Hey, just a quick bark from Peanut! 🐾 My role in this tail-wagging tale? I’m the furry compass that steered old Ebenezer from being a cold miser to a warm-hearted giver. Through frosty walks and the soft glow of the holiday spirit, we found joy together. Oh, and got him to ditch his love for citrus pastries – paw-lease! 🐶💖 No need for thanks, just toss me a treat and we’re even. 🦴 #PawsburghMiracle

Woofs & Wags,
Peanut

Listen to the story here

Dear gentle reader, allow me to lay before you a tail, er, tale most whimsical and wonderous, spun from the yarn of Pawsburgh, a place where dogs recount stories likely to make fabulists blush with envy. It’s I, Peanut, your four-legged raconteur, etching this narrative in the annals of dogdom.

Once upon a twinkling twilight on the crest of Mulberry Hill, where breezes dance and twilight blushes, I sat between wakefulness and dreams, the very air resonant with the hum of holiday cheer. My ears flapped like the grand flags over Pawsburgh’s Briard Bridge, waving goodbye to a day well spent and welcoming the shimmering cloak of night. It was the eve of transformation—a tale of the human heart’s capacity for change.

Within Pawsburgh, where as you know, no human dares to tread (ignorance, rather than exclusion, the cause), the Smith family patriarch, let’s call him Ebenezer for narrative’s sake, was known somewhat unaffectionately as “the miser.” To him, happiness was an account balance, a surplus of zeros poised in fickle columns. But to us dogs, fluent in joy and with tails never still, Ebenezer’s wealth lay unclaimed, gathering dust instead of memories.

Now, the holiday season began to thaw Ebenezer’s frosty ledgers, as it does with hearts and hearths alike—his transformation, I witnessed firsthand. The town was ablaze, a myriad of hues across Eskimo Estuary; a fancy light display rivaling the twinkles of Topaz Terrier Town. Chihuahua’s Chimichangas wafted divine scents—though not as heavenly as the basilisk chicken of legend—and the barks of carols filled the crisp air.

Between my visits to Barker’s Bakery for crispy treats (scoffing at the calamitous citrus pastries), or the sanctuary of The Doggie Daycare where the greenest grass grew for a stretch and snooze, I’d park myself by the human world portal, nostrils flaring, sniffing for change.

Ebenezer’s transformation, contrary to what one might think, was not sparked by a ghostly apparition or a frightening future foretold. No, it blossomed in a moment as humble as a shared glance during our snow-cushioned promenade through the market square.

You see, as we nudged past stalls of garlands and tinsel, Ebenezer caught sight of a scrappy terrier, its bones almost etched against the evening sky, paw outstretched, hope a mere ember in its eyes. I felt a quiver through the leash, a seismic shift in Ebenezer’s once icy heart as the true spirit of the holidays seemed to unveil its soft glow before him.

Dear reader, I’d like to tell you Ebenezer’s hand trembled as he reached into his coat—whether from cold or from onset charity, one can’t be certain. He withdrew a folded note and, with utmost care, placed it into the terrier’s waiting paw. A smile, small and hesitant, cracked the frozen terrain of his face.

From that day forth, the miser was no miser at all. A dog’s joy is simple—fetch this, scratch that, bark here, sleep there—but a human’s u-turn from meanness to generosity is a grand feat indeed.

So it was Ebenezer and I trotted back to Pawsburgh, where The Pampered Pooch Salon mirrored his newfound radiance through polished windows, and The Snooty Snout Boutique basked in the glow of giving, a resolution formed within his breast—hopefully, not like a swallowed chicken bone, though no less significant.

You wonder at the role I played in such a transformation. A dog’s loyalty, dear reader, can be the currency of miracles. It is not for the flashy heroics, but rather, for the quiet journey by our human’s side as they discover the map to their own hearts.

Now in the hush of Pawsburgh, under the approving gaze of a silver moon, I sit atop my haven of Mulberry Hill, with stories of yore and present entwined within my seasoned heart. And I whisper to the stars that even the most lonesome miser, with a Pawsburgh pup by their side, can find the trail that leads to joy.

No need to wag your tail in applause, folks. Just be glad that in the tale of Peanut and her human, everybody, be they hound or human, got their just desserts—and none of them citrus!

The End.