Hey Mom,

Just a quick tail wag from Pawsburgh. I’d say I’ve become a sniff-celebrity on ‘The Pet Bachelor’. But guess what? Found an intriguing mutt away from the reality show drama. True story, it’s the unplanned adventures here that really get my tail wagging. Love’s like a chew toy—funniest when it’s least expected!

Licks and wags,
Penny 🐾

Listen to the story here

If only you could see Pawsburgh, a town with the hustle and bustle of four-legged dreams, a place where fire hydrants didn’t scoff at the idea of a good sniff. I, Penny, am a frequent wanderer of its streets, a red and white dame who knows her peanut buttery valor.

So it goes, I found myself in the furling throws of an emancipation from boredom, known to the locals as The Pet Bachelor, Pawsburgh’s latest lick of entertainment—a dating spectacle, if you will, where wagging tails and beating hearts eclipse reason.

I trotted into Samoyed Square, a ribbon of anticipation tied around my collar. Dogs of every breed had their muzzles turned towards me; it was my very own game of hearts. I found it all as silly as the humans’ craze for love, but a dash of adventure never hurt a brave soul. Plus, it beat the loneliness that clung like burrs to fur.

“The key to comic timing,” as Kurt might have said about storytelling, “is the same as in sniffing a good lamp post—surprise and a sense of urgency.”

Here I was, standing in Spaniel Springs, facing a lineup of beaus, each with a desire as transparent as drool on a chew toy, hoping to win my favor with a toy or a treat.

There was Atlas, the Boxer with a droopy gaze that reminded children of sad clowns. His jests fell heavier than his paws, and his efforts were as aimless as cats chasing their tales. He tried to impress me with a bold leap into Shiba Inlet, but grace wasn’t in his cards, nor the key to my heart.

Flip, as always, was my shadow-cast partner in crime. His playful eyes joked, “Am I your choice?” and I couldn’t help but believe that if hearts could wag, his would knock over a lamp.

As we approached Collie’s Cuisine, I maneuvered my way through a tempest of wooing and howls. A Dalmatian named Dot painted promises of a spotted future together, while at Mutt Munchies, an over-eager Chihuahua offered me a selection of treats that seemed less appealing than ear cleaning.

While all this courted chaos paraded itself, I slipped away to The Tail Wagger’s Tailor, where I once tried a kerchief. I never bought it, but the memory draped over my thoughts like a warm blanket. There, between the aisles lurked the cynosure of my curiosity—a mysterious mutt, neither suitor nor spectator. He extended a shy paw, unversed in love’s script.

In that boutique away from the bold and the braggarts, away from the bones and the barking, with the mutt wholly unknown, something tickled my sense of adventure. And somewhere, Kurt might’ve laughed, for what is love if not the ultimate plot twist?

In our moment, briefer than a playful dash after a rabbit but no less invigorating, I understood that the true essence of Pawsburgh was not in this concocted courtship, but in the serendipitous encounters that defied any master’s plans.

And so, my contribution to the tapestry that is Pawsburgh ended, as all stories should, mid-leap and mid-bark. With a heart full a la Vonnegut and a companion as un-scripted as the path that lay ahead, I realized that my story—my episodic adventure in Pawsburgh—was something entirely my own, a tail better lived than told.

The End.