Free The Return by Dayna Lorentz

I think he looks honorable and proud and like he’d face a whole pack of wild dogs to save you, and that’s good, too, right? Even if it’s not particularly cute.” Oscar waved his tail, and the pack wagged their tails in agreement.
    Callie smiled. “I think, Oscar, that is exactly right.”

Shep announced that the pack would wait until dark before setting out for the shelter.
    â€œCan’t we just walk to the edge of the Park?” whined Pumpkin. “No one will see us in the Park.”
    â€œI don’t know that,” Shep woofed. “Who knