Hey Saphira, saved Pawsburgh again! Accidentally time-surfed to the dinos with Bosco and Whiskers. Classic Tuesday. All sorted but… I might need a new alias—how’s ‘Tempus Fugit Furball’ sound? Meet you at the Woof Waffle Café? 🐾🦕🌀 – Hera the Time Tailer

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I leaned casually against the lamppost at the corner of Labradoodle Lane and Beagle Boulevard, observing the quaint rhythms of Pawsburgh stretching and yawning into the late morning sun. I should have been chasing dream-rabbits in my cozy bed back home, but the allure of today’s escapade had tantalized me awake, prying away sleep with whispers of forbidden time vestibules and canine capers beyond imagination.

A sudden bark broke my reverie: Bosco, tongue lolling with the simplistic joy that golden retrievers, bless them, make look so fetching. “Hera! You’re about to miss it!” he shouted as he skidded to a stop beside me, dislodging a scatter of pebbles.

“Miss what?” I asked, and before I could raise a paw in question, the air shimmered, light bending in a way that would make lesser dogs whimper for their chew-toys.

It was Whiskers who emerged from the temporal froth, a mouse with a penchant for the dramatic and a knack for the impossible. “To what do I owe this unexpected ple—”

No pleasantries today. Whiskers’ voice was an octave higher than the sound of impending doom. “We don’t have time! I’ve accidentally opened a portal under Pomeranian Park!”

And with that, I found myself hurtling into a vortex of colors and sensations that had me questioning the chicken I’d pilfered from last night’s supper. When the universe had finished tossing us like a salad, we landed unceremoniously at the feet of a most improbable sight: a triceratops feasting on the leafy branches which now grew where Retriever’s Restaurant should have been.

“Dinosaurs?” I enunciated carefully as if tasting the word for the first time.

Whiskers nodded. “And it gets worse.”

As situations involving prehistoric reptiles tend to do. I was about to inquire how much worse, but Bosco, ever the enthusiast, silenced me with a unrestrained wail. “Bones! Giant bones everywhere!”

For a moment, the majesty of the age overwhelmed us. And that’s when I spied an opening—a temporal fissure wavering like the last note of a howl against the dusk sky. Whiskers noticed my gaze, and understanding bloomed between us.

“High paw, Hera. Let’s harmonize the timeline.”

I followed Whiskers’ lead, tiptoeing through the Cretaceous underbrush. We avoided the trampling feet and swishing tails of creatures that belonged in picture books, till at last we reached the time-rift. It looked like it needed a nudge, the sort Jasper would give an old clock to kickstart the pendulum.

“Allow me,” I said. With the finesse of one who had navigated her fair share of adventures, I nudged the timestream with my snout.

Reality recalibrated with a whoosh, and we found ourselves back in Pomeranian Park, in the embrace of the familiar and inexplicable. The portal sighed closed with a contented purr, and I shared an exhausted look with my friends.

Bosco bounded over. “That was amazing! Has anyone seen my squeaky T.rex?”

Winking at the irony, I licked a paw and smoothed my ruffled fur. Yet another day in this life of time-trotting pets. It didn’t do to get too fluffed up over it. Besides, it was nearly tea-time—I could smell the scent of Woof Waffles drifting temptingly on the breeze.

As we began our walk back to normality, I could see Saphira waiting, legs primly crossed, her Siamese eyes betraying a hint of concern which she’d vehemently deny. “Back from another of your ‘adventures’, Hera?”

I merely smiled and offered her a conspiratorial wink, one that softly suggested, “That, dear Saphira, is for me to know, and for you to possibly find out.”

After all, in Pawsburgh, every dog has his day, but a dog like me? Well, I’ve had generations of them.

The End.