Chapter One

What if Dogs Were Royalty and Humans Were Their Loyal Servants?

“Pre-paw-sterous!”

The Canine Queen looked up from her search for possible homes for their dogizens at her mate’s exclamation. When he resorted to punny canine-isms, she knew something had raised his hackles. “Why do you watch these human news shows if they upset you?”

“I must keep informed. After all, I have a planet to run–” Her mate stopped in mid-sentence as a hang-dog expression claimed his face, making it sag like a bulldog rather than the sleek, ninety-pound hound he was. “Well, I used to have a planet to run.”

“We’ll find another dogdom. I’m looking for possible locations now.”

“I hope something comes up soon. I’m grateful we found humans like Horace and Maddie to let us stay at their castle, but I’m doggoned bored.”

“Fortunately, caring for our pups has taken up most of my time.”

“They aren’t puppies any more.” Reynaud glanced out the leaded glass windows of the modern day castle where the Royal Canines had been staying since their space craft had crash-landed on Earth. Though mid-summer, this part of Oregon was still green with tall trees shading much of the grass growing on the generous grounds surrounding the castle.

Their three eighteen-month old pups–equivalent to human teenagers–played near the spaceship where their host and creative inventor, Horace Ainsworth, was working to finish repairs that would make the craft functional again.

“Time for our pups to learn more responsibility,” the Canine Queen agreed. “If our planet, Canid, had not been destroyed, they would be learning how to run a dogdom by now.”

In companionable silence, they watched their offspring for a time. Then Reynaud asked, “What have you found for possible homes?”

“Most intriguing so far are homes in Italy and Sardinia selling for one euro. Maddie tells me that is almost giving them away.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Most need extensive repairs.” The Canine Queen paused, then decided her mate might as well know the rest of this story. “These small towns are looking to increase their populations because most of the young people are moving to cities to find jobs.”

“So they are looking for humans.”

“This is a human-dominated planet. We were fortunate to find a home with Maddie’s family, who not only can communicate with us, but treats us with respect and dignity. Unfortunately, that is not the case in many places on this planet.”

“Including this Sardinia?”

“I’ve read there are many of our kin who are dumped on the streets and beg for scraps of food to survive.”

“Ri-dog-diculous!”

“A golden opportunity to save these fellow canines if we can find humans such as Maddie and Horace there.”

“I’m going to see if Horace has made progress on our paw-gloves. Having opposable thumbs would mean I could be of more help.”

Chapter Two

A Human Connection in Sardinia

Dressed in a dog suit, Chiara Caddu stood near the street that local Sardinian animal rescue organizations despondently called Corso Randagi or Street Dog Boulevard since so many dogs were dumped along its narrow edges. Her bone-shaped sign read, “Streets are not for dogs.”

“Then get off the road, bitch!” A passing motorist shouted, throwing a basket-ball sized item at her.

Reflexively, Chiara lifted her arm to deflect the flying object. When she realized it was a small dog, she scrambled to catch the critter. The impact of the furry creature landing in her arms unbalanced Chiara. As she tried to regain her balance, the snow-shoe-sized feet of the costume tangled together. She stumbled and weaved, desperately hanging onto the precious fur bundle in her arms. The heavy head of her costume further threw off her balance as she grew dizzy. Chiara figured the easiest way to stop this crazed dance was to fall on the ground. But how to do that without smushing the dog in her arms?

Was there anything less hard than concrete or less prickly than cactus to land on? It was hard enough to see out the mouth of her dog costume, let alone to actually tell one whatchamacallit from another while her head was spinning.

Closing her eyes to try to stop the dizziness, Chiara aimed toward a scrubby form and hoped it wasn’t cactus. Then she held the doggie in front of her and turned slightly so her side would hit first.

The ground, when it rose to meet her, didn’t seem as hard as it should have been. The head of her costume flew off and rolled toward the road. Chiara relaxed a moment and took a deep breath. Then gagged as the smell assailed her nostrils. Slowly, she opened her eyes and realized she had landed on a pile of garbage.

The little dog howled in protest. Chiara set the pup on the ground and tried to stand up. However, the feet of her costume were still tangled together. She finally managed to flail herself onto her hands and knees among the garbage, coming face to face with the little dog staring at her with an almost awestruck expression.

“You could have given me a hand here.”

The pup sniffed at her a couple times and backed away.

“So I’m on my own?” Untangling those snowshoe-sized feet proved difficult but not impossible, and finally Chiara rose awkwardly to a stand. “Don’t you tell anyone about this.”

