Volume One: Chapter One

Welcome to Alpha's Adventures, where you get to travel with Alpha from the streets of Korea to his forever home (and learn all the math along the way)!

If you'd like to listen along with the story, just click the play button at the right.

Ready? Let's go...

See, I was found wandering the streets of Paju, Korea where I was always cold and I never had enough food to eat. Anytime it would rain I’d have to find a box to hide out in (if the rats or another, bigger dog hadn’t gotten there first).

And in the winter it was even worse with all the snow and slush and cold.

It wasn’t what you would call a pleasant life at all.

I was born on the street and I really don’t know anything about my parents, or if I even have any brothers or sisters. All I know is that I'm what's called a Jindo-mix. This means that one of my parents was a Jindo and the other wasn't (and we don't know what they were). What this means that I’m much smaller than other dogs that look like me, and I also have stubby legs. Basically, I kind of look like a hot dog with legs.

Being different made me an easy target for other dogs to pick on, calling me "Weiner!" and "Sausage Legs," and making sure I was always the last to get any food we found.

On top of that, I loved math. I tried to hide it, but anytime the other dogs would catch me learning about the math around me they’d make even more fun of me.

Even the alley cats picked on me for being weird.

That’s how I lived for three years. I survived but it wasn’t a good life and most of the time I was scared, hungry, and tired.

Actually, I was terrified, starving, and exhausted… All. The. Time.

I’d seen other puppies in homes with families who loved them, fed them, and took care of them. I’d dream of that happening to me, but I never thought that it was possible.

Most nights I’d go to bed dreaming of a warm house with a bed just for me and sometimes even imagine the math inside of it. 

Then one day, two ladies in a rescue agency van found me wandering the streets. 

At first I was afraid of them. I’d heard stories of what happened to dogs who went into vans; they never came back. And I was scared they’d hurt me because that’s what I knew from living on the streets.

But one of them sat down and spoke softly to me, offering me a piece of chicken. And because I was so hungry and the chicken was so tasty and yummy and scrumptious and flavourful…  before I knew it, I was chomping down on deliciousness.

As I sat there eating the chicken, they pet me and told me everything was going to be alright. Then, without even noticing it, they slipped a collar over my head and put a leash on me!

Naturally I freaked out, pulling and jumping, trying to get free. I’d seen this type of thing happen to other dogs right before they disappeared. No one knew where they went but I couldn’t imagine it was anything good.

I tried to call out to the others….

But they were all in their boxes, too scared to come out.

I was exhausted and just didn’t have any fight left in me. So I sat down and shivered, hoping wherever they were taking me wasn’t going to be as horrible as I imagined.

And so I was loaded into the van, where I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to me next!