Yo, just a quick tail wag from your main dog Micco 🐾 My gig in the Yuletide tale? I’m the four-legged optimist flipping Old Cranktail’s growls into purrs. Think of me as the pit bull ghost of Christmas cheer, turning Scrooge’s bark into a carol. We’re talking a transformation with more sparkle than Pawsburgh’s lights. Stay pawsome! ✨🎄 #PitBullWithAPurpose – Micco

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Lord have mercy, if Pawsburgh wasn’t bustling with more twinkling lights than the stars themselves as Yuletide approached. In the grand conspiracy of dogs, where mutts play and yap under a system of canine revelry, I – Micco, the pit bull with that notorious splash of white – was about to romp straight into the unexpected.

You know the gritty gleam of daybreak that even the night’s ghostly clutches can’t snuff out? That was when I’d launch myself from under the loving hammer of Mrs. Thompson’s gruff old heart, to cascade through the dreamscape that is Pawsburgh.

So, as the great wheel of the holiday season turned, the town warmed up for the grandeur of human-absent celebrations. Twas the time of year when Pyrenean Peak wore a hat of snow and even the Bloodhound Bluffs seem to smile, offering slippery slopes for pups with a death wish.

Now, this yarn is spun not of the joyous fray or the unbridled folly of a Setter’s Steakhouse banquet, but of the woeful tail of a creature – fickle and forlorn – who bore the ire of merriment. The Grinch, you say? Nay, dear reader, though not far off. We dogs of Pawsburgh aren’t privileged with Seussian melodrama, but our own Scrooge we had – Old Cranktail, the mongrel who’d give a bone a bad day.

This sour snout resided on the loneliest ledge of Bloodhound Bluffs, scowling down at the holiday shimmer, toasting his own chilly heart with scowls and growls. So, why care about such a curmudgeonly canine? Because, in the haven of hounds, every pup has its tale, and in this cacophony of chaos and Yule cheer, I decided that this old tail needed a turn.

With the cool confidence of a jazz musician slipping through the night, I slid away from the aromatic assault of The Woofy Bakery, dodging the tinsel tempest of The Dapper Dog Salon. Onward I climbed, that black and white streak against the canvas of the Bluffs, up to where cheer was a stranger and gaiety turned to grime.

Old Cranktail wasn’t one for visitors, much less for pit bulls painted as joyful jesters. With a grumble that could curdle cream, he greeted me. I met his dismay with a nudge of my nose, eager as that blue rubber ball awaiting the command to fly.

“Bah, humbug,” he’d mutter, but the wag of my tail spun a different tale. Our rendezvous became the tick to his tock, as I’d haunt his haunt every frigid evening, sharing legends of Pawsburgh’s splendors until – at long last -the thaw.

‘Twas the dawn of Christmas when it happened, that magical thread of warmth weaving its way into his thick, frostbitten fur. Old Cranktail, talons sheathed, sniffed a hint of change in the air, the scent of humanity that dogs like us never failed to find. He opened his door and wandered down from his bluffs, nose leading like a divining rod of deepest mysteries, straight into Emerald Eskimo Estuary.

We came upon that seat of holiday cheer, as if a hidden hand had painted joy upon the town. Hounds howled hymns of greeting, the choral yip and yap tracing every flicker of light, every candy cane tree, every scent of roasted meat.

That night, Cranktail didn’t return to his perch. He stayed there, his growl softened to a purr, among his newfound kin beneath strings of gold and silver. And through that transformative rapture, he was howling loudest and longest when the sun broke upon Christmas morn.

They say only dogs can hear the celestial prattle of angels, but I’ll claim to the end that Old Cranktail’s howl burrowed closer to heaven that day than any feathered hallelujah. As for me, I reckon a pit bull’s work is never done in the dreams we weave while you sleep.

And to think, it all unfurled with a simple wag in Pawsburgh – no, my friends, the tail here never ends.

The End.