S.P.O.T.S. (Super Powerful Organization of Terriers and Songbird)

by Franklin Young

  She stopped to look at the pieces of the door that lay all around her. None of the wood shards looked chewable, so Molly continued her search for the ball. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel the vibrations as it kept on bouncing in a room behind the nearby concrete wall.

  If she was awake, Molly would have looked for a door or another opening so she could walk into the room. But this was a dream... a dream where Molly felt stronger than she had ever felt in her life. She felt as powerful as ten, twelve, even fifteen Bull Terriers as she turned and backed towards the wall.

  The thumping vibrations of the bouncing ball became stronger. Molly stayed calm, lifted her back legs and gave a mighty kick.

  DOUBLE BAM! as the wall collapsed. Bricks rained down around her - in slow motion for an even more dramatic effect - as Molly calmly stepped forward and caught the bouncing tennis ball in her mouth.

  “BLECCH!”

  The ball tasted like bricks and cement which are things that most humans (and most dogs for that matter) have never tasted. Most likely though, it’s a pretty awful flavor.

  Molly spat out the ball which flew from her mouth with the approximate velocity of a bazooka shell. The ball shot through the front wall of the house, causing it to collapse completely.

  As Molly walked away from the wrecked house, she didn’t look back at the destruction. She was too busy searching for another tennis ball.

  No doubt about it, she was young again, and she felt so powerful that she was able to do whatever she wanted. On a scale of one to ten, she’d have to give this dream a perfect ten.

  Which equals a perfect seventy on the human dream scale.

  BUCK TO THE RESCUE

  A few houses away, Buck was sleeping in his reclining chair. In spite of his rumbling stomach, it was a deep and very happy sleep.

  Some people claim that dogs don’t smile. Their tails can wag, and their eyes can light up with excitement, but they believe that dogs can’t smile like humans. Of course, the people who say this haven’t had a dog in their family. Or if they have, they didn’t do enough to actually make the dog smile.

  Buck’s family did a lot to make him smile, and he was a very happy, healthy dog. At this point however, it was his dream that was making Buck grin...

  The dream had begun in a large theater where a smoke machine poured out some very dramatic fog. Buck walked onto the stage and bowed to the applauding humans and panting dogs in the audience. He was in mid-bow when a mixture of screams and barks snapped him to his senses.

  “Buck! Help me!” It was the pretty collie that Buck used to sniff during his days as a performer in the “Phenomenal Dogs” show. She was being stolen by a tall man in dark clothes.

  What was her name again? Buck couldn’t think of it and it was driving him crazy. He really liked her, and she’d probably be upset if he didn’t remember her name.

  “Think!” he thought.

  He knew it started with a “B,” but he couldn’t figure out if it was “Bella,” “Barbie” or something more exotic, like...

  “I’ve got Bebeto,” yelled the tall man in dark clothes.

  Of course! “Bebeto.” How could he have forgotten?

  Buck thought about how Bebeto was really a pretty name. He also thought about how amazing Bebeto smelled, and how her long fur was always so beautifully brushed.

  “Come on already! He’s stealing me!” barked Bebeto. “Stop thinking about my fur and help me! NOW!”

  Buck snapped to attention, and realized that the theater was laid out for a “Phenomenal Dogs” show. All the obstacles and jumps were set up just like he remembered from his days in the show.

  He looked out at the audience and snarled dramatically. As the crowd cheered and barked its encouragement, Buck ran after Bebeto and the dognapper. For some strange reason, the Bad Guy ran through the slalom cones. That was a big mistake. You see, during his days in the show, Buck was called “The Canine King of the Cones.”

  With each zig to the right and zag to the left of a cone, Buck got closer to Bebeto. He could see Bebeto’s pretty tail flapping against the villain’s coat.

  “What a nice tail,” he thought.

  “Never mind my tail! Just stop this guy!” Bebeto barked.

  After chasing the man away from the cones and up and down the giant teeter-totters, Buck was getting tired. As he fought to catch his breath, the Bad Guy ran out the theater door with Bebeto in his arms. The door slammed shut and automatically locked from the outside.

  For the first time, Buck doubted himself. It looked like there was no way he could rescue the Doggess Bebeto.

