Hey family🐾! Just a quick tail-wag from your furball hero, Rocky. I put my paws to work in Pawsburgh, sniffed out a dognapping mystery, and tail-tackled the rogue French Poodle villain to save Bella and the town’s gravy supply! Rest easy, the treat thief’s tale has a happy end. 🕵️‍♂️🐕‍🦺🦴 Nose nudges, Rocky.

Listen to the story here

Oh, I’ll tell you my tale, but buckle up — this one will almost ruffle your fur.

The sun had dipped beneath the horizon, casting its last golden wink over the Earth when it happened. There I was, Rocky, with my keen Border Collie senses tingling; it’s that time when the threshold between Here and Pawsburgh grows thin, and it’s my moment to shine. Or shimmer, rather, like my glossy coat.

Most nights are an innocent gambol in Pawsburgh but not this time. No, this night was different. The scent of danger was crisper than the tantalizing allure of roast chicken on a Sunday eve.

You see, amid the rollicking hubbub of Doberman Dunes, beneath the sleepy Onyx Otterhound Oasis, and beyond the nautical whispers of Kelpie Keys, a whisper carried on the canine wind — Bella had vanished without a trace. Yes, that Bella. The very Beagle whose nose could sniff out adventure from several dog years away.

Normally, Max and I would revel in the deceptive safety of Pawsburgh Park with our routine exploration, but not now. With my ears pitched high and my tail stiff as a board, I led Max to Pooch’s Pub. Not for ale, mind — my interests lie solely in water and the occasional stolen gulp of gravy — but for information.

The pub was murmury, a low growling undertone, not quite friendly tonight. Dogs were talking about Bella’s disappearance. The rumor was as slippery as a slobbered-on tennis ball, and the taste was just as unpleasant.

We nose-bumped through the crowd, all wags and half-smiles, to The Barking Boutique, the last place she was spotted. “Treats confiscated last Tuesday,” I murmured to Max. A Border Collie never forgets (and who could blame Bella really, with her insatiable Beagle belly?).

We scuttled towards the Pampered Pooch, but alas! Closed for the night. Perhaps the scent had gone cold; perhaps my next lead was to rest on a dog-eared dream.

Then came the thunder. The shattering boom and crack; not from the sky but from beneath our very paws, shaking the very ground of Pawsburgh. Now I’m not a fretful pup, but let me tell you — I was tempted to hide under the Barking Boutique’s finest doggy bed display.

Yet, it was no time for hiding. Max’s fur bristled, and we exchanged a knowing look; Bella needed us.

On the edge of bravery and madness, we dashed to Chowhound’s Chophouse. The brisket scent was strong, but something stronger pulled me — to the kitchen’s back door. I barked the code, and it swung open, revealing the Doggone Deli’s back alley. If anywhere housed secrets, it was here.

We were in the thicket of Pawsburgh’s underbelly now. Silhouettes flickered; whiskers twitched. An unseen figure leaped across the rooftops, a silhouette against the moonlight.

“Chase?” Max suggested, words barely breathing past his floppy golden jowls.

But then — relief that knows no leash length. Bella, in a dash of fur, burst from a shadow, chased by none other than the notorious villain of Pawsburgh, the French Poodle mastermind known as… Le Bark.

“Bella!” I yelped, springing to action, all collie colliding with criminal canine in a grand jumble of justice.

The skirmish, much like a game of rambunctious fetch, was brief but intense. Le Bark’s plans unraveled like a poorly hidden chew toy.

As dawn’s first light teased the tips of Pawsburgh, we untangled the mystery, with Bella slinking by our side, free. She’d sniffed out Le Bark’s plot to control the town’s gravy supply — a fiend!

So thus it was, Pawsburgh safe once more. And oh, how we would bark of this night. I, Rocky, with mischief in my paw steps, Bella with a wag that could set tails nationwide a quivering, and Max, paddling in dreams of a water adventure yet to come. Adventure, it seems, always has an appetite, and ours, my friends, is never quite sated.

The End.