every one of their officer’s homes in order to provide instant access to an officer in case of emergency, but one day Ewan was fiddling with it to see if he could use it himself and accidently knocked it off the coffee table where it was kept. It looked fine, but they hadn’t received a call in days so they were afraid that the thing was busted. Orde and Ewan couldn’t tell their master about it, so they decided to ask Rex if he could give them a call on it to see if it still worked.

"Excuse me, Rex?" said Orde as they walked up their chief, but before he could finish a dog burst into the room through the pet flap with a horrible expression. Ewan noticed right away that it was Roland and he seemed to be at wits end.

"Rex," he demanded irritably. "I can’t handle this. I’m taking my vacation early this year!"

"What?" asked Rex completely aghast, "but you can’t take a vacation now, if you do you won’t be able to train the new cadet!"

"Exactly," said Roland. "Let me tell you something chief. It’s evil. Get rid of it!"

Before he could say anymore, a youthful voice began calling out. "Roland, hey Roland, man where’d you go?"

"Take my advice," said Roland as he stormed out, "get earplugs!" As he was about to leave he groaned to himself rubbing his forehead saying, "Oh man, my head hurts. I need a drink," and walked out the pet door.

Ewan, Orde, and Rex stood there completely dumbstruck. Roland was always one of the most levelheaded and together members of the force. Sure he had a habit of drinking human liquors from time to time, but even so, he had never had an issue on duty until now, which made Ewan worry to himself. What kind of kid is this?

His answer came to him immediately as a gangly Border collie pup walked through the hallway doggy door into the meeting room. He was not tremendously big, but altogether a little taller than other pups his age, which made Ewan wonder if he was having some unusual growth spurts. His fur appeared to be wild and ruffled although it showed resemblances of someone trying to brush it down. No sooner had he walked into the room did he notice Ewan, Orde and Rex standing together and decided to introduce himself.

"Hi," he said, trotting up to them. "I’m Comet, what’s your name?"

"Hello there Comet," said Rex. "I’m Chief Rex, but you can call me Rex, everyone already does anyway, and these are Captain Orde, and our newest sergeant, Ewan. You must be the new recruit that I was talking about earlier."

"Yeah, that’s me," said Come nodding his head. "I was just getting a tour of the station with some guy name Roland, and then, all of a sudden, he just completely freaks out and leaves! I think you need to do a back ground check on him, sir. He seems a little crazy."

"Erm... Roland has come down with something," fibbed Rex, not wanting to tell the pup that he was the reason that Roland left, "and has taken an extended leave of absence. Until then, you’re orientation will be resumed by…….," he said searching around the room for potential candidates for the assignment.

"I’ll do it," piped up Ewan. "I think it could be interesting having a little cadet to look after." Orde tried to interject but Rex had already accepted the invitation.

"Excellent," he said. "From now on he’s under your ward. Now, if you excuse me I have some things to go over," he said as he began to leave the room.

It was just then that Order remembered the original reason that he had wanted to speak to Rex and ran after him through the pet door, leaving Ewan and Comet alone with each other.

"Wow this is going to be great!" shouted Comet, his bright blue eyes sparkling with unrestrained excitment, "I can’t believe I’m doing this! Ewan, what’s it like being an officer? Do you have privileges? Can you beat up other dogs and then they just have to take? Do the ladies like you? What’s a sergeant do?"

"Erm, Comet," said Ewan trying to calm him down, but he did not hear him.

"Why is your collar shaped like that?"

"Comet…."

"Will I get a collar like that?"

"Comet,"

"Can I use my collar to make my friends do what I want? Whoa, that'd be so cool..."

"Comet,"

"Do you have a code name? Will I get one too?"

"COMET!"

...................................................................................................................................

The next fifteen minutes were no different for Ewan as Comet continued to rain down on him with his barrage of innate questions. At first Ewan tried to answer some of them to see if that would settle Comet down, but for every answer he had to offer the pup had three more questions, leading Ewan to eventually just give up. When Comet wasn’t bothering Ewan with his questions he was running around the station accidentally knocking over chairs, getting into file cabinets, smashing coffee mugs, and generally driving the human officers and dogs crazy. Finally, at the urgings of everyone, Ewan and Orde decided to take Comet on their walkabout that day, and all the while Comet was pestering them with his questions.

