Hey Dad,

Rocking Spencerville one howl at a time! 🎸🐾 I’m the voice of “The Unleashed”—we’re mixing barks and beats, making waves right up to the Choco Chihuahua Castle. It’s a wild ride, but we’ve got a pact under the stars: to play our hearts out ’til the fam can join the symphony. Catch our vibe on Bulldog Bay’s coolest scene!

Ruff regards, Light Light 🎤✨

So it goes, amidst the jiving harmonies of Spencerville High, I, Lighten Lucky Maddux, found my paws tapping to the irrepressible beat of “The Unleashed,” a band that recently set Bulldog Bay’s tail on fire. The air here’s thick with dreams and sounds — the stuff that makes you forget pickles even exist. Not that I ever could, mind you. Darned pickles.

My life, like any other, has its routines. But now, I also have riffs and base lines curled up in my noggin alongside Chase and Weston’s giggles. Every day, I’m off to school where the scent of knowledge is briefly overpowered by leftover ecstasy from The Doggy Bagel Deli. The classes are full of woofs and wags, but it’s the after-school band practice that sends my tail into overdrive.

The pack? Oh, it’s eclectic: there’s Sammy, the drummer Schnauzer who’s got rhythm in his whiskers; Tilly, a Poodle on keys, with a fur style that’s, let’s say, straight out of The Pampered Pooch Salon; and there’s me, Lighten, on vocals, sharing the soul of a pitbull who’s guardedly gracious for his second shot at the high notes.

“Unleashed, front and center,” Sammy barked, the leather of his collar creaking like an opening act. “We’ve got a bone to pick with rhythm, and the only way to solve this is to chase it, chew it, make it yours.”

Each rehearsal was a storm, every note a howl to our folk back home, the tear and yelp of a band trying to say something with more than growls and whines.

Between chords, I’d think of Cassie and Jay and the way their hands felt like safety and Sundays. Anxiety? Sure it seeps in, like remembrance of a vet’s cold floor. But it’s dulled by the din of friends turned family and the knowingness that one day we’re to share the same sky again.

Our first gig – if you can believe it – nothing short of chaos. Sammy missed a beat, probably distracted by his reflection in Tilly’s shiniest bowl cut yet. We got through it though; the sort of triumph that could turn Bulldog Bay into a puddle, we were so slick.

“You gotta let it course through you, Lighten,” Tilly pranced while hitting her octaves. “The music, the moments, like sniffing a new scent — let it tell you its secrets.”

The crowd of furry faces, ears perked, eyes wide like full moons, they fed off our zeal. We ended on a high note with a bark that I swear shook the Choco Chihuahua Castle to its fragrant foundations.

That night, under the Spencerville constellations, we made a pact – us, “The Unleashed,” a band of different breeds and one spirit. We would play until the stars dimmed and then play some more for the shine in our parents’ eyes when our music echoed into forever.

Tomorrow beckons with new songs and sage whispers from the dog park oaks. Time is odd here; it’s both a thief and a giver. Yet until Chase, Weston, and our human kindred join this endless refrain, we will keep the tunes flowing, as fluid and fervent as the love that sent us here to Spencerville to begin with.

And so we play, and so we wait. Yippee ki-yay, so it goes.

The End.

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