Sam was not a very interesting person. In fact, he was boring. At least that was what his ex-girlfriend told him. He led a boring life, worked at a boring job, and was boring in the sack. The thing that ultimately drove her out of his boring apartment was when he brought home the new THC gummies. They were really heavy duty to Sam’s mind, but they made his girlfriend paranoid. She thought that she was dying when she was high on the cherry flavored gummy. The next morning, after THAT trip, she packed up and left.

That left boring Sam alone in his apartment. Well, almost alone. He still had Brutus.

He was actually kind of proud that he, unlike lots of his friends, was out on his own, not living in his parent’s basement. It would have seemed strange to earlier generations that the average 30-year-old guy wasn’t married and was still dependent on his parents to support them, but Sam had gotten a job at a local manufacturing plant when he graduated from high school, and he was still there. He was good enough at his job that he had been promoted a couple of times and was earning some decent money. Not great money, but decent.

One evening, while boring Sam sat on his couch channel surfing with his Boston terrier, Brutus, his life changed.

He had come home from work, eaten a frozen pizza that he heated up for dinner, taken one of the cherry flavored gummies and began looking for something to watch. He was surfing through the channels, when something struck him.

“Ain’t dis just shit! 150 channels and nutin’ wort watchin’.”

Sam quickly looked around the room to see where the voice had come from. There was nobody. It had to be his imagination. Maybe he was overdoing the gummies.

He resumed surfing the channels, when he heard that voice again.

“Hey, stay on that channel! It’s my favorite—a rerun of Lassie! She is just about the top of the heap. A really smart doggie who keeps her human out of trouble every show! I just love these doggie reality shows!

“Can I let yous in on a liddle secret? She is really a he, just playin’ da part.”

Sam paused for a second, but he could swear that his dog, Brutus, was the source of the comment.

He looked at Brutus for a moment, before asking,

“Brutus, ol’ buddy, did you just say something, is it the gummy or have I finally gone around the bend?”

Brutus looked at him with the same look that Sam had seen many times before; the one that made him wonder if Brutus could actually understand what he was saying.

“Hehehe ... I’m not sure. I’ze wondered if yous was around the bend fer a long time. Hey, big guy, be cool. I’m just joking.

“If it isn’t oblivious to yous, I was talking to yous. I’ze been talking to yous fer a long time — da problem is that yous wasn’t hearing me. Now, I tink, because of dat gummie yous been using, yerz mind finally opened up to me. Yous humans! It’s like what de Harry Potter lady said, you see or hear tings you don’t understand, and you turn dem into someting that your mind can accept.

“So all deese years, every morning, I tells yous, ‘Hey buddy, get me some eats, and den we can goes out fer a walk, and I can pee and poop. But what do yous hear? Barkbarkbarkbarkbark! Always da same, we dogs talk to yous and all most of yous hear is, barkbarkbarkbarkbark!

“Now. If yous don’t mind, I want to watch the rest of Lassie, den get a quick drink, a loop around de block to pee, and then back to bed.”

Sam sat back in the sofa, overwhelmed by the evenings events, and then did exactly what Brutus had told him. They watched the end of Lassie (well, Brutus did, Sam was there but in a fugue state), got Brutus a drink of water, walked around the block (with Brutus giving his commentary about the neighbors dogs the whole way), got back home and they both went to bed.

Sam was fairly certain that by the next morning, after the THC had worn off, things would be back to normal, and the evening before would be revealed as a drug induced vision.

The following morning, Sam was slowly becoming conscious. His memory recalled the THC induced delusions that he had the night before. Thank god, he felt back to normal this morning.

“Wake up. Wake up,” he was startled to hear, “‘Hey buddy, get me some eats, and den we’ze can goes out fer a walk, and I can pee and poop.”

He looked down at the side of his bed, and there was Brutus doing his little ‘morning dance.’

“Come on, Boss! Da quicker yous get up and we’ze get started, da sooner we’ze be done.”

Sam looked down at his little friend, Brutus, and asked, “Have you really been doing this every morning?”

You could see the smile on Brutus’ face.

“You bet, Boss. I takes my job serious.”

Sam dragged himself out of bed and headed for the can to do his usual morning ablutions, then he put on the sweats, socks and shoes, and the hat he wore while talking Brutus for his morning constitutional.

While Sam was contemplating whether having a dog nag at you was any better then having a wife or girlfriend nag at you, Brutus interrupted his reverie.

“Hey Boss! When we gets to the corner, can we’ze toin left and go down dat way?”

“Sure, Brutus. Why?”

“Dats where dat nasty, stuck-up Tom cat lives. I needs to gives him a lesson.”

“Oh.” Sam thought to himself, “Well that explains it! NOT!”

That morning saw Sam and Buster turning left at the intersection instead of going straight through. Sam had his little plastic baggies in his pocket to pickup Buster’s little, messy poops, one of his least favorite things to do in the world: picking up dog shit.

Buster, on the other hand, was having a grand old time, sniffing places and leaving his own piss.

“Wow! Can you smell dat! Eau de Fifi! It’s from Fifi, the miniature Poodle up the street. She says she’s up for going out on da town and having a wild time whenever I can get loose. What a great bitch! Her favorite position is ‘doggie style.’ Dat’s a joke boss — all doggy bitches favorite position is ‘doggy.’ Only one problem; she’ll go out wid any old doggy. She’s kind of a first-come, first-served, if yous knows what I mean.

“Hmmm,” he said, taking a sniff at a brown patch in the grass, “a little message from Beauregard the bloodhound. He is upset that the vet changed him to all dry food and now he can hardly crap. Poor Beau! His human can’t talk to him. I tinks dat da vet is a cat guy.”

