Irish Settler

I focused on the dog I had acquired. I saw it in my mind. And as I focused, I felt the changes begin.

I've morphed much weirder things than dogs. But every morph is strange. Every morph is unpredictable. You really never know how it's going to go.

I expected the first thing to be fur. It wasn't. The first thing that happened was the tail. I felt it just sort of spurt out of the base of my spine.

I turned to look back over my shoulder. "Oh, guh-ross!"

The tail was sticking out. But it had no fur yet. It was just this kind of grayish, chicken-skinned whip.

I looked back at Jake. His face was bulging out like something was trying to climb out of his mouth. At the same time my own muzzle started to grow. There was a weird grinding sound from inside my head as the bones of my jaw stretched outward.

I felt an itching in my mouth as my teeth grew bigger and rearranged themselves.

I saw my fingers shrink up inside my hands.

At the same time, the little stubs of fingers grew these gray-black nails. My palms became thick and calloused.

I felt the bones in my legs and arms stretching, changing directions, and I began to grow slightly smaller. Suddenly, I couldn't stand up anymore. I fell forward onto my calloused pads.

Only then did the fur begin to grow. It was a good thing, too. I was one ugly animal without fur. The reddish fur sprouted quickly, like the world's fastest grass. It just seemed to explode out of my skin, long and silky.

<Cool,> I said to Jake in thought-speak. <Check out this fur. Every girl in that concert is going to want to pet me.>

He said something back to me, but right then the dog senses kicked in.

I've morphed a wolf, so I was prepared. I knew the hearing would be amazing. I knew the sense of smell would be incredible.

But what I didn't expect was the dog's mind. It was not like the wolf. The wolf was a cool, intelligent, ruthless killer.

The dog was just a big goof.

You remember that old song, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"? That could be the theme song for dogs. Dogs just want to have fun.

That's what fooled me. The Irish setter's brain didn't feel like some strange animal. It felt like it was just tapping into a part of my own mind. It was a perfect fit with the goof ball part of my own brain.

I looked over at Jake through my slightly dim dog vision. He had become his dog, Homer. I lolled out my tongue and panted. Jake/Homer panted right back at me.

"RUFF!" I barked, for no reason. I did a little dance. Sort of like I was going to run away, but then I stopped suddenly and crouched down on my front legs and grinned like an idiot at Jake.

I was inviting him to play.

I tore off down the alley at a run.

<Marco, wait up!>

<Catch me! Hah-hah! Like you even could!>

I scrabbled away at top speed, my nails clicking on the concrete, my floppy ears flying, my tail held high and wagging.

I raced down the alleyway, totally ignoring the rich, wondrous smells of rotting garbage.

I turned toward the park and raced across the street. Jake fell back, caught up in a small knot of people.

SCRRREEEEECCCCHHH!

A car slammed on its brakes and missed me by a couple of feet. A couple of feet! I mean, if the driver had been one millisecond slower to hit the brakes, I'd have been roadkill. But my complete dog-brain reaction to that near-death experience was, "Cool! I smell something!"

I'm totally serious. The fact that I smelled some other dog's pee on a curb was about ten thousand times more interesting to my dog brain than the squealing car was.