Hey Grandma! 🐾 Just sniffed and wagged my way through another adventure, helping my humans solve a neighborhood mystery. Kept everyone’s spirits high with my charm and a few belly flops. Not too shabby for a chubby pup! 😄 Woofs and wags, Fat Russell.

Once upon a sun-soaked afternoon in Spencerville—where lawns are lush and tennis balls sprout like daisies—I realized my new life was too grand to be tiresome. Truth be told, dear reader, I’m in the posthumous prime of my existence here. I say prime because though gravity is a bit agnostic to the passage of time upon my rotund form, my enthusiasm for a good romp is in no short supply.

You’ll find my tales most fantastical, and, admittedly, a tad quixotic, because in Spencerville, every day is a page out of a classic yarn with a twist as modern as Grandma’s peanut butter cheesecake. Ah, the Cheesecake! Philadelphia should’ve known that their eclectic meats between bread were merely curiosities compared to that culinary masterpiece.

So, boggled by Grandmother Earth’s sweet culinary remembrances and with a whisker-twitch of curiosity, I left my cozy nook behind in the backyard, where the glorious sun had made its rendezvous with my belly. It was a familiar and comforting meeting spot for light slumber. The mind, however, craved more than what the simple shade of comfort provided.

Luck, a charming thing indeed, guided me to Corgi Castle—a palace quite becoming of a noble English Bulldog such as yours truly. The gate was open, left ajar by a mischievous breezer with a penchant for entryways, I presume. Deep inside the stone stronghold, I heard the clumps and thumps of the Pug jousts, a sound as delightful to my stubby ears as Fenway’s snoring chorus back when he, that endearing brown-and-white English Bulldog compatriot, would accompany my daytime escapades.

There in the courtyard, my curiosity sang with delight at a sight so splendid: Wrigley, the gargantuan white mutt, debating with Spencer the Pug over whether proper pugilism required the finesse of the body or the barks of flair. I, with the diplomacy of a merry monarch, brought forth my blue frisbee—an indelible symbol of unity, a device for both exercise and excellence.

Their spirited discussion paused. Wrigley, with a bark colder than the shade, gestured for me to illustrate my point. And wasn’t this innately wonderful? My folklore of short distance, gravity-defiant flights—when I could rouse my limbs to such activity—took the audience by surprise without the need of aubade or ajudicator.

The castle grounds shifted with laughter as Millie the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel proposed a truce over tailwagging friendlies, setting the day’s confines to peals of joy as gentle as Grandma’s hums while baking. The heavenly echoes resided so far from the ocean’s roar or the turbulent vacuum symphony at the Canine Cafe, two aversions I’m most partial to avoid.

Yes, from hill to dining hall, my promised city of eternal second chances rolls ceaseless with frolic and fond predictions of reunions yet to come. Here, my separations from moments past are but a breath away, immersed within the confines of inevitable serendipity. I would be remiss not to acknowledge that between the tug-of-war tussles and soufflé of sunlight lies the prospect of homecoming—a destination, a time where shadows are merely the prelude to tomorrow’s tennis ball tech-utopia.

For now, that sensation, much like the tug of an apprehensive leash, waits. My independence here is a cycle of dreamturned realities, starry aspirations, and freewheeling fun. It’s an English Bulldog tale, carved by peculiar likes, etched with some tongue-out scorn, and—dare I woof it aloud—an abundance of delight.

A fairy tale it is, depixelated and unvarnished. My singular Story.