Hey fam,

Guess who’s top dog of Pawsburg now? 😎 Took over the Labrador Lunch, turned into a canine gourmet, leading a motley crew of clever pups, and reclaiming the town. Still miss our humans though. Stay paw-sitive and keep wagging!

🐾 Rosie

I remember the day the Great Silence fell upon the human world, the day their ceaseless chatter and rumble of engines faded into a hush that blanketed the earth. The day we, the dogs of Pawsburg, found ourselves to be the sole guardians of a world our humans left us to keep warm.

The air danced with the unfamiliar scent of freedom and a hint of lingering confusion. As Rosie, a Labrador of considerable charm and optimism, I led the charge on Sapphire Schnauzer Street, where the pavements, once teeming with the pitter-patter of our owners’ footsteps, now echoed with our own.

On what used to be another routine morning, I found myself strolling down Whippet Way, sniffing at the curious newness of it all; my paws tread over the cracks in the asphalt as if they were lines on a treasure map, leading me to an adventure I could not have crafted even in my wildest dog dreams.

There, in the heart of the quiet, stood the Labrador Lunch, a beacon of nourishment for every canine soul. I nudged the door open—cleverly, I might add, practicing opposable thumb envy—and what I found was a symphony of flavors laid bare for the taking, a symphony I had always imagined while my nose pressed against the dining room glass back home. The scents mingled in the air, the zesty tang of meatloaf, the robust aroma of stew—a concerto of doggy delight, and there I was, the conductor of my own feast.

My friends—an eclectic assembly indeed—rallied at my bark. There was Duke, a bulldog with a sniff for news, and Bella, a whip-smart Whippet who dealt in “borrowed” tennis balls. We rendezvoused at Husky’s Hotcakes, where the syrup was as thick as the mystery of our situation, and the pancakes, we discovered, made delightful frisbees in a pinch.

The days that followed were stitched together with the thread of our resilience. We fortified our town with bone-shaped barricades and reclaimed The Pawsome Pet Pharmacy for our medicinal needs—those pesky fleas did not care much for apocalypse decorum.

Then there was The Doggie Daycare, now a bastion against despair. A haven. Here, each of us could share tales of the before-times, tails wagging, weaving memories like the snug blankets we once burrowed under with our humans.

We even turned the Spa for Paws into a command center, where we met beneath hairdryers-warm-turned-oracle-globes. We pawed at maps, crafted plans to scout beyond Rottweiler Ridge, searching for signs of our beloved people, or perhaps just to stretch our legs—the two motivations, equally important.

Every evening as the sun kissed the horizon goodbye, we’d settle on tales of our daily exploits and the comforts of our newfound autonomy, reciting stories for each other, stories that we would’ve once saved for our humans. Now, we were the storytellers and the audience, and in the telling, we found solace.

Yet, amid this whirlwind of survival and syrup, amidst these paw-clad narratives, there was space—a space that ached with the absence of human laughter, of children’s squeals, of the peculiar tenderness of a head scratched just behind the ears by fingers instead of paws.

But as rosie-hued dusk fell upon Pawsburg, one thing was as clear as the reflection in the water bowl—I was Rosie, once belonging to the world of humans, now a leader in a world that belonged to dogs. Our spirits were undaunted, our bonds unbroken, and our tales? They were only just beginning.

And as I lay down in the glow of the post-apocalyptic stars, lulled by the breaths of my sleeping friends, I knew that as long as there was a tail to be wagged and a story to be told, Pawsburg—and the spirit of its canine citizens—would endure.

The End.