each other in about our enemies and supposed friends if we bumped into each other. Sometimes, the information was a bit heavier then what was wanted.

     “Hey Dallas” Ivan yawned one day, after being thrown into the cage next to me in the pound. “Guess who came back to Platinum”

I opened an eye and glanced over at the Malamute cross. 

“Who?” I mumbled.

     “Remember that dog that dog you were telling me about? Uh.... Rick?”

I sat up, wide awake. “Rex?”

     “Yeah, him. He came back to Platinum today. He’s supposed to have a mate waiting for him or something...”

I took a few seconds to absorb this. 

“I owe ya one Ivan” I said, rising to my feet. 

     “For what?” he mumbled, half asleep.

I didn’t answer. Not that Ivan would care... With that, I climbed over the chain-link fence, carefully placing each paw in a space until I balanced on the top. With a single bound, I hopped to the snowy ground. Then I simply trotted away in plain sight. No one usually guarded the outside pound runs and most dogs that got placed in them usually ended up getting out.

     After I had spent the day tracking down my latest enemy, I finally had the black and tan Greenland Dog in my sights. He still looked exactly like he did when I was a pup. Except now that I was bigger, he seemed to have gotten smaller. We were probably about the same height now but he was easily thicker. I didn’t care. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. 

The sun started to set and when the sunlight started to fade, the Greenland Dog headed for a house that was a street off of the main street. Planning my attack carefully in my head, I slipped into the house’s backyard and hid in the shed. Wooden crates were stacked in front of the shed... that’d be a good hiding place if they found me in the shed. As I slipped into the old wooden shack, I accidentally brushed up against some human tool and sent it clattering to the ground. Cursing my stupid mistake, I held my breath and froze, but no other sounds followed it. With a sigh of relief, I hunkered down on the cold wooden floor and faced the house. Suddenly, the house’s back door opened and light spilled onto the snow.

     “-Daddy, I’m not your puppy any more! I don’t even think anything is in there! I just want to check!”

          “Just be careful Shelby”

I didn’t recognize either of the voices, but I could bet that the first one was Rex’s mate-to-be. I could easily start my attack like this! I crouched, ready to spring as soon as the figure came into the shed. But the figure that came in the old shed was the silver husky: Roxy’s friend. She was smaller and way thinner then me. She couldn’t do anything to me. So I let my guard down. Shelby sniffed the floor and peered around nervously. I slipped out of my hiding place and when her blue eyes darted to me, she gasped.

“Hey there sweet cheeks” I crooned.

Shelby franticly looked around for anything she could use or hide behind. She darted for a piece of rope on the floor and held it in her teeth, a new devious gleam in her eyes. I chuckled.

“Do you really think a little rope would stop me?” I smiled through half closed eyes.

The husky’s eyes flitted to something above me. Still smiling, I looked up. My smile dropped right off my face. Above me was a bundle of tools that probably couldn’t fit on the shed’s cramped floor and were bound by rope to the low roof. And the end of the rope keeping the tools from falling on me was dangling out of Shelby’s mouth.

“Isn’t that convenient” I mumbled softly. Then I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t have the guts to do it”

     “Try ‘be” Shelby replied through the rope with false confidence.

I grinned and started to waltz over to her. In an act of desperation and without actually meaning to, the silver husky scrambled away from me and pulled the rope. The rope above me quickly uncoiled. The tools fell straight down… right on top of me. Moaning, I pulled myself out of the wreckage. Shelby just stood there, horrified.

     “Oh my… I’m so sorr… I didn’t mean…” she stammered. 

I stood up and shook off. That was enough reassurance for the little husky.

     “DADDY! THERE’S A STRAY IN THE SHED!” She yelled, retreating.

She was throwing my plans right out the window! Just as the door opened once again and her daddy reappeared, I had managed to climb to the top of the wooden crates for leverage. The old husky’s blue eyes found me immediately.

“You’re mate ruined my life!” I yelled deliriously at Shelby, half out of my mind. “And now I’m going to ruin both of yours!”

A low groaning sound distracted me. The old husky’s ears twitched at the sound and Shelby burrowed into her father fearfully. Seconds before it collapsed, I realized the groaning was coming from the bending boards of the boxes I was standing on. I fell through one box and the others collapsed under me. Then it was lights out.

     Tail wagging furiously, I struggled to balance with the enormous bone in my mouth. I couldn’t wait to show Her the bone! I still couldn’t believe I found it! It was just sitting there in a metal bowl for me to take! And now I was going to give it to the puppy I had been admiring from afar until today! 

“Wow!” Scooter exclaimed when he watched me walk by. 

     “What are you gonna do with that?!” Azura asked, still in awe.

“I’m gonna give it to that pretty husky!” I said, dropping the bone for a few seconds to talk to my siblings.

     “You don’t even know her name!” Scooter argued. “We should just keep it!”

“No way!” I yipped. “Now she’ll finally notice me!”

And with that, I gripped the bone in my puppy teeth again and proudly stumbled over to the two pups talking in the cool shade. One was my sister Roxy before she had started to hate me. The other was my puppy crush, the silver puppy whose name I had yet to discover! Once I reached them, I proudly dropped the bone at Her feet.

“Hi there girls!” I said smoothly.

The girl’s smiles faded and a shadow dropped over me. Tail between my legs, I turned to see the black and tan dog named Rex.

     “That’s my bone pup!” he growled. “No one steals from me!”

Before I could explain, Rex lifted me off the ground by the scruff of my neck and carried me over to a sled. Then he tucked me into the cloths that were piled on it.

     “Have a nice trip” he sneered.

The musher got on the sled and called for the team to move. Too scared to get out, I sat in the folds of cloth and watched Platinum disappear.

     Very slowly, I opened my eyes. That sled had brought me to the army base. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. And I was over my little crush too... especially now that she’d dropped a ton of tools on me.

Then it all came back to me… where was I?! I glanced around. This was definitely not the pound. I was in a cage but this one had a bed and it was indoors. I could see my dog tags on a human bed on the other side of the small, dark room. I got to my feet and found that I was a little sore and my back leg was bandaged, but the cage I was in was easy to escape. I nudged the latch over with my nose and pushed the door open. Immediately, I went to the bed and slipped the dog tags back on my neck. I never went anywhere without them. Then I went over to the door and listened to the human voices arguing just outside in the hall. 

         “I don’t think you understand! He tried to attack our purebred Husky! If anything happened to her, our breeding program would have collapsed and we would’ve lost hundreds of dollars!"

“Then what do you want us to do with him?!”

“I don’t know! But just putting him in the pound so that he can escape again is unacceptable!”

The voices moved down the hall and I heard a door open and close. I waited a few seconds to make sure they were gone, then I set to work on getting through the door. The wood was thin and was probably as old as the shed and as soon as I started to chew and claw, the brittle wood easily fell apart. When there was a good sized hole, I squeezed through and limped down the hallway towards the door I was sure would lead outside.

Flames from a fire place in another room flickered on the floor but I ignored them… until a shadow moved across them. I stopped just before going past the room. It was a good thing I did. 

     “Stop fidgeting dear” said a stuffy female voice.

“Sorry Momma” I heard Shelby’s voice say.

I sat down on the floor, hiding behind the corner and rolling my eyes. 

     “We’re so proud of you” said Shelby’s father.

I made a face even though I knew no one could see me. Suddenly, someone entered the front door through the doggie door. I froze. Two of the three dogs in the next room got up to greet the dog… when I peered around to see who the newcomer was, my