Benny rolled off the couch, “What the—Geeze, Geeze, Tobes is wrastlin’ with a nasty-ass raccoon!”
The lights came on as Toby barked, “Enemy at the door!”
Captain Coon was snarling and trying to chew off his leg above the foot that Toby had stuck in the door, “See, Kid, see what lendin’ a helping paw gets ya—see, you motherpupper!”
“Grrr!” and that thing was biting into its own foreleg.
“Son,” commanded James Chozen, give me the Vet!”
Benny stepped over to the corner across from Toby’s bed behind the coat rack and the coffee maker and laid hands on a long black pipe with a wooden table leg and handed it to his father, who looked at the thing, moved some parts, stepped to the door and commanded, “Bobo Animal, step aside!”
Toby stepped aside and sat at attention under his Master’s feet and Captain Coon snarled at him, “Four-legged traitor, ape-slave!”
Mamma Bear was yawning and patting her dainty mouth, Smooka Bear was emerging with his room video game headset on to see what was happening, and James ripped opened the door.
The raccoon leaped out into the snowy air one bloody gnawed paw dripping snow and, “Blam!” that raccoon turned into a spattering cloud of mangled fur and pink mist.
James then handed the thing called the Vet off to Benny, petted Toby and walked out into the snowy night. Examining the animal, James called back to Benny, “Son, I think this thing was rabid. Examine Toby for bites.”
“What,” whined Toby, as he was rolled over and checked for tooth marks and Annie hissed from the darkness, “If you were bitten by the diseased thief, The Vet shall be turned on you, Black Dog.”
“All good, Geeze, my runnin’ dog is a whole intact hero with no nasty coon bite on him.”
Toby jumped up as James carried the carcass over to the ledge and threw it down the mountain into the dark cedars, Toby following and heralding his mighty Master to the dark world, “The Vet Bringer, James Chosen, My Mighty Master!”
Toby knew that the wild critters thought little of him, that he was an ape slave, with a strong inner pet, a House Dog. But Toby learned to take such things in stride:
One night, Annie was standing looking out the door into the snow blight, when a coyote came running right at her to snag her, and ran headfirst into the sliding glass window, stunning itself.
Annie sneered, “Fool!”
Toby barked, from above Annie, “The Vet!”
Sure enough the bathroom door opened somewhat to the right side and, “Blam!” the nasty coyote was blown all the way down Granny’s ramp.
One morning, come spring, a big black bear ambled up to Toby as he was gnawing his bone by the trash cans, tipped the trash can over and Toby warned, “I wouldn’t do that, Big Guy. I guard this place.”
“You and what pack!?” snarled the bear as he munched on granny’s underwear.
Toby barked, “Bring the Vet!”
The bear looked up at the sound of the laundry room door opening, and there stood James, in his tighty whitey underwear, Vet in hand, and “Blam!” The bear moaned, “Your master shot me in the dick you little butt muncher, Oh,” and as he limped off, “Blam!” came another great sound as the top of the bear’s head shattered and he fell forward.
“Good boy, Toby. That’s a year of burgers and shepherd’s pie!”
‘Yes, to bring down the thunder of the Vet on bullies is cool!’
One day Toby was, in his second summer, a grown-ass hound if you will, sitting on the porch, when a big tom cat ambled on by after Annie and Bisquick’s scent. The two female cats scampered to the roof and Bisquick reminded Toby, “The pact, Dark One, the bond between dogs and men—activate it!”
James was not home. But Benny was in the camper, which was rocking, as the young man was summoning bacon for Toby from another young woman.
“Hey,” Toby barked at the cat, “I’m the big dog here, move off.”
The cat lifted its leg on the mud room door and showed gleaming fangs and needle claws, “And what are you going to do about it, House Dog—pet!?!”
Hackles up, Toby belted out his best barks yet, “Vet, bring the Vet!”
The camper door opened across from Toby, the sound of the sliding metal part of the Vet charging for a burst of thunder, reminded him to bend his pointy ears down, and, as the cat looked up in disbelief and asked, “Your human looks unkept—what is that strange stick?”
Toby whined and licked his lips in glee, “Oh, that’s the—Blam!”
“Good boy, Tobbes,” soothed Benny Bear. “Clean this up, please—still workin’ on some bacon for you, Betsy says she’ll fry you up a whole pan.”
…
Then, come autumn, as the leaves fell, the elk herd began pooing all over Mamma Bear’s lawn, where Toby was not allowed to poop. Toby had to go over in the blackberries, or near enough to hazard an injury.
Mamma Bear and Toby where all alone with Granny in the Chair, Annie murdering a humming bird and Bisquick breaking the neck of a sparrow, when Mamma Bear went out on the big front porch and started yelling at the elk, more big giants than Toby could count on all four paws.
Toby, infused with a dedication to Mamma Bear, a grown-ass dog don’t you know, pranced, hackles up, out to the herd, tail arrogantly curled, and began to bark, “I am Toby, Tobias to you wretched grass-eating ungulates! My Mighty Master is James Chosen who will hunt you to the ends of the earth if you keep pooing on his mate’s lawn!”
A great cow, as big as a truck almost, reared up and stamped down her hooves in front of Toby, who bolted back with one great bound, crouched in a killer pose, then noted that the cow was coming closer and adjusted his statement, “That was simply a public service announcement delivered in tones calculated to impress my owner—the grass is greener over there behind the mudroom…”
The whine of Smookah Bear’s small vehicle was then heard from the direction of the driveway, then the sound of a suspension jarring and a gear shift grinding. The herd of twenty and some elk all then turned to look at the small vehicle charging their way across the lawn and the lead cow assured them, “Stand together and the human will go around, stand, stand…oh thunder and lightning!”
With that Smooka Bear drove his small vehicle through the herd, breaking the legs off of two young elk and snapping the two forelegs of the lead cow, whose head fell forward and shattered the windshield as as the front of the car folded up and the herd scattered.
Smooka Bear then hauled himself out of the wrecked car and yelled, “Madre, get The Vet, one is still movin’”
Toby was then seen heroically chasing the elk across the acreage and into the cedar forest barking, “The Vet is coming and I’ll be chowing you down with melted cheese all year long! The Vet, the Vet, the Vet—black like me and almost as strong!”