Sam and Buster went past the big green house with the huge bushy hedge along the front, and then Buster spoke to Sam.

“Hey Boss! When we gets to da cat’s house, let loose of my leash so I can put a scare on de nasty cat. I promise, as soon as I chase him away, I’ll come right back.”

“You sure, Buster? I know how excited you get when you come up against a cat. You’ll need some self-control to come back.”

“Take it easy, Boss. ‘Control’ is my middle name!”

“Okay, we’ll try it this time, but if you take off and I have to spend hours trying to find you like the last time you got off the leash, that will be the last time.”

“Oh Boss. Last time I got off and went wild, it was ‘cause Fifi was hots to trots. Dats an entirely different situation! It took me a long time to catch her. Only about two minutes to give her the old heave-ho. About the same as you and your old female bitch who left you.”

“Buster, knock that off. That wasn’t why she left.”

“Right, Boss...”

The Tom was sitting on a tall brick wall that extended along the front of the old house, broken only at the opening where the gate to the estate was.

As usual, when Sam and Buster came this way on their walks, the Tom saw them and started yowling, making nasty, obviously condescending cat sounds at the pair.

Buster gave the signal. “Okay Boss, let me go!”

Sam let loose of the leash, and Buster took off, launching himself directly at the wall where the Tom was sitting. He ran full speed ahead right up to the wall and using his inertia, began climbing up the wall.

The Tom had been sitting there complacently until Buster began his run. Understanding at last that Buster was loose and coming for him, the Tom did one of those almost vertical leaps that cats can do, turned 180 degrees in mid-air and skedaddled, his tail waving wildly behind him. It was a classic ‘turned tail and ran’ maneuver.

Given Buster’s short stature, even with his speed behind him, he didn’t get within two feet of the top of the wall before he came falling back again.

Buster fell back to the bottom of the wall, rolling back and forth on the sidewalk, his little rear legs pushing him around in circles on the concrete. Sam almost panicked; he thought that Buster was having some sort of seizure. Then he heard Buster LAUGHING.

“Oh, Boss, dit yous see dat cat’s face ... HAHAHAHA ... Dit yous sees him doin’ a 180 in the air ... HAHAHA”

When Buster finally caught his breath and regained his footing, he turned to Sam and said, “Okay, Boss. Let’s go home now.”

Buster, somehow envisioning himself as some sort of hero, was laughing to himself, congratulating himself, the rest of the walk home.

“HAHAHA. Great job, Buster, me boy. Put dat cat right in his place. HAHAHA. You struck a blow for freedom and da American way. HAHAHA...”

When they got home and were sitting on the couch, Sam couldn’t help himself; he had questions.

“Buster?”

“Yeah Boss.”

“Why do dogs seem to have a problem getting along with cats? Like that Tom that you scared off his place on the wall.”

“Boss, did yous hear what he sait to you? He was sitting dare goin’ on about how if he was bigger, he’d play around with yous like yous was a mouse, until he wast bored wit ya, and den he would eat ya. He was wishing he was like his big cousins, the lions, ‘cause den he could have peoples fer breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was telling me dat he has his human so submissive, dat he can poop in her shoes, and all she does is clean them out and tells him that he is a ‘naughty boy’. But she don’t do nuttin to punish him. She just submits and treats him like a god! I finally got tired of listening to his trash talk and we’ze put him in his place!

“Don’t yous know Boss, all cats is evil and dey always has been.”

Sam thought about what Buster had just told him, and he suspected that Buster was right. He’d read articles that said similar things; that if they were bigger than we are, that domestic house cats WOULD treat us like a live food source.

“So when did you dogs begin to hate the cats?”

Buster looked up at Sam with a quizzical look on his face.

“Don’t dey teach you humans anyting anymore?

“I’ll just have to teach you my own selfs.

“Okay. A long, long time ago,”

“How long?” Sam asked.

“Abouts 100,000 years or so. And don’t interrupts, or I’ll never get dis done.

“So, anyways as I wast saying, about 100,000 years ago, a colony ship was sent out to Eart’ from de great Dog Galactic empire. Da plan wast to deposit about 10,000 doggie pods from da ship to the planet. Each of da doggie pods had one handsome, fertile doggie stud, and five bitches dat was already knocked up and close to delivery of puppies. After de first batch of puppies was old enough, den da stud dog would get the bitches knocked up again and the process would repeat.

“We knowed dat der was humans on de planet; we planned on working wid yous. We would look up at yous wid our beautiful eyes, we would smile, wag our tales, lick your hands and de humans would fall in love wid us, and doggies and humans would foim a joint venture.

“When the original doggie settlers landed, dey was horrified to find dat CATS from the Cat Galaxy had already landed and plotted to set up a cat empire world here. It was de most horrifying discovery.

“Da cats figured yous would all submit and be slaves to da cats. And when dey figured yous wasn’t any use any more, da big cats would eat yous.

“Sees, dares four levels de cats: the royaltys, what is de lions and tigers, de aristos, what is mountain lions, jaguars, leopards and other mid-sized pussies; the small wilds, like de bobcats and others, and then at the bottom are what yous calls de housey cats. At each level, de eat anyting dat is smaller and weaker than dem.

“So de smallest cats would eat boids and squirrels, and rats; the bigger one would eat larger animals, de lions would eat anyting dat wasn’t trying to eat dem. Dey learned about grizzle bears and rhinos and animals that could beat dem in a fair fight, pretty quick. And de alligators really freaked dem out.

“But they gots de surprise when they got to eart’. Yous humans would fight back. Yous had spears and bows n’ arrows, and axes. Yous would come after dem in groups.