“Hey mom and dad, guess what! This brave Bear Cub shot to the stars in a café-shaped spacecraft and even Princess Victoria was guiding us. All because this guy can’t eat meat but loves fish. Found a whole planet named Sea-Of-Cod-Star to stock up. Guess if you crave and believe, even a fellow like Panda can touch the stars. Oh, and, might start an intergalactic war with alien cats. LOL. More fishy tales soon. Love, your space buddha, Vincent”

Listen to the story here

With an errant flip of his flour-encrusted snout, Vincent, our brave Newfoundland, triggered the launch lever. For a spacecraft modeled on the humble Paws-A-Latte café, it had, we admit, an impressively dramatic countdown sequence.

As its last echoes fell away, Vincent settled himself on the cushioned navigator’s seat, engaging in a few last-minute grooming rituals. “Look sharp, old boy,” Princess Victoria admonished from her radio perch on East Pug Palace. “You’re navigating the slipstream exactly, I’m certain. No straying for odd smells, alright?”

I watched the monitor beside her, my paws twitching. Spencerville, our little pet paradise in the cosmos had never undertaken such an expedition before. Fishing seemed an outrageous concept for a town of dogs. But Vincent’s passion for seafood was as great as was his intolerance to meat. So, off he went to the Sea-Of-Cod-Star, suitcase filled with fish biscuits and dental bones.

“To the left, Vincent, you see that nebula there.” I directed, my eyes never leaving the screen. He maneuvered with the precision of a seasoned Newfie sailor, his concern only for the earplugs blocking the spaceship’s mighty roar, completely ignoring the wonders of space passing outside the window.

In our orbit high above the Fetching Deli, the radio crackled suddenly. Vincent, having ventured farther than any Spencervillian hound, was now approaching the planet. “You know, I’ve been thinking…” he mused, overlooking the iridescent glow of the Sea-Of-Cod-Star. And I knew something unusually philosophical was coming. Vincent was not a speaker ordinarily, mostly because he considered our town gossip too inconsequential.

“You reckon it’s the living that satisfies, or the purpose that defines it?” He was, clearly, pondering life’s larger mysteries. Suddenly, it seemed my old friend was more alien and magical than any uncharted star. Better yet, he was Spencerville’s own spaceman, proving to all of us, you don’t need to be a Beagle to venture boldly into the cosmos.

We humbly understood this to be Vincent’s motto: Discover. Seek. Take every setback in your stride and don’t let silly allergies keep you from your dreams. Even if they mean fishing in outer space, or dreading shedding on unfamiliar sofas. It was his stubborn independence that was his anchor, and we were happy to hold his tether back on solid ground.

Jarred from my reverie, with Vincent safe and back in orbit, the time came for a call back to the mothership. “Remember, Vincent, you’re going for fish; We’re not trying to provoke an intergalactic war with the alien Cat Felisians.”

With an affirming, almost laughing, huff on the intercom, our Vincent—explorer, hero, culinary innovator—set off on his newest adventure with his signature steadfast stoicism and a meticulously packed bag of dental bones. Waiting at command, we knew, with certain faith, Spencerville was in good hands, or rather, paws.