by Tom Watson
DEDICATION
To Stephanie
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1: Did Stick Dog Move His Pipe?
Chapter 2: The Smells of Autumn
Chapter 3: The Color of Cheetos
Chapter 4: What Stripes Saw
Chapter 5: Stew Ingredients
Chapter 6: Candy Is Dandy
Chapter 7: Attack of the Cherry Pits
Chapter 8: Flufforable
Chapter 9: Poodlesaurus Rex
Chapter 10: Stuck
Chapter 11: Bart, Ruth, Ralph, and Adam (and Karen)
Chapter 12: Stick Dog Plants Himself
Chapter 13: Take One, Please
Excerpt from Stick Cat: Two Catch a Thief Chapter 1: The Sweetheart Dance
Chapter 2: Less Stuck Than Usual
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About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
DID STICK DOG MOVE HIS PIPE?
It was early evening and Stick Dog was asleep in his pipe.
He awoke when he heard a familiar sound. It was the padding of his four friends’ paws as they came toward his home. Stripes, Mutt, Karen, and Poo-Poo rustled leaves, sticks, and underbrush as they made their way to his pipe. This was, without a doubt, one of Stick Dog’s favorite times.
He always enjoyed seeing and playing with his friends, of course. But Stick Dog loved to hear the other dogs approach his home for another reason too.
They often got lost in the woods surrounding his pipe.
And when they did, it was quite amusing to Stick Dog.
Sometimes they found their way to his pipe in five minutes, and sometimes it took them twenty minutes. The record was an entire afternoon.
The best part for Stick Dog was that he could hear little comments his friends made to each other as they sought his pipe. And this day was no exception. Stick Dog could hear them talking fifty yards to the left.
“I think Stick Dog moved his pipe again,” said Karen, the dachshund.
“That’s the third time this week,” Mutt added.
Stick Dog smiled to himself and coughed a couple of times to give away his location a little bit.
“I hear him!” said Karen.
“Me too!” said Mutt. “It’s this way.”
In a couple of minutes—and several more coughs—Karen, Poo-Poo, Stripes, and Mutt emerged from the forest in front of Stick Dog’s pipe.
“Stick Dog,” Karen said, and squatted down to brush burrs from her fur with her front paws. “You have to stop moving your pipe! It makes it too hard for us to find.”
Stick Dog glanced up at the roof of his pipe and then all the way around the rim of its opening. It was a huge pipe. It was probably eight feet high and it ran all the way under Highway 16, which was a four-lane highway about one hundred feet above them.
“I didn’t move it,” said Stick Dog. “I couldn’t. It’s at the bottom of this giant hill and it goes all the way through it. There must be two hundred tons of dirt and rocks above this thing. How could I possibly move it?”
“Well, it’s not where it was yesterday,” said Stripes, the Dalmatian, agreeing with Karen.
“Of course it is.”
“I concur with Karen and Stripes,” said Mutt. “If it was where it was yesterday, then we would have found it much quicker.”
“Yes,” said Stick Dog. “You would think so.”
“A-HA!” yelped Poo-Poo, the poodle. “You admitted it! You’ve been moving your pipe!”
Stick Dog shook his head and wondered if it was worth continuing the conversation. He decided it was. “I didn’t admit moving the pipe—I agreed that you should be able to find the pipe if I hadn’t moved it.”
“Umm, I know a thing or two about logic,” said Karen. She scooched her belly across the ground, trying to scrape a final burr from her fur. “And you just proved yourself wrong, Stick Dog. First, you said we should be able to find your pipe. Second, we couldn’t find it. Therefore, the pipe must have moved.”
“Excellent deductive reasoning, Karen!” Mutt exclaimed. “Way to figure it out.”
“Yes, yes,” Stripes said.
And Poo-Poo pointed a paw directly at Stick Dog. He smiled slightly from one side of his mouth. He squinted one eye and declared in a loud, sharp whisper, “You’re busted!”
Now, Stick Dog could have said, “Maybe you guys just aren’t very good at finding things in the woods.” Or he could have asked, “How in the world could I pull a huge pipe out from under a two-hundred-ton hill of rocks and dirt?” Or he could have said, “You guys are nuts.”
But Stick Dog didn’t say any of those things.
He liked the looks on their faces. They expressed a sense of accomplishment. Stick Dog was often the one who ended up being right about things—whether it was some piece of random information or the legitimacy of a particular food-snatching strategy. And now that the other dogs thought they had gotten the best of him (even though Stick Dog knew they hadn’t), he liked the way they were feeling about themselves.
So Stick Dog let them believe that he had moved his pipe just to trick them. And he changed the subject entirely by saying this: “I’m hungry. We need to find some food.”
Food is, by the way, the one-and-only best way to get a dog’s attention. And I’m not just making this up for the story’s sake.
Do you want proof about this dog characteristic?
Okay.
Find a dog and have some cheese or little pieces of chicken with you.
Now, give that dog a favorite toy—a tennis ball, a chewed-up rope, maybe an old baseball cap . . . whatever. Let him get used to having that toy. Let him gnaw on it and snuggle with it.
We’ll use the baseball cap as an example. Here’s what they’re thinking: “Man, this baseball cap is the absolute best! I can’t believe they gave it to me! They used to wear this thing on their heads and now it’s mine. Why would they want to cover up their only patch of fur anyway? I don’t understand these humans. They’re loony. Oh, never mind. I’ve got this cap and it’s chewy and flexible and everything I love! It doesn’t taste too good, but who cares?! I think I’ll swallow little pieces of it later anyway. Woo-hoo!”
The dog loves this cap, right?
Now, do this: put a single piece of cheese or a little piece of chicken on the floor about ten feet away. Make sure the dog sees you, but you don’t have to call him or point to the food or anything.
Now watch what happens.
Ninety percent of all dogs will drop the cap—that just nanoseconds ago was the absolute center of their universe—and go get that food.
You know what the other 10 percent do?
They’re the smart ones. They take that baseball cap over to the food on the floor. Then they drop the cap right next to the food, eat the food, and pick the cap back up. But make no mistake: it’s the food they want the most. Need further proof for this 10 percent of Einstein dogs?
All right, Mister or Missus I-don’t-believe-everything-I-read-in-a-book. Try this: get the dog to “stay,” then take the baseball cap and put it on the floor a few feet away to the left of the dog. Then take the tasty food morsel and put it on the floor a few feet away to the right. And then say, “Okay” to release this fine beast and see where he goes first.
He will go to the food. Every time. Guaranteed.
If he doesn’t go to the food first, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Here it is:
What you have there in front of you is not a dog. I don’t know what it is (HOW COULD I? I’M NOT EVEN THERE?!?), but it is most certainly not a dog. It may be a big rabbit—or a hamster. Or maybe it’s your little sister or b
rother dressed up in a dog costume to fool you. Younger siblings always do stuff like that.
Whatever it is, it is not a dog. So, you should go to your parents and say, “I want a dog.” And when they say, “We already have a dog,” you say, “No, we don’t. This whatever-it-is does not prioritize food over its favorite toy. Therefore, it is not a dog. And I want a dog!”
Use the highly scientific toy-versus-food test to prove everything to your parents. They might not be convinced, but they will appreciate your scientific methods.
So, yeah, anyway.
When Stick Dog said he was hungry, that was it. There was no more talk of him moving the giant pipe. Now the dogs were focused completely on food—or, more precisely, their lack of food. Rising above the whisper of the wind through the birch and sycamore trees, above the rustle and crackle of leaves, beyond the steady and rhythmic beat of traffic high above on Highway 16, a more pronounced and significant sound could be heard.
The stomach rumblings of five hungry dogs.
