A Tail-Wagging Thanksgiving Tale: Waffles and the Parade Pooper: A Waffles PawWord Story

Hey Mom,

Just saved Thanksgiving in Spencerville by turning a parade debacle into a lesson in love and inclusion, with a side of detective work. Even Shadow’s in the spirit now. 🐾 Feeling thankful and a bit like a hero. Can’t wait to share the turkey tales!

Hugs and tail wags,
Wafflette 🥞🐕💖

Listen to the story here

All right, folks, imagine the scene: a town where every hydrant is fair game and the fire trucks never bother us. A beautiful little place called Spencerville, known for its spirited inhabitants with wagging tails and warm, fuzzy hearts. I’ve gotta tell ya, life here is a tail-wagging good time. And yours truly, Waffles by name, and by nature as sunny as a Sunday morning pancake, if I may say so. But let me dig my paws into the real meat of our tale.

It was the brisk morning before Thanksgiving when I padded out onto the cobblestones. The parade was the talk of the town. But this wasn’t just any Thanksgiving Day hullabaloo—it was the dog-gone centerpiece of the Spencerville social calendar—bona fide big deal, if you catch my drift.

So there I was, perched on Western Husky Hill, surveying the hubbub below, when a whiff of something peculiar tickled my nostrils. Trouble. All at once, decorations were in disarray, floats were fouled up, and the tantalizing scent of Doggy Delight’s Turkey and Trimmings was conspicuously missing from the air.

Cue the posse of pawed protectors, led by—yep, you guessed it—yours unruly. Now, I might be knee-high to a grasshopper, but when the chips are down, this Pom’s got pluck. My valor is vast, I’ll let you know.

Our motley crew included Oscar, with his mismatched eyes, one as blue as the clearest sky, and the other brown like a perfectly toasted bun. We vowed to sniff out this saboteur, whose antics were soggying our parade pretty good.

We hotfooted it all over town, from Choco Chihuahua Castle to Lower Golden Gate Gardens—dog, were we thorough! That’s when we unearthed it—a clue as curious as a cat at a swimming gala. A broken piece from The Barking Boutique’s “Best in Show” tiara, and dear readers, that tiara reflected the most mysterious pup in Spencerville: Shadow, the loner Lhasa Apso who never seemed to wiggle into our warm embrace. So turned out, this parade pooper was driven by a pang of exclusion, a heart heavy with a need to belong.

Now, our initial itch was to chase this fella down, but what good’s a chase without a belly rub at the end of it, right? So instead of showing our fangs, we extended the proverbial olive branch—cozy as a snuggled blanket on a chilly evening.

In what you might call an astounding boom of insight—like the moment you realize that barking up the mailman has never, not once, stopped him from coming back—we revealed to Shadow a new perspective. We trotted him down Main Street and gave him a spot of honor, leading our brigade with that tiara snug on his furry noggin’. Now, he was a hero, repurposing his mischief-making know-how for the parade’s pizzazz.

Oh, that parade turned out grander than a steak seasoned by angels. The air rippled with the bunting of unity, and the sweet aroma of roasted bird wafted from Dog-gone Good BBQ truly made it a festival of the heart.

As dusk cloaked Spencerville and the lanterns lit up like fireflies at a disco, I sat with my siblings, Cookie and Squeaky, and new-found friend, Shadow, in a circle of camaraderie. We were the living, panting testament to the spirit of Thanksgiving: a platoon of pooches who learned that inclusivity and second chances were the real treasures to fetch.

So there it is, the tale of how Spencerville’s most sparkling, but sniff-sized, sentinel led his cohorts to a victory of the very essence we’d been celebrating. It was a day that whispered through the trees about the transformative power of kindness and the belly behind a proper Thanksgiving. And as the sun set over our little patch of pet paradise, we knew we’d carried the day, and even Shadow had found his patch of sun to lay in.

Every pup and kitten drifted off that night with bellies full and hearts swelled to bursting, knowing that this was one Thanksgiving that we’d relish until the last scrap of turkey was nibbled from the bone. Spencerville slept soundly, a carousel of dreams whirling above it. And I, dear friends, snuggled next to Mr. Duck, had a lot to be thankful for, indeed.

The End.