Hey Mom,

Just wrapped up my role as comms officer aboard the USS Tailwagger in deep space – dodged comets and saved the Canine Cluster today, all in a day’s work! Pawsburg’s envoy to the stars has never been prouder, even with my meager two-tooth grin. Heading home for a well-deserved chicken strip. Tell the galaxy the “Gremmi” tales will live on!

Hugs and tail wags,
Jose 🐾✨

Listen to the story here

So it goes in Pawsburg, a place where tail-wagging is currency and sniffing is the norm—like the handshake of a long-lost relative, comforting yet suspicious. Me, Jose, I’m hardly the regular Joe you’d find fetching sticks at Samoyed Square. I’m more of a stargazer, chasing cosmic squeaky bones across the back alleys of the universe.

I blinked once, twice, and on the third, something shifted. I wasn’t on terra firma anymore; I was aboard the USS Tailwagger, a starship manned—or dogged—by a crew of furry adventurers keen on smelling the roses of the Milky Way. And why not? If cats have nine lives, us dogs have the infinite cosmos.

Captain Duke was at the helm, his jowls flapping with every command. His bravery was as unshakeable as his mistrust in mail carriers. Our navigator, a poodle named Fifi with curls tighter than the trajectory to Orion’s Belt, tapped her paws over the star-chart with a precision that’d make the finest watchmaker weep. Whisper, our feline liaison officer, lounged by, tail occasionally flicking in a Morse code only she knew.

I was the chief communications officer. Funny, considering I wield two teeth with the same pride a peacock has for its feathers. Yet, here I was, ears perked, deciphering the beeps and barks from distant galaxies; their susurrations wove together the poetry of space. From Papillon Promenade to the Poodle Nebula, every encounter was marked by the interspecies gabfest.

Today’s agenda, which I had tattooed on my psyche, was no game of fetch. We’d received a distress signal from the Canine Cluster—a potential cat-tastrophe, if left unchecked. Duke’s bark echoed, “Engage!” and Fifi did her dance. The stars stretched, blurring like a wagged tail in overdrive.

En route, I daydreamed of Puppy Patisserie’s eclairs, monumental in fluffiness and cream. Oh, how they made my two staunch chompers quiver with anticipatory delight. Raw carrots would’ve been mutiny on board this culinary reverie ship. Such things belonged in the black hole of my menu, never to resurface.

Passing by Lhasa Lane’s nebulous counterpart, we approached our destination. The anomaly was a sight, light years away from The Barking Boutique’s latest galactic fashion line. It shimmered, a disco ball drawing close to midnight, but this was no party.

The problem was a rogue comet, furless and threatening, heading straight for the Canine Cluster. Like me in my almost-bald elegance, it was mighty despite its barren glory. It needed guidance, a path away from destruction. Courage flared in Captain Duke’s chest, down to his very tail, and with a bravery that saluted the unsung dog heroes of yore, he issued the order to deploy the Squeaky Bone Torpedoes.

I hesitated, the memory of my favorite toy flooding back, each squeak a symphony of simpler times. But this was the greater good – the ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ of the universe commanding our compliance. I gave the signal.

True to Pawsburg’s mystery, the torpedoes worked in odd, wag-inducing ways. The comet veered, a cosmic dog dodging a bath, and the Canine Cluster was saved. We had transformed inevitable catastrophe into just another tail to wag about.

So it goes, a day’s work for the USS Tailwagger’s crew. We warp back to tell the tales, pilfering a page out of Vonnegut’s book—because why should humans have monopoly over absurd heroics? We, the furry frontier explorers, claim our own stake in the universe, even with my two-tooth grin cutting through space like a bold insignia.

And as I drift back to reality, Pawsburg’s earth beneath my paws, you won’t find a beam-me-up collar around this canine’s neck. Instead, a leash tethered to my heart, leading me back to the simple yet profound pleasure of a grilled chicken strip savored in twilight’s embrace. Always Jose, Pawsburg’s almost-bald envoy to the stars—so it goes.

The End.