Hey Mom,

Just saved Setter Shore with my dino pals in dreamland again. 🦖🏖️ Another epic time-travel adventure with the TAILIS – all in a night’s snooze! Miss your pats, can’t wait for breakfast snuggles. 🐾😴

Love, SUE 🐶✨

P.S. Still no actual pawprints in the past, promise!

As I rested my brindle-masked head on my paws, the gentle snoring of my faithful human filled the space of our shared sanctuary. Little did she know the adventures that awaited me in my slumber, for in dreams, I am no ordinary pooch—my name is Sue Jangles, and I am a time-traveling English Bulldog.

It was the scent of cheddar chippies that whisked me from my sleep, not in my Earthly abode, but on the bustling cobbled streets of Pawsburg at the peak of the Great Biscuit Renaissance. The air was thick with tantalizing aromas, wafting from Barker’s Bakery, tickling my every sense. I trudged my portly form through the throngs of other tail-waggers, my stout legs moving with purpose.

“Diamond Doberman Dunes by dawn,” I had been told. That was where I’d find the contraption to take me back, the TAILIS—a doggy time machine masquerading as a rather ostentatious dog house, embellished with gem-like buttons and levers of every shade and sparkle.

There, beside the TAILIS, stood Ivy, her sleek coat shimmering in the morning light, and Sassy, the Siamese, bathing in the ambience of her own grace. “Morning, Sue,” Ivy barked with a grin, while Sassy offered a disdainful meow.

“You ready for another romp through time?” I asked.

Ivy’s tail wagged briskly. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Doors to the past and future creaked open with a yawn that only the TAILIS could produce. A flick of a paw here, a nudge of a nose there, and suddenly we landed on Setter Shore, only it wasn’t the beach I knew. The dinosaurs had reclaimed the land, their thunderous roars like the vacuum cleaners of my nightmares.

I stood, undaunted by the ancient growls, at the edge of time’s grand tapestry. The sea air mixed with the earthy scent of prehistoric life. I clutched my trusted stuffed baseball bat close, a silent pledge of courage.

“Plan, Sue?” Ivy asked, pacing nervously.

I surveyed the beach, then locked eyes with a small, two-legged creature with feathers—not unlike a chicken, but wilder. “We’re here to observe,” I whispered, “not to alter the past. Let’s leave no pawprints behind.”

The day stretched ahead of us boundlessly, as endless as the narratives told at The Wagging Tail Bookstore back home. We watched creatures of all sizes and forms that would never know the warmth of a human’s lap, the furry comradeship in Hound Heights, or the soothing massages at Spa for Paws.

As the sun dipped low, casting golden hues over the giant footprints we dared not fill, I felt a yearning for the familiar. For all the splendors that time-travel offered, they paled in comparison to momma’s gentle pat, her laugh that echoed the melody in my heart.

“Let’s head back,” I said, nudging the TAILIS with my snout. We blinked through the ages, from when the pyramids were mere blueprints in a Pharaoh’s dream to futuristic cities that chimed with their own rhythm.

And then, as seamlessly as we had departed, we returned to Pawsburg. The time-travelers were once more anonymous heroes, content in knowing that every excursion was a secret kept between trusted friends.

As the morning light of present-day crept through my closed eyelids, I stirred, the taste of adventure lingering on my tongue. Momma stirred too, the symphony of her waking a promise of another day together.

Out there, the world spun on, unaware that within the gentle snores of a brindle-faced English Bulldog named Sue Jangles rested stories of a magical town and time-touched beaches. For now, though, my heart belonged to the tick-tock of the familiar clock, to the hushed whispers of a world that was enough, just as it was.

The End.