Hey Mom,

Just a heads up, your cuddly enforcer, Scooty, saved Fetch! Toys and Treats from dastardly thieves last night! Pawsburgh sleeps safe once more, thanks to my epic Home Alone-style defense. Don’t worry, the toys are safe and I’m now resting my heroic paws. 😎🐾

Harley

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And so it was that I, Harley, came to stand sentinel over Fetch! Toys and Treats one wintry eve in Pawsburgh, while visions of chicken treats danced in my dreams and my human was off on some dull human adventure without me. This kennel, a cornucopia of every canine’s delight, was my domain by happenstance—or perhaps destiny, for it was threatened by two rapscallions that very night.

You see, most dogs would tell you that Pawsburgh under a blanket of snow is serene, quiet. But I beg to differ. It’s alive, it’s electric, it crackles with the near imperceptible whispers of the incorrigible, and my ears are nothing if not finely tuned instruments. The chill did nothing to douse my fiery spirit as I meandered through the avenues of our own hound’s haven, an unseen sword of valiance sheathed within my tiny chest.

Setter Shore was behind me, Pinscher Plaza ahead, and I had given my personal salute to Pyrenean Peak in the distance when the rogues made themselves known. With stealth befitting of the finest Pawsburgh prowlers, they shuffled towards the store with ill intent hidden behind their shifty whiskers. I knew the type—more bark than bite, but with a bite that aimed to break the unspoken law of our canine utopia.

Encounters with such vagabonds were normally tackled in the boisterous aisles of Snout Snacks or among the fragrant tables of Shepherd’s Shawarma, but tonight, the stage was set at The Wagging Tail Bookstore’s neighbor, a sanctuary where pups came in search of the squeaky solace nestled within chew toys of all shapes and sizes.

“Alright, Harley,” I mumbled under my breath in a manner that would make Paddy Chayefsky’s most endearing underdogs proud. “Time to be the hero.” Braving into the underbrush of darkness, I clutched my wit, my cunning—my metaphysical shield and sword.

They didn’t see me coming, the fools, prattling on about big scores and easy pickings, outlining a sinister plot to pilfer our playthings. Pawsburgh was no place for their kind, and Fetch! Toys and Treats was a bastion of joy, not for the likes of them. I booby-trapped the premises with more gusto than an outlaw cooking up a getaway, my traps an orchestra of pulleys, sounds, and an array of distractions. It was Home Alone: Lost in the Kennel, starring yours truly.

A slip here, a stumble there; their attempts to invade were met with the kind of plucky resistance Chihuahua-Rat Terrier mixes are renowned for. Squeakers erupted beneath paws, sending one villain careening into a pyramid of Pom’s Pies. A fortuitously placed rope swung the other into the suds at the Dapper Dog Salon next door.

I imagined the headlines: “Harley thwarts treacherous truants!” and my tail wagged a rhythm of self-congratulation. Justice, it seemed, came in pint-sized packages. As I surveyed my handiwork, one of the thwarted perpetrators managed to sputter out, “This pup’s got more plots than Chayefsky!”

I maintained my composure, despite their flattery. Sunrise would bring my human home, blissfully ignorant of the escapades I embarked on amidst the snowflakes’ dance. They would find their good boy, unassuming, curled up within the comfort of our domestic abode.

By day, just Harley, loyal and affectionate. But by night? Harley of Pawsburgh, the rogue, the rascal, the raconteur—undefeated, undeterred, and perfectly nonchalant about the whispers of the night’s adventure I’d deftly spun into the fabric of our little magical world.

The End.

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