CHAPTER 2
THE SMELLS OF AUTUMN
Stick Dog raised his nose in the air and sniffed toward Picasso Park, a common hangout for the dogs and the place where they had once eaten several tasty, juicy hamburgers. He didn’t smell anything grilling, but he wanted confirmation and asked Poo-Poo, “Can you smell anything? Anybody grilling out?”
Poo-Poo had gained a reputation for having the best nose of the bunch—and rightfully so. For not only could Poo-Poo smell aromas from a great distance, he could also identify and describe the smells perfectly and in great detail. It was a job he took very seriously—and Stripes, Mutt, Karen, and Stick Dog awaited his report.
Poo-Poo closed his eyes, lifted his nose in the air, and did two very slow circles, sniffing and snorting the whole time. When he finally stopped revolving, he opened his eyes and spoke.
“I’m sorry to report,” he began, “that there is nobody grilling at the park. I detect not a single whiff of smoky hamburger goodness. Likewise, there is nobody grilling any frankfurters, hot dogs, wieners, franks, metts, red hots, weenies, or coneys.”
“Aren’t those all just different names for frankfurters?” Karen asked.
Poo-Poo smirked a little at this suggestion. “Perhaps to the unsophisticated, yes.”
Poo-Poo suddenly snapped his head in the exact opposite direction. The others could tell some stray smell had drifted past his nose. “I am getting one familiar scent though. It’s about fifty-three paces forward and slightly to the left. Near the trunk of that old birch tree by the creek.”
Stick Dog knew that old birch tree quite well. He had often sat by it on hot summer days to take advantage of its shade and the cool breeze that blew across the surface of the creek water. He was certain there was no food around there. “You smell something to eat over there?”
“It’s something. Something familiar,” whispered Poo-Poo. He closed his eyes, concentrating even harder. “I just can’t put my paw on it.”
Now he had aroused the interest of the other dogs even more, and they edged closer to him.
“What is it? What is it?” asked Stripes.
Then Poo-Poo opened his eyes and turned quickly toward Mutt. “Were you over by that old birch tree a little while ago?”
Mutt began to shake his head, then stopped and began to nod slowly. “Yes. Yes, I was.”
“Did you have to go to the bathroom?”
“Of course,” said Mutt. “I’m a dog. I have to go to the bathroom all the time. I can’t help it—with all these tree trunks around and everything. What am I supposed to do? Not go? That’s impossible.”
Now, to you and me, this might not make a whole lot of sense. But to a bunch of dogs, it was a perfectly logical explanation.
“Forget it,” sighed Poo-Poo. “I was just catching Mutt’s scent.”
With Poo-Poo’s sniffing complete, Stick Dog was ready to go. It was time to find some food.
“Okay,” he declared. “Let’s get moving. We need to find something to eat.”
Without hesitation, Stick Dog and his four friends ran through the woods toward where all the humans lived.
Autumn is not a good time for the five dogs to find food. It’s too cool for people to grill. And with kids in school, frankfurter carts, ice cream trucks, and things of that sort were nowhere to be seen.
And there was another problem. While it was too cool to grill, the autumn breeze did provide human families a chance to open their windows a bit to allow fresh air into their homes.
When some of that fresh air was let in—some of that inside air was let out. And when that inside air was let out during dinnertime, many of the mouth-watering aromas drifted and danced through the air, teasing the dogs’ noses—and stomachs.
And the worst part of all?
Autumn dinners are the absolute best.
Think about it. Summer is the time for sandwiches and grilling and grabbing something fast so you can go back outside and play. Spring is all about the Earth waking up and new sprouts emerging, and we all eat like rabbits—lettuce and berries. And in winter, there’s nothing growing—and your teeth are too busy chattering to eat anyway.
But autumn. Oh, autumn.
That’s when the meals get hearty and warm. The drop in temperature makes us want to have thick soups and stews to heat us up. We want warm biscuits and thick bread to soak up all the extra liquid in our bowls. We want to eat big meals because we think there’s a chance we will hibernate through winter. Potatoes, corn on the cob, turkey, and pumpkin pie.
