cold was at its most intense, Jane rose to squat, her urine steaming in the icy air. She sat, her eyes fixed upon the Eastern horizon for the first sign of the rising sun.

Wakened from a doze in the faint warmth of the sun by the rumble of more food down the chute, she whimpered, tugging on her leash in an attempt to break free. There was still no sign of her dog, and she had come to dread her punishment should she free herself and be discovered. But finally she had no choice, and it was her thirst rather than her hunger which finally over-rode her conditioning. Kneeling, she regarded her roughened, dirty hands with their cracked skin and black fingernails. After a final hesitation, and not daring either to remove her collar or detach her leash, she gently lifted the loop over the top of the post and let it trail on the ground.

She looked around her timidly, every sense alert for the return of either of the dogs, before slinking away for food and water.

She drank first, her long, filthy hair trailing in the water, before she turned her attention to the food dish, now heaped high with two uneaten rations. After many seconds hesitation, all the time raising her head in fear of the dogs, she overcame her training and ate, noisily and hastily. Without even bothering to try to wipe the smears of food from her face with her forearm, she scuttled back to the post and secured her leash to it with a sigh of relief. Then she waited once more.

Noon had come and gone, but Towser had not come back to her. The evening food appeared in the dish, and this time Jane didn't hesitate for long before slipping her leash from the post and going to eat. Afterwards, whether it was the effect of being able to fill her belly on two successive occasions, or her freedom from supervision for so many hours, or even some unconscious premonition that another night spent in the open air might kill her, she butted open the kitchen door with her head and went inside to lie on Towser's blanket.

She stayed there all night. It was as cold in the kitchen as in the yard for the first few hours, nor did she think of wrapping the smelly blanket around her - least of all of standing up, going upstairs, and getting under the thick covers of her bed - but she was rescued by the operation of her central heating system, switching on in faithful obedience to a command programmed several months before.

Jane woke to unexpected and luxuriant warmth despite the partly-closed kitchen door. (She hadn't closed it, fearing, like the dogs, that she would be trapped in the kitchen - a measure of her conditioning.) She went outside to relieve herself, shivering in the cold dawn air. She drank, then went to her post and tethered herself, continually looking guiltily about her. When she heard the noise of her food arriving, she loosed herself and went to eat. Back at her post, she resumed her weary vigil.

That day passed like the previous one, and she slept in the kitchen as she'd done the night before. But, midway through the next morning, she came out of a doze on the hard ground by her post. She relieved herself, then began to pace up and down restlessly on her short tether. Slowly and imperceptibly, the impression solidified in her confused and muddled mind that Towser wasn't coming back, ever again. She stood there on all-fours for long minutes while her slow brain grappled with this proposition before she lifted the loop on her leash over the post. Trembling with fear, she walked into the kitchen.

She stayed in there for the next five days, only emerging to eat and drink and to empty her bladder and bowels and to carry in the weekly provisions delivery, the meat of which she put aside for the dogs. Slowly, she began to regain her human independence of action with a series of small victories, the first of which was to detach her leash. A day later, she stood up and closed the kitchen door - though she panicked immediately, and fumbled at its latch for sveral seconds before she succeeded in opening it - then she graduated to drinking from the tap in the kitchen, filling Towser's old plastic dog bowl and setting on the dirty floor. Food was next - but not before she'd been forced to it, for the supply of automatically supplied food ran out at last. For several days she lived on tins of cold soup and stew, eaten from Towser's bowl on the floor, at first with her face buried in it, later using a dirty spoon she found by the kitchen sink where it had been dropped and forgotten long ago.

Finally came the greatest victory so far - she opened the door to her downstairs bathroom and went in. After some time examining the fittings of her shower, her rusty brain working slowly, she entered the glass cubicle and turned on the water, gasping as the cold water struck her skin. It was several seconds before she remembered how to make the water run hot, and several more before she'd worked out the use of the cake of scented soap and the plastic bottle of shampoo which stood on a narrow shelf on the wall.

Her thought processes becoming smoother and faster by the minute, helped by the reappearance of her own familiar smell, she automatically towelled herself dry before she went back into the kitchen. After a slight relapse in which she glanced fearfully around for Towser she relaxed. So improved was her mental condition that she washed the kitchen floor and removed the remains of the rotting vegetables from their racks, then, for the first time, she made tea and drank it from a cup sitting at the table.

Faster and faster she regained normality; though she continued to sleep upon Towser's blanket for several more nights before she daringly threw it away and went to her bedroom again.

Finally, a month after Towser's disappearance, she was back to normal to outside eyes, following her final victory and wearing clothing once more. But she avoided dogs ever after, and dropped her eyes in submission whenever they stared at her, and she never told anyone about her experiences that Summer. Her collar remained around her neck for the rest of her life; she never removed it, knowing that it matched the permanent collar around her soul. She shunned BDSM for many months until she succumbed at last and was discovered in the act by Carol - but that is another story.