"What’s that mean Captain Orde?" he asked pointing to Orde’s badge hanging from his own collar.

"It’s my certification tag, Comet. It identifies me as a police dog and captain."

"Why’s your nose all funny looking like that? Are you a purebred? You don’t look like one."

"Why I never!" began Orde. Orde was not a purebred. As a matter of fact he was a mix between a Canaan dog and a Malamute and quite proud of his mixed heritage. But never, in his years of service had anyone commented about his nose looking funny. "Now see here!" he started, but was cut off by Comet again.

"You talk funny too, are you from around here?" Orde was actually not a native to Alaska. He was originally born in the British Mandate of Palestine and was quite proud of his masters’ British and Jewish heritage of which, he had picked up some of the mannerisms, especially in speech.

"Now listen up you," began Orde before being stopped by Ewan.

"Okay Orde," he said trying to calm him down. "What I’m sure Comet meant to say is that you have a very distinguished character, isn’t that right Comet? Comet?" but Comet was already gone.

"If were lucky," grumbled Orde, "far away."

Ewan blinked in mild shock."Captain, I’m surprised with you. You’ve always told me to be patient when dealing with everyone."

"I’ve shown a great amount of patience with him," said Orde defensively. "I haven’t had to be this patient since y…, never mind," said Orde catching himself.

"What, what do you mean?" Ewan asked suspiciously.

"Well, it’s just that Comet is not quite so different from a pup that I once new who was just as excited about his new job."

"Really, who was tha……? Augh! Comet, get off that!" he yelled at Comet who was standing on top of a store awning ready to pounce. Ewan should have chosen his words more carefully because Comet jumped off the awning and sailed through the air until he landed right on top of Ewan. Comet was unhurt, Ewan’s back ached a little, and Orde couldn’t breathe because he was laughing too hard.

"Ho, ho, very funny," said Ewan picking himself off the ground. "How would you like it if you were the crash pad?"

"That’s quite alright," Orde Chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye. "I’m quite comfortable, than you very much."

Ewan was about to say something else but the it struck him that he had lost track of time. "Oh no," he said aloud. "I forgot I was meeting Mirage for our lunch today. I gotta go."

"Wait," said Orde, "you can’t go. What about the pup?"

"Hey," Protested Comet with a scowl. "I’m no pup!" He thrust out his skinny chest to prove his point, but the others ignored him. "Hush up Comet," Ewan growled before turning to the Captain, "I don’t know. Take him with you. It’s just for a few hours."

"I can’t take him," argued Orde. "I’m going with Rex to the outskirts to check on the officers there. It’s too dangerous for him." This was very true. Outside of Nome was the old part of town. During the Klondike gold rush that part of town was a major center for gold production and there were many factories, refineries, and warehouses. Now all that was left was a few run down buildings and a number of questionable human establishments. Among other things the outskirts were famous for their stray dogs that roamed the streets in packs and generally terrorized each other and any passers by who happened to be unlucky enough to get caught. Thanks to Nome’s small police force, the violence had been kept in check, but everyday there were little pockets of resurgence and pack wars and so constant patrols were kept in that part of town.

"Too dangerous?" questioned Comet curiously, "Nothing is too dangerous for me!"

"Comet, be quiet," scolded Ewan. He turned to Orde, pleading, "But I can’t take him. He’s bound to do something stupid and ruin my date with Mirage."

"Well we can’t just leave him and he certainly can’t come with me," said Orde.

Ewan uttered a deep sigh of resignation. "Okay, okay. Fine, I’ll take him. There, happy?"

Orde offered a wry smile. "Just try and keep him out of trouble."

"Yeah, right."

..........................................................................................................................................

Ewan and Comet were right outside the alleyway that Mirage had told him to meet. Before going into the alley Ewan decided to give Comet one more reminder. "Alright Comet, pay close attention," he said, carefully enunciating the last words to make sure he had Comet’s absolute focus. "Mirage and I want to have a quiet lunch with quiet conversation. You can listen if you like and you can even have a little of the