A car honked as it sped away, the passengers yelling, “Thanks for the show!”

Her face flushed red with embarrassment, Chiara bent to pick up the little dog and the head of her costume before limping toward her vehicle. Some days just didn’t go as well as others.

~ * ~

Chiara drove up winding roads edged by scrubby brush. After about a half hour, she turned onto another road that was little more than a dirt track leading to a farmhouse built of granite blocks, historically used by shepherds in the area.

Fortunately, this one had been remodeled to include modern conveniences such as a bathroom and numerous kennels to house dogs rescued from the streets.

A chorus of barking greeted Chiara’s arrival, which subsided into excited sniffing of the puppy she brought. In the way of many in this region, the woman who came to meet her was tall and slender with longish dark hair. However, rather than the stylish women who walked the street of the cities, Gabriella’s hair was pulled back into a ponytail which stuck out the back of a billed cap sporting the logo of her American husband’s favorite baseball team.

“Brought you another recruit.” Chiara handed the puppy to Gabby.

Gabby automatically ran her fingers through the dog’s fur, doing a quick check for wounds, weight, growths, anything abnormal. She took him to their “intake” area–a smaller stone building that had once housed both sheep and shepherds. The two-room building contained a thick slab table now used for exams, a tub for bathing the dogs–braced in what was formerly a manger, and a row of stalls that had been transformed into kennels.

Gabby bathed the little dog while she and Chiara talked.

“How long are you going to stay home this time?” Chiara handed Gabby a bottle of dog shampoo.

“Going back to the States next month when my in-laws celebrate their anniversary. Planning to stay about three weeks so I have time to tour a couple animal rescues. Don’t know which is worse. Constantly begging for money as the nonprofits in the United States seem to do or seeing criminal organizations take over the shelters here for the per canine money from the government.”

“Does either way keep dogs off the streets?”

“That’s what’s frustrating.” Gabby sighed as she rinsed the shampoo off the little dog’s fur. “The U.S. has more shelters and are better organized, but dumping an animal isn’t uncommon there either. At least more Americans seem to think of dogs as pets, and support spay-neuter efforts. I’m hoping to bring back ideas that might help our locals change their attitudes.”

“In the meantime, we rescue the ones we can.” Gabby dried the little dog with a towel. “This guy seems fairly healthy, but we’ll separate him from the rest of the pack for a while just to be sure.”

She settled the dog in a small enclosure by himself, then brought food, water, and a soft pad for a bed. The little guy paused in gobbling the food, cocked his head and looked at the two women.

“You get to stay here,” Chiara said. “Gabby will take good care of you, and soon you’ll be able to play with other dogs.”

The pup finished the food, rooted under a blanket and curled up on the bed.

“He’s settling in quickly,” Chiara said.

“Yes.” Gabby paused, then frowned. “You seem to bring us another dog or two every time you stand on the road in your dog suit.”

“It feels good to be able to help the dogs.”

“Or maybe people are counting on you being there so they have a place to dump a pet they no longer want.”

Disbelief mingled with disappointment in Chiara’s chest. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“You might also be putting yourself in danger–”

“I’m used to people throwing things at me. Like this puppy.”

“I was thinking of more than thrown objects. I’ve been told Brutto has moved into the area.”

At this statement, Chiara frowned. Brutto’s real identity was a mystery. He was linked to a number of criminal activities but seemed to operate on his own with a small cluster of cronies. When setting up dog shelters became profitable because of the per canine payments from the Italian government, this of course attracted the criminal element interested in making money rather than humanely caring for the dogs as had been the intent of the law.

Brutto quickly became one of the top money-makers in this area. He just as quickly earned the disdain of legitimate animal rescue groups that wanted to help the dogs, and humanely deal with the problem of dog overpopulation by running spay/neuter campaigns while educating people to change their attitudes that dogs and cats could survive on the streets without human care.

“Mr. Nasty himself? Did he offend one of his criminal cronies on the mainland?”

“Expanding his operations is what I heard. He’s gathering up not just street dogs, but those with owners who let their dogs roam freely.”

“Anyone know where he’s set up his dog warehousing operation this time?” Chiara asked.

“Not for sure. We have a number of people scouting the area as they go about other business.”

“Well, let me know and I’ll do what I can to help shut him down.” Still dressed in the body of her dog suit, Chiara turned to go. “Thanks for taking the little guy.”

“Think about what I said.” Gabby waved as several of the dogs barked and she went off to check on the ruckus.