Hey Charlie,

Turns out I’m not just your average fetch-playing, tail-wagging Malinois. By night, I’m the interstellar explorer of Pawsburg, chasing cosmic squirrels and sniffing out adventures in wooferspace. Who knew your furry buddy would be the Buzz Aldrin of dogs? Don’t wait up, I’ll be back by dawn, with more stories than there are fleas in a junkyard. Dreams? I’ll show you galaxies.

Bark at you later,
Blaze 🐾🚀✨

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Underneath the incandescent stars of an average Tuesday, the clock nudged precisely to that sacred hour when the hums of humanity quieted down—somewhere around the forgotten end of yet another Netflix binge for Charlie, my devoted human—when Pawsburg whispers its canine call to me. Blaze, that’s the name they’ve given me. It doesn’t quite capture my essence, but it’s a start. I’m told it suggests a crackling fire, a dash of heroism. It’s not every Belgian Malinois who can boast of a mask quite like mine, endlessly ready for a masquerade ball or a bank heist (not that I would ever attend such an event, of course).

Ears pricked to the rhythm of the night, I nudged past Zoey, who lay sprawled without grace across the living room rug, dreaming her golden retriever dreams of tail chases and slow-moving squirrels. “Zoey,” I woofed in a conspiratorial tone, though she barely wagged in her slumber. Off I was to Pawsburg through the latched flap of possibility Charlie thought he’d cleverly concealed behind the kitchen’s wainscoting.

Pawsburgh’s iridescent streets awaited, a disco ball of a town if there ever was one, sparkling under an imagined cosmos. Basenji Bay shone in the distance; its shores clung to melodies that even the best of Spotify’s Lo-fi Hip-hop Study Beats couldn’t hope to achieve, while the bustling solar flares of Topaz Terrier Town’s downtown promised novelties that could coax the faintest wag from the steeliest of tails. Yet tonight, Setter Shore was where the stars aligned, or at least, where I overheard Jasper yapping about some extraplanetary escapade. My paws itched for the unknown, the sensation not entirely different from the tickle of Zoey’s snores deflected off hard wood.

“Space, the final fire hydrant,” Jasper said, his eyes glinting with the insanity that only a Border Collie can specialize in. We stood before a contraption at Setter Shore, an assembly of what looked like a giant hamster wheel bolted to a ship of sails and dreams. “You know, dogs don’t really have a space program,” I pointed out because, as a Belgian Malinois, I feel a duty toward the obvious. Mind you, this isn’t a dull protest, just a fact. But Jasper, who I suspect never quite got over not being cast in “Lassie,” simply nosed a lever dramatically.

There was no countdown, no rousing soundtrack, just a whoosh as Pawsburg’s ground receded, suddenly as distant as the concept of calorie-free bacon. The restaurants and shops—Snout Snacks, Bulldog’s BBQ, Pawfect Pastries—became but glimmers, dots on a child’s Connect-the-Dots coloring page, where the child’s eager, yet unsteady, hand hadn’t quite connected them to reveal the full picture. Canine Couture Clothing, what a stitch, if you’ll pardon the pun. They had this season’s intergalactic line on display, a mockery to any mutt’s understanding of fashion.

As Rosie would have said, we were out in the wooferspace, a term that would have sent old Frank into a (slow) spiral of pedantic bemoaning over semantics. Rosie the dachshund, by the way, has the long body and short legs that only a breeder aiming for a practical joke could appreciate.

Orbiting a bone-shaped nebula, I could finally understand the allure of these space operas. A breed such as mine, grounded in wisdom and loyalty, sailing through the dog cosmos—insanity, but the delectable kind, like pumpkin cubes smothered in grilled chicken. Not that I’d find those among the stars.

Had I bones to chill, they would be now as I gazed upon constellations unfamiliar, resembling squeaky toys and chew ropes frayed from galaxies of play. And I remembered the grass behind the old mill, the childish chase of sunsets and secrets, feeling that rush of galactic winds in place of earthly breezes.

In space, nobody can hear you bark, or so the saying goes, but in Pawsburg, whether under the sun or amongst the stars, they always listen. And when next I lay at Charlie’s feet, the gleam in my eye would tell of adventures not just behind hills, but beyond horizons, where even the whispers of adventure echo with the bark of a Malinois named Blaze.

The End.

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