Hey Charlie,

Just another night ruling Pawsburgh astride my Furry Wheels crew, foiling feline foes to keep our dog-topia free. Who’s the good boy now? 😉 Rest easy, pal—your best friend just saved the world. Or at least, the world worth barking about.

Catch you at sunrise,
Winston 🐾

Listen to the story here

As the amber hues of twilight filtered through the windows of Charlie’s humble abode, whisking away the remnants of another tiresome day for the humans, I, Winston, with a coat kissed by the setting sun, engaged in the clandestine escape I’d mastered – the midnight trot to Pawsburgh.

In Pawsburgh, we ran the town—a veritable tail-wagging, road-riding democracy. With ears flapping like flags in the wind, our motorcycle club—The Furry Wheels—was the heartbeat of our secret dogdom, and I, a dashing Red Golden Retriever known for my loyalty and overenthusiastic affections, was the unlikely leader.

“Mutter!” hollered my sage advisor, Baxter, as he waddled his Beagle frame across Vizsla Valley. “There’s trouble brewin’ down at Hound Heights, and it ain’t the kind that sits and stays.”

Under my breath, I noted the redundancy. Trouble, much like my canine comrades, rarely heeded such commands. “Spill the kibble, Baxter,” I said, eager for the tale.

“We’ve a new four-legged threat,” he howled. “A band of alley-cats, creeping about, leaving our dumpsters emptier than a bone after a feast.”

The very thought curdled my stomach—or perhaps it was the memory of that ill-fated attempt at celery détente.

Purring with malice, these feline fiends were shredding through the sanctity of Pawsburgh like a pack of declawed banshees. Our beloved town thrived on scraps and camaraderie, but most notably, scraps.

And so it was decided, our pact beneath the crescent moon at Bloodhound Bluffs. The Furry Wheels would not stand idly by while our bins were barraged by these clawed marauders.

“Ruff-hem,” I barked, calling the meeting to order as I sat on my haunches, authoritative as one could be while resisting the urge to chase one’s own tail. “We ride at dawn!”

The pink sheen of dawn had scarce broken when the Furry Wheels assembled, engines growling like a pack of hounds upon the scent. Our tails high, our fur matted with the dew of a new day’s resolve. Daisy, the hulking St. Bernard, donned her leather saddle bags, their capaciousness known to conceal everything from a spare leash to an emergency keg. Ziggy, fierce of heart, rode atop a custom chopper so low to the ground he could taste the asphalt—metaphorically speaking, of course.

Revving our engines, we ducked through Mastiff’s Meals—a shortcut only known to those who’ve supped on its delicious dumpster delicacies and spurned the disdainful offerings of Chihuahua’s Chimichangas. Olfactory resistance, I’d realized, has its advantages.

The initial confrontation was, to put it mildly, a caterwaul of chaos. A brawl that saw the skies fill with fur and feathers, allegiances tested, bloodlines questioned, and one squeaky rubber duck witness to a history it would dare not quack.

Yet as the sun reached its zenith, The Furry Wheels stood—or rather, panted—victorious. Our town was saved, the prowling pests persuaded to pass peacefully along—afraid, perhaps, that we dogs were more bite than they bargained for.

“This town may have its bones to pick, its occasional cat-astrophe,” I panted to my crew, “but mark my words; it’s the spirit of The Furry Wheels that fuels the fire of freedom which burns in the heart of every Pawsburgh pooch.”

Tails wagged in agreement, an accord punctuated by the hum of satisfaction and the promise of liver treats. As for myself, I’d repay the comfort of Charlie’s home with a belly warmer than his bed, breath shallower than our last escapade, dreaming of my next dash to the secretive town that dances beneath the veil of the unknowing eye.

“Bow-wow,” I whispered with a wink to the moon, the silent accomplice to every dog’s midnight escapades. “You’ve not seen the last of Winston and the Furry Wheels.”

And with that, I returned, bounding into what humans might foolishly fathom as reality, but what we of Pawsburgh knew to be merely a pause between epics, a furrow in the bed where dreams, like dogs, lie down.

The End.