  He was about to give up hope when the audience of humans and dogs started to chant and bark his name.

  “Buck!”

  “Rowf!”

  “Buck!”

  “Rowf!”

  Buck smiled and nodded at his fans. He then saw the trampoline near the stage and smirked. Bouncing on it was his favorite part of the “Phenomenal Dogs” show.

  “I’m coming Bebeto!” he barked as he began his run. At just the right moment, Buck jumped and soared towards the trampoline.

  Buck sproinged off the stretched canvas on the trampoline and soared up, up, up, waaay up. Just before he hit the ceiling of the theater, he tilted to his right, ducked his head and flew out of an open window. As Buck sailed towards the parking lot, he saw the Bad Guy carrying away the dog of his dreams.

  Buck gritted his teeth, stuck out his paws and went into a dive. He landed in front of the man and let out his fiercest growl.

  “Ha!” laughed the man. “You’re pretty scary... for an Irish Setter.”

  In his sleep, Buck’s blood began to heat up. His muscles tensed and his lips curled. Strangest of all was that his stomach began to churn and bubble.

  The Bad Guy stepped back, a look of fear on his face.

  As Buck got ready to speak, a strange taste filled his mouth. He didn’t have time to worry about it, as he had just thought of the perfect response.

  “Don’t ever call me a ‘Setter.’ I am a ‘TERRIER!’”

  As the word “Terrier” echoed through the night, a greenish belch of mist shot out of Buck’s mouth. The mist floated towards the Bad Guy who took one breath and immediately passed out. As he fell, Bebeto jumped out of his arms and stepped towards her rescuer.

  Bebeto whispered in a soft and kind of romantic way, “you’re my hero.”

  She then nuzzled up close to Buck who tried to look cool as his tail wagged at a truly incredible speed. He’d defeated the bad guy, won the paw of a cute girl and received a huge round of applause and happy barks from the audience. What more could a dog ask from a dream?

  And as Buck dreamed on, you’d have marveled that a medium-sized dog could have such a big smile on its face.

  DUFFY’S BIG STEAK

  Around the corner from Buck, Duffy was snoring away in the kids’ playhouse in the basement.

  When they first brought Duffy into their lives, his family didn’t want him to sleep in the expensive playhouse. They blocked its entrance with a baby gate, but Duffy easily squirmed under it. They then tried to distract him with an officially licensed, hypoallergenic dog bed that came complete with a pillow in the shape of “Boopy! Everyone’s favorite cartoon dog!”

  Duffy didn’t like it, so he tore Boopy to pieces and then ripped apart the bed.

  As a last resort, his adult humans decided to let Duffy sleep with them. They figured this would keep Duffy out of the kids’ playhouse. After all, didn’t every dog like to sleep on a human bed?

  In truth, most dogs love sleeping with their humans. But no matter how many times his humans picked him up and put him on their bed, he would jump right back down. You see, Duffy DID like the big bed. But he also liked sleeping in the playhouse. And until his family was fully trained, he couldn’t let them get what they wanted.

  For you see, this is the way of the Terrier.

  On this particular evening, as Duffy slept in HIS play
house, he dreamt of a smell. Not just any aroma, for this was the mouthwatering, knee-weakening scent of a medium-rare rib steak.

  In the dream, Duffy followed the steak smell into a darkened house that he had never seen before. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw the steak. And it was a beauty. At least sixteen ounces of beefy perfection. But there was a problem. A BIG problem. The steak was dangling from the mouth of a huge wall of muscle, teeth, jawbone and bad intentions.

  It was in the mouth of a Pit Bull.

  Unlike most dogs and most smart people, Duffy wasn’t afraid of Pit Bulls. In fact, he was basically fearless and lived his life by the motto “I’m Not Ascared of Nothing!” Some would say that a dog as small as Duffy really shouldn’t be so stubbornly brave, but he felt that he didn’t have a choice. If he showed any fear at all, the bigger dogs in the neighborhood would take advantage of him. That could be dangerous for a small Dandie Dinmont.

