softened once he gave it a good thought. "'m sorry," he said to Cross, shuffling his feet and dropping his head slightly. "Well, we've got a very, very bad problem," he didn't wait for Cross to ask what it was, "Iggy's in the pound."

"Wha-!" the red puppy quickly covered her own mouth with her paws to keep the loud screech from escaping. Slowly, she lowered them back to the grassy ground. "What do you mean? How did Iggs-?"

"I know," a gruff voice said from the dark, and a large, fluffy chow chow stepped up beside T.P, who gave him a quick glance before looking back at the collared puppy. "I thought the same thing."

Cross took one look into Bruce's chocolate brown eyes and immediately felt the skin under her fur heat up as an unseen blush spread over it like a rash. It had been only a few months since she'd met him, but Cross had a huge crush on the chow chow; his deep voice drove her crazy and so did that rarely-seen half smile he shot her way when he kindly told her to stop worrying about him so much. No one else in the gang knew of her secret, but Cross was sure they could see her entire attitude change when he was around. Oh how I wish I could just tell him how I feel! she would think to herself, yet, the saluki mix knew she wouldn't dare reveal her feeling to Bruce.

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T.P cleared his throat. "Well, we wanted to see if you can be of some use to us, Cross. We're goin' on a rescure mission and we figured we'd need your help." The terrier mix raised an eyebrow, cat eyes sparkled a bit. "Are ya in?"

"Yes. Y-yeah, of course!" Cross barked. "Why wouldn't I want to help? But, uh...it's just gonna be us three?"

"Nah," Bruce chimed in and sat down to scratch at his thick fur. "No, we're still getting help from the other gang members-"

"If we can find 'em all." The two dogs looked T.P's way; Bruce had a slightly annoyed look on his face and Cross, a look of worry. T.P recognized both expressions and quickly added, "B-but we'll find enough members, I'm sure." He gave Cross a reassuring smile and that caused her to relax. But just a little.

"Okay, I'll be out in a sec." With that, the blue-and-green eyed puppy walked to the far right corner of her yard that faced the sidewalk and, after delicately pushing some wooden logs out of the way, she climbed under into the hole she had found not too long ago. When she reached the other side, Cross shook the dirt from her fur as her leader and crush walked up to her. The white spikes on the crimson puppy's collar shone in the moonlight. "Where to now?"

"Let's go find Spooky 'ole Jeremy." All three of the puppies let out a sigh. Jeremy wouldn't be much help, but they had a better chance of finding him than some of the other gang members; the curly-tailed puppy was either in the alley, or the area surrounding it, or at his mother's place, which was only a few blocks down and over from Cross' house. They would get there in about twenty minutes if they left now.

With a gruff order from Bruce, who seemed more like the leader of the gang now than T.P, the trio headed down the street, the well-being of Dexter far in the back of their minds.

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"So this is all T.P's fault?" Jeremy asked as he, Samuel, and Owl padded down the soaked streets of town. The Norrbottenspets mix had a questionable look on his face as they walked.

"Well, n-not exactly-" Samuel was rudely cut off by Owl's snarl; "Of course it was! If he hadn't ran after that truck and waited until we ALL were there, then we could have helped him get the door opened! But nooo! That so-called leader had to go and get things ruined by himself!"

Samuel just shook his head as he kept his pace behind Owl.

"So where are we headed anyway, Owl? What's your bright idea to rescue Iggy?" Jeremy's voice was quite demanding and stern when he asked, causing the female to shoot him a glare. "We're getting Penelope then we can get Iggy. But if you two don't keep up, it'll be YOUR fault if Iggy gets stuck in the pound forever!"

The cream dog's tail uncurled and nearly touched the ground and he hung his head.

They stayed quiet as they rounded the corner on Jeremy's street, heading over to go and get Cross. Owl was sure T.P hadn't made it that far yet; he still had Dexter to look after, and she knew that would only slow him and Bruce down. She hated thinking about the second youngest member that way, but it was the truth.

As soon as they rounded the block, Owl came nearly nose-to-nose with a familiar looking tawny puppy with green cat-like eyes...

"You!" both of them shouted at each other,

"T.P, what are YOU doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Owl!"