Comet began to grin. It was a barely suppressed, smug sort of grin, and coupled with his intent gaze it was starting to make Rex feel distinctly uncomfortable. “What…?” The bloodhound asked cautiously. With Comet, any grin like that meant trouble.

 Comet only grinned more evilly, getting up and circling around Rex and started chanting in his slightly off key voice, “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match…”

 “Comet…” Rex muttered in a warning tone.

 “…Find me a find, catch me a- OW!” Comet was now pinned under Rex, held down firmly by the collar. Orde, meanwhile, was watching and trying hard to keep a straight face. Judging by the smirk leaking into his countenance, it wasn’t working very well.

 Rex uttered a groan around Comet’s collar, keeping him pinned down even as Comet’s laughter died down. When he had finally satisfied himself that the collie was ready to cease and desist, he let go. “Orde,” he questioned, “Why did you have to bring him?”

 “I felt it necessary to bring backup when approaching you with my theory, as you are rarely open to new ideas.” Orde replied smoothly.

 Comet still wore that infuriating smirk. “Yeah, how were we supposed to know you were having a heart-to-heart with your girlfriend?”

 “She is not my girlfriend,” Rex replied, with more than a little exasperation entering his tone.

 “So… you’re engaged?” he ventured. Orde rolled his eyes heavenward while Rex seethed. If it were at all possible, storm clouds would have formed over Rex’s head. "No." he replied firmly. How does officer Ewan put up with such a pain?

 Comet sniggered once more, and finally backed down. “Relax Rex. I’m only joking with you. It’s not meant to be taken seriously.” His cocked his head. “You do know that I was only kidding around, right?”

 Rex felt more then a little sheepish. He had allowed himself to be goaded on by a teenager. His pride stung. “Of course, I just…well…” He fumbled for the right words. Why couldn’t anyone realize that there was nothing going on between him and Terry?? “She’s only an informant. Only a friend.” He stated firmly.

 “Right…” Comet nodded, but Rex could tell that both police dogs thought otherwise.

 He sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time this week, and cleared his throat meaningfully. “Now, if we can go back to our previous discussion…”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Later, Terry heard a scratch at her door. It was followed by Pete, walking with the air of a dog on a mission.

 “Oh, hi Pete,” Terry smiled.

 Pete didn’t return the smile. His face bore an expression that could have curdled milk. “Mom, what are you doing?”

 Terry was confused. “Come again?”

 Pete’s scowl deepened. “That… dog you’ve been visiting.”

 “You mean Rex? Well what’s wrong with him?”

 “Mom!” Pete sounded as if he couldn’t believe her stupidity. “What about Dad?”

 Terry’s eyes widened. “It’s not like that,” she answered. “I’m helping him with a case, that’s all. He works for the police.”

 “So let him solve it himself!” snapped Pete. “That’s his job, isn’t it?”

 Terry clicked her tongue. “Look, he saved my life. The least I can do is help him try to stop other dogs from getting hurt too. I don’t know all the details, but something’s going on with the street dogs and-”

 “The street dogs?!” Pete exploded. “You are hanging out with some mutt from another country, going to his house for hours every day, talking about street dogs?”

 “It’s better than what you thought we were talking about, isn’t it?” Terry asked pointedly. As an afterthought she added, “And he’s not a mutt, he’s a purebred bloodhound.”

 “But… but…” Pete sputtered, “But what about Dad?”

 Terry sighed. “Honey, I know you miss your dad. I do too. But I’m not in love Rex or anything like that. Even if I were, Yuke’s gone. I can’t stay tied to his grave for the rest of my life.” Then she added something which, under the circumstances, might have been better left unsaid. “Rex helped me understand that.”

 Pete opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it in a scowl that could have stopped a charging rhino. In an enraged silence, he stormed out. Terry looked after him and shook her head sadly. If it hadn’t been so dismal, she might have laughed. Her and Rex? Maybe if she hit her head first. Rex was a gentleman, but not like that.

 Even if he was perhaps just a little handsome…

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The police dogs had turned up only a few clues that pointed to the things that were already well known. The next morning had broken already, and so far the little council in Rex’s den was sounding just like the previous day’s conversation.

 “There is too little to go on.” Rex stated.

 A muscle in Orde’s jaw twitched. “We have nothing to go on, and that fact alone proves my conviction that we are focusing on the wrong thing. We have to focus on what’s motivating the strays, not investigate the locations!”

 Terry sat with Comet, while Ewan tapped his tail impatiently. “Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it fast.” He stated. “We’re wasting time.”

 Rex sighed loudly. “But we need time. We can’t blunder into this with our eyes shut! It could mean success or failure depending on our actions.”

 Terry frowned. This was getting them nowhere. She was about to open her mouth to offer her two cents on the matter, but a steadily growing noise had caught her attention. She cocked her ear, frowning. “What’s going on out there?”

 Rex and Orde hopped up to look out the window, where the most horrifying sight they had ever witnessed greeted their eyes. There were more strays then anyone had ever thought could possibly in Nome; of dogs were out in the street, biting and tearing, attacking everyone and everything in sight like locusts in a wheat field. The curs were thin, many showed signs of mange or disease, and nearly all of them had scars on their right sides.

 “It’s the strays!” Comet exclaimed, his eyes widening in surprise as he and Ewan joined the two, “They’re on the loose!”

 Rex firmed his jaw. “Then we’ll just have to round them up,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

 “Are you crazy?” Terry cried. “You’ll be eaten alive! This is a job for the police.”

 “With all due respect Terry, we are the police,” Ewan replied dryly.

 “I was talking about-” she started to protest, but Rex cut her off.

 “No time to argue!” He watched as a pedestrian barely slammed her front door in time to escape a snarling cur. “The humans are scrambling to get to safety, so it’s up to us. Terry, you stay here.” And with that he charged outside, followed by the other police dogs.

 The army of strays gave them no chance to collect themselves. Before he was even halfway out the pet door, Rex found himself locked in combat with a dog that resembled a mix of mastiff and bulldog with just a touch of saber-toothed tiger thrown in somewhere around the mouth. “Stop this!” he ordered as the monstrous mutt tried to tear a chunk out of him. “We are the police!”

 “Really!” his attacker gloated. “Well, I guess I’ll be looking at a promotion when the boss finds out I wasted you!”

 Orde came out and plowed into the other dog. “I wouldn’t count on that!” he shouted, shoving the dog away and turning to intercept another that was chasing a pedestrian. Comet and Ewan were working in tandem right in the thick of the fray, driving the more dangerous ones away in a classic pincer move meant to contain the brutes in one area.

 Rex barely registered where his comrades were located before he threw himself into the fight once more. Kicking, clawing, slashing, and biting; it was a madhouse unlike anything he’d ever seen or imagined! There was no time to think: Rex’s senses were assaulted as they were by the sheer overload they were receiving; the fur, blood, barking, and repeated whirling to meet the next adversary had succeeded in momentarily making him feel disoriented. He shoved the dizzying feeling away and brought his focus back in just in time to meet the next dog. As he struggled to keep the white Akita‘s teeth away from his throat, a sandy-colored blur caught his attention. He turned to look and saw…

 “Terry! What