Hey Mom,

Guess what? Your furball had a close encounter this morning! ✨🛸 Met out-of-this-world visitors while on my standard garden patrol. We chatted about life, balls, and sunny spots. Don’t worry, I kept Pawsburgh’s honor high and might have just become an interstellar ambassador! 🌟🐾

Catch you at dinner, gotta run – the cosmos isn’t ready for my tail tales yet. Love you more than a Barker’s Bakery feast! 😘

Skiddler 🌈✨

There I was, Skittles, nestled in the heart of Pawsburgh, when the day unraveled into something off the leash.

I blinked awake at the crack of unthinkable a.m., which for everyone else meant Tucker and Rudy’s snores were symphonies, and Barker’s Bakery hadn’t even fired up the ovens for the dough to rise like the sleepy town’s four-legged citizens. But on that twitch of a whisker morning, my Zen garden nook in Spaniel Springs echoed with a peculiar hush that preemptively curled my paw.

I set off, my casual garden party coat brushing the dew-kissed blades, curiosity tickling my nose. The air sat pregnant with the unfamiliar, and the span of silence wrapped around me tighter than my human’s embrace. I trotted, oblivious to the cosmic wonder about to unfold, over to Quartz Qimmiq Quarter, an itch in my step—I wasn’t alone.

A soft hum infiltrated the air, and I swore Rudy’s wisdom-filled wrinkles would’ve deepened had he heard it. Over by The Canine Cafe, I spotted it—a glowing entity parked like it owned the place. With my usual blend of gumption spiced with reluctance, I approached. The glow, soothing yet alien, teased my senses, and not even chicken-flavored dreams could anchor me.

“Skittles?” A voice, neither bark nor whimper, resonated. Startled, I considered bolting to Bark Buffet, where safety was a buffet line away, but that wasn’t my style.

“Who’s there?” I yipped, the inflection of bravado a smidge higher than intended.

The light dimmed, revealing silhouettes against the twirling cosmos in ways my terrestrial instincts couldn’t decode. My stuffed lion would’ve given a silent cheer for my courage.

“We’re from beyond the stars,” they communicated, a thousand tales unsaid in their simple confession.

I took a half-step back, remembering the lake’s vast waters, and how it echoed this unknown. “This is Pawsburgh, we master fetch, not space-time dilemmas.”

Their hum—laughter?—rippled through The Doggy Depot’s windows.

“Fear not. We’ve watched you, Skittles of Earth. We’ve seen your loyalty, your intelligence. We come in friendship, for we, too, know the value of a sunny nook.”

Temptation to flee grappled with the budding connection, an unreal tale Tucker would dismiss as a fanciful dog nap. Rudy, though, might believe.

“Can you throw a ball?” I asked, skeptically swishing my tail, my canine pragmatism front and center.

More humchuckles. “We have played the games of many worlds.”

I pondered if there was a Rottweiler Ridge where they came from, or chicken to savor after a long day, or friendships bonded under Pawsburgh’s dozy sun.

“We seek only to share,” they added. “Perhaps one day, your stories will be told on our world, as we now share ours with you.”

As they departed, leaving behind the comfort of stars twinkling like city lights, my heart pounded a rhythm of adventures to come, of stories to be shared with Tucker and Rudy. And so I scurried back to my familiar corner of the Earth, under the same stars that had just winked secrets into my soul.

That morning, as Pawsburgh winked awake, I joined Tucker and Rudy for a Barker’s Bakery feast. Between mouthfuls, I shared my encounter. Disbelief and awe sparkled in their eyes—an unspoken pact to always sneak away from our humans to find adventures worth the wag.

And as Pawsburgh bustled around us, the Musk of Mystery wafting from every corner, I knew we were all, in one way or another, explorers of the fur kind.

The End.