  So Duffy growled at the Pit Bull who dropped the steak, yelped in fear and ran away with its tail between its legs. Of course, in real life, the Pit Bull would have probably stuffed Duffy into its mouth next to the steak. But this wasn’t real life. It was Duffy’s dream.

  Before Duffy could sink his teeth into the steak, it grew a pair of wings and flew down a darkened hallway. Duffy chased the flying steak but as he came to the end of the hall, all he could see were three doors, each one lit by a single spotlight. Duffy knew that the steak was behind a door and that he could only choose to open one of them. He also knew that he had only a single chance to find the meat, so he did what any dog would do; he took a deep sniff. But he just couldn’t pick up the scent of the steak.

  That’s when something really weird happened. Maybe not as weird as a Dandy Dinmont scaring a Pit Bull, but pretty strange anyway. As Duffy looked up, he found that he could see through the doors! He had X-ray vision!

  Behind the first door, Duffy saw something horrifying. Standing inside the small room was a nasty Groomer holding up a pair of clippers that reflected a scary-looking red light.

  Pure evil.

  Duffy stepped away from the Groomer’s room and looked through the next door. This vision was even more awful than the first one. It was his Veterinarian, and she was pointing a large thermometer and an even larger needle right at him.

  Purer evil.

  Duffy let out a frightened “YIP” and jumped to the final door. As he looked through the door, he saw the steak sitting on a plate next to a huge bowl of cold water. Duffy smiled as he nudged the door open and stepped into the best part of the best dream he’d ever had.

  That night throughout Duffy’s home, there echoed a sound that none of the humans had ever heard before. It was the sound of a dog happily chewing in his sleep.

  JACKIE & THE EXPLODING RODENTS

  In a nearby house, Jackie was sitting up in his bed wondering if he should go to sleep. Jackie had a condition that made him unable to shut his eyes until the house was absolutely silent. There’s a long and complicated word that veterinarians use to describe this condition. That word is “BeingaJackrussellterrier-itis.”

  And poor Jackie had a bad case of BeingaJackrussellterrier-itis. But once the kids were asleep, and once the adults had turned off the TV, and once the swing set stopped creaking and once the dishwasher stopped running... then, and only then, did Jackie allow his eyes to close.

  Soon after he fell asleep, he began to dream. The first thing he saw in his dream were the three older kids - Sadie, Mitch and Joel - running out of the house. They were closely followed by Jordana in her suddenly self-propelled stroller. Jackie ran after them, but it was clearly just a dream; because unlike in real life, he couldn’t catch up. He wasn’t worried, just upset that he couldn’t run next to them like he always did. After a short while, the kids arrived at their school. The three kids on legs ran into the school, while Jordana’s stroller simply rolled in.

  Jackie stopped near the school’s front door because he knew that he shouldn’t go inside. After all, every time that he tried, his full grown woman Nancy would yell and tell him that he was a “bad dog.” But Nancy wasn’t around. Neither was his full grown man Mike or anyone else. Jackie didn’t want to be a “bad dog,” but the door of the school WAS wide open.

  He was tormented until he heard what sounded like a chipmunk in the school. At a time like that, you can tell a Terrier that it’s “bad,” but it won’t make any difference. There’s just no way a Terrier stands still when there’s a rodent around.

  Jackie sprinted into the school. At first, he couldn’t see any chipmunks, and he didn’t know which way to go. The school seemed to be nothing but hallways leading to other hallways, all of which were empty.

  “Jackie boy!” Sadie’s voice echoed through the school.

  When Sadie called, Jackie always came running. He took off and turned the first corner, and that’s when he saw something so shocking, it made him hit the brakes. This looked pretty funny, because the floor had just been polished and Jackie slid across the floor past a bunch of classrooms. When he finally stopped sliding, Jackie was inches from hundreds and hundreds of rodents.

  Chipmunks, mice, lemmings, ferrets, jerboas, weasels, rats and even flying squirrels were lined up as far as his eyes could see.

  Strangely, none of the rodents were trying to run away from Jackie. Rodents may have brains that are the size of jelly beans, but they usually have enough sense to run away when they see a Terrier. Even a dumb mouse knows that dogs like Jackie were originally bred to track them down and send them to vermin heaven.