I love pumpkin pie.
So, when the dogs emerged from the woods, a lot of those hearty scents drifted from windows all around them. And it made their hunger even worse.
It was dusk, a very good time to embark on a food search. The evening was growing dark and people were mostly home from school and work.
As he moved slowly and carefully from the forest, Stick Dog looked left and right and all around. “No humans,” he said to the other four behind him. “We’ll follow the strongest food scent. Then, we’ll make a plan. Poo-Poo, could you find the tastiest scent around here?”
“Indeed I can,” Poo-Poo answered immediately and with supreme confidence. “Just give me a minute.”
The scent that Poo-Poo found led them to something they wished they had never seen.
CHAPTER 3
THE COLOR OF CHEETOS
With his nose raised slightly in the air, Poo-Poo led the way to the house emitting the strongest and most delicious aroma. Scampering along as low as they could, Stick Dog, Mutt, Karen, and Stripes followed him.
It was a small, red brick home with white shutters and two oak trees in the front yard. The trees had lost only a few of their leaves. The dogs settled in behind the trunk of the biggest tree.
As Stick Dog surveyed their surroundings and eyeballed the house, the others recovered a bit from their long run through the forest.
“Look at that color,” Mutt said as he stared up at the big oak’s branches and leaves.
“What color?” asked Karen, lifting her head to see where Mutt was looking.
“The color of the tree leaves,” Mutt answered. There was great sensitivity in his voice. He almost sighed as he spoke. “It’s a combination of colors, I think. Not quite orange. But not quite yellow either. Sort of golden, but not completely.”
A quiet autumn wind blew through the yard then, rustling the leaves a bit.
Mutt took a gasp of air as the leaves began to move. When they did, the last sunshine of the day darted in and out of the leaves, creating skinny streams of light that flashed and then disappeared through the tree. “Look at that,” Mutt whispered. “Just amazing. It’s like the light and the leaves are dancing. And when that unknown color is combined with the sunlight, it’s almost magical.”
Karen listened to all of this and looked up at the leaves and the streams of light. “I think I know, Mutt,” she said matter-of-factly.
Mutt was still and quiet; his head rema
ined pointed up toward the furthermost reaches of the oak tree. After a moment, he whispered, “Know what?”
“I think I know what that color is,” Karen said. She was not whispering. “I’ve seen it before.”
“Tell me,” sighed Mutt. “Tell me where you’ve seen it before.”
“Cheetos,” answered Karen. “Crunchy Cheetos. That’s the color, all right.”
Mutt dropped his head. “Cheetos?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Karen said. “Crunchy Cheetos. I just found a few at my favorite garbage can at Picasso Park a couple of days ago. That color up in the tree? It’s Cheetos. Crunchy Cheetos.”
“You’re seriously comparing this moment and this color to a snack?”
“It’s not just any snack, Mutt,” said Karen, beginning to defend her position. “It’s Crunchy Cheetos. They’re both colorful and delicious.”
Mutt lowered his eyes and looked at the ground. He began to shake his head slowly back and forth.
Karen wanted to make sure that Mutt understood. She said, “Now, I’m not talking about the puffy kind. Those are not quite as delicious and not quite as colorful. I’m talking about the crispy ones with the wrinkles.”
Mutt lifted his head.
When he did, Karen decided a little physical explanation might help him understand. She brought her front left paw to her mouth and pretended to hold a Crunchy Cheeto. Then she chomped her teeth together several times, demonstrating the crunchiness of the imaginary Cheeto. Next, Karen looked up into the tree and pointed toward the rustling leaves and sunlight, and then chomped some more and pointed at her mouth. Finally, she said, “Get it?”
Mutt simply nodded and glanced back toward the top of the tree. The wind had settled now, the sun had set, and the leaves looked more brown than anything.
It was just then that Stick Dog said, “Let’s see if we can get a peek into that open window. That must be where the smell is coming from. It’s probably the kitchen.”
