Hey there,

Just checking in from Pawsburgh, where I’m waist-deep in a tail, I mean, tale, that’s got more twists than the leashes at the dog park! Found myself sniffing out ghostly clues in a bookstore that make the hair on my back stand (and that’s saying something!). Basically, I’m Sherlock Bones with an appetite for mystery and bacon. Canine capers and pastries coming right up! 📚🕵️‍♀️🥓

Catch you at the Puppy Patisserie,

Gianna the Brave (And Hungry)

Listen to the story here

It was a fog-embraced — and as chance would have it, frightfully crisp — evening in Pawsburgh when I, Gianna, the lover of sock capers and bacon crunching, trotted into a tale of tail-curling proportions. Now, you must understand that the ordinary for us bow-wows was whimsical for most, but we had our own scale for the extraordinary.

My paws clip-clopped with an audacious rhythm on the cobblestones of Chestnut Cocker Courtyard as I headed towards The Wagging Tail Bookstore – a haunt for literary hounds with a nose for narrative. Between whiffs of musty tomes and the peculiar scent of anticipation, I sensed it. An adventure, clawing at the outskirts of my excitement.

As I passed Labrador Lunch, where the sizzle of steaks usually sang to me, there was a silence so thick you could chase it with a stick. “Odd,” I thought as I neared my destination. The shop light, typically a warm beacon, was flickering like the heartbeat of a nervous Chihuahua.

With a snort of courage, I nudged the door, its creak a symphony to my bulldog’s ears. It wasn’t like Beatrice, the charming Spaniel clerk, to leave things amiss. But where were the candle’s glow and charming repartee?

“My furry friends,” I whispered. “What lingers in the dark pages of tonight?”

I hadn’t a minute more to ponder when shadows danced across the spines of mystery novels, and an ivory card fluttered to my paws. It read: “Follow the tale if you dare, but beware the eyes that glare.” I’ve read enough doggone stories to know these were the beginnings of a bone-chiller.

So, snout first into the shadows I plunged. Rottweiler Ridge? Pfft — child’s play. The vacuum cleaner? That monstrous bane? Merely a trinket compared to the spectral chill in this chamber of chronicles.

My pawsteps echoed as I wound through the tightly packed shelves until I found the source — a book aglow with an eerie light, cascading fear like water from a slobbering Mastiff. It hummed a sound much like gnawing on a bone: continuous, relentless, bone-chilling.

“Why, this isn’t literature,” I noted, the bravery of my breed grasping at the straws of gallantry. “This is an invitation, a ghastly tome’s bait.”

And just as I pondered the leap into the novel’s nightmare, the book snapped shut, quivering like a stray in a thunderstorm. From its spine, a wind began to howl — or was it a howl that wound into the wind? Voices taunted the air, each a whisper of the feral fears that hide in the fur beneath our collars.

“Gianna,” they murmured, and the air grew so cold it could’ve frozen the wag off my tail.

I could’ve turned tail, surrendered to the hissing whispers. But no! My underbite firmed in defiance; there’s tenacity in these bones, after all.

With a crescendo of courage, I uttered, “I am Gianna, eater of bacon, displayer of belly! Reveal your corporeal form or retreat!”

As if challenged by sheer audacity, the gale waned, the light within the book dimmed, and an eerie peace settled over the store. The voices, like phantoms of pups’ past bath times, vanished.

Emerging with the flicker of the restored bookstore light was Beatrice, looking as if she’d been on a rather fetching jaunt through the spirit realm. “Gianna! The others would never believe it. Would you fancy a spot of ghost storytelling at Puppy Patisserie?”

“It seems,” I huffed with a puff that stirred my wrinkled brow, “that tales of horror are best served with a side of pastries and, of course, a snifter of bacon.”

And so, we laughed — a great belly laugh, my friends, that could resurrect even the most spectral hound to wag another day. And that’s the tooth — or should I say, the truth — of it.

The End.