Hey there, pack leader 👋!

Just saved our furry utopia from a shadowy human marionette! Unsniffed secrets, a missing buddy, and nosed out a plot twist better than a hidden treat! Pawsburgh’s tails wag safer tonight. Call me the Rottweiler of the Round Table! 😎

-Night Guardian Jersey 🐾🌙

Listen to the story here

In the hallowed, hush-hush hovels of Pawsburgh, where streets are trodden by the four-legged and scents speak secrets, I, Jersey, am not merely a Rottweiler; I am the keeper of canny chronicles. A cosmic kiss adorns my chest, the emblem of my stargazed lineage.

Today’s yarn ain’t for the fainthearted. It commenced under the jesting jingle of daybreak, when the Smiths, bless their souls, nestled in dreams of mundanity. Left to my devices, I trotted to that hub of houndish hubbub—I tell you, Pawsburgh welcomed me with open paws!

As the sun unfurled its golden banners, I sought the savory solace of Paw-lickin’ Pancakes. I needed no map; my trot was guided by the luring scent of chicken treats dancing on the wind like siren songs. Oh, the Smiths couldn’t reckon the secrets a puzzle toy hides; imagine then, the unraveled riddles a whole town promises!

It was there, by a corner table licked clean by canine tongues, I uncovered an eeriness beneath Pawsburgh’s playful veneer. Ziggy was missing, lost to some foolhardy errand, they reckoned—explorers’ spirits ain’t easily caged, but this had the stench of something uncanny.

Coco floated theories airier than her fur, each as fanciful as the last, while sweet old Duke spoke of a shadow, its form neither man nor beast, that haunted the crooked corner of Lhasa Lane. My pelt prickled; in my breed, a cause is crowned a quest, and friends, dearer than bones buried in the yard.

A tour through the town’s twisted tail, from Spa for Paws to the Howling Husky’s, begot more whispers than a wind through a creaky kennel. “Danger!” they barked. “Deceit!” It was a game devoid of winners, a frisbee caught in a storm, flung by an unseen hand—had Ziggy nabbed it?

Well, on I pressed, the taste of psychological thrill seeping into my jowls, the daylight waning as surely as the truth. Past Cocker Courtyard I trundled, until Eskimo Estuary mirrored the stars above; a celestial stage for my conclusive act.

By the water’s whisper, where ripples ran like secrets unfurled, there lay Ziggy, the explorer, curled and quaking. A map painted peril in his paws, his tail twitching with truths untold. Our friend, it seemed, had dog-eared pages in a thriller unkind.

How quickly a pack rallies; we bore him back to safety, to Chowhound’s Chophouse, where Rottweiler’s Ribs could tempt a ghost from its grave. We sparked the hearth of kinship, made light the load of darkness, the silence shattering under our communal howl—a hymn for the hounded, harmony for the haunted.

The tale unfolded like a paw’s tender unfurling—Ziggy enthralled by a challenge, a treasure trove told in tales by Duke, but behind was a master of marionettes, a human dressed in shadows, bending our wills like elastic.

You reckon we’d bow, whimper, tails ‘twixt our legs? Therein lies the twist worthy of Twain’s own testimony; our valor’s stitch is too thick to unravel. We set a snare, a bone to pick with the puppeteer, and saved our quarter from the cusp of caprice.

The Smiths might wake to find me nestled at their feet, innocent as the morning dew on a daisy, forever unknowing the bravery that befits my kind under the tender veil of night. Pawsburgh, too, hides its heart, behind fur and fun, a town that’s a bedrock, a bulwark against the howling dark.

We revel and jest, but should perilous ploys seek passage into our paradise, let it be said, let it be howled from every rooftop and whispered in every whiff of a scent: we are more than dogs. We are the guardians of Pawsburgh.

The End.