  Jackie was about to lunge at the rodents when he noticed that they didn’t smell anything like the squirrels that ran through his yard. These ones stunk like the balloons that Nancy put all over the house for Mitch’s birthday. Jackie remembered that Mitch’s party was the last time he saw balloons in the house. That was because Jackie attacked every balloon he could find and bit them.

  Chomping the balloons was fun, but it got Jackie in a lot of trouble with his humans. And Jackie couldn’t stand it when he got in trouble. Just ten minutes into his dream and Jackie was already facing a second dilemma. Should he attack, or should he just sit still like a “good boy?”

  Suddenly, a voice boomed out.

  “Get ‘em!” yelled Joel.

  Jackie couldn’t see Joel, but he didn’t have to be told twice. With the decision made for him, he took a breath and pounced on a squirrel-shaped balloon.

  BITE! POP!!!

  Next was a mouse balloon.

  BITE! POP!!!

  Then it was time to take care of an inflated chipmunk.

  BITE! POP!!!

  For the next couple of hours, Jackie dreamt about biting his way through hallways filled with rodent balloons.

  That night, all the Terriers enjoyed the best dreams that they had ever had. As they slept, they were no longer small dogs who were taken for granted and sometimes even laughed at by bigger dogs. In their dreams, they were stronger, smarter and more powerful than they had ever been.

  And as the sun rose the next morning, their dreams were about to come true.

  DISCOVERY AFTER DISCOVERY

  On their way to the park the next day, the Terriers pulled extra hard on their leashes. Even Molly, who normally walked next to her big human Susan as she pushed the stroller that held her smaller human Emma, was way out in front. Molly was so excited to tell her friends about her crazy dream that she actually barked for Susan to “hurry up!”

  When they finally got to the park and Molly was let off the leash, she ran as quickly as her old legs could take her. She bounced past the other Terriers’ humans who were in their usual spot, chatting with each other and playing with Jordana who, like Emma, was too young for school.

  When Molly reached her friends, she realized that her story was going to have to wait as Jackie was dramatically recreating his dream.

  “BITE! POP!!! BITE! POP!!! BITE! POP!!! BITE! POP!!!” he yapped.

  “We get the point
already,” said Duffy. “You broke a lot of balloons”

  Jackie smiled at the memory.

  “It was a great, great, GREAT dream. The best ever!”

  “I also had a wonderful dream,” Molly said.

  “Join the club!” said Georgie. “We ALL did. I dreamed that my barks were so loud they made the mailman explode!”

  As she remembered the dream, Georgie let out a happy bark that was so loud it caused the fence around the park to rattle and sway.

  Georgie looked at her shocked friends.

  “That was pretty loud wasn’t it?” she asked unnecessarily.

  “Even I heard it clearly” answered Molly.

  Just then, the dogs - except Molly - heard footsteps. Four of them couldn’t see who was coming, because a thick hedge blocked their view. Duffy however, saw the person clearly.

  “It’s Buck’s Judy,” he said, a second or two before she came into view.

  “Hey guys!” Human Judy said. “We heard a loud bark. Is everything okay?”

  People who don’t have dogs sometimes wonder why humans speak to them and ask them questions. It’s not as if they expect the dogs to answer them in their own language. It does seem kind of silly. But not as silly as when a human tries to speak dog.

  Anyway, Judy saw that the five dogs were okay. They looked so cute that she was tempted to stick around and play with them. And she might have, if her cell phone hadn’t gone off.

  “Love to stay, but I have to take this call.”

  As Judy walked back to her human friends, Jackie had a revelation:

  “I, I, I think I know what those beeping things are!” he said as he pointed at the cell phone.

  “Those things pour food into the humans’ ears.”

  “Are you crazy?” asked Georgie. “Humans eat through their mouths, just like us.”

  “Yeah?!” said Jackie. “Then why do they always, always, ALWAYS have those things stuck to their heads?”

  As the Terriers thought about Jackie’s strange theory, something occurred to Molly.

  “How’d you know it was Judy before she got here?” she asked Duffy. “That hedge was between her and us.”

  “I just saw right through it.” said Duffy. “It’s weird... I could also see through things in my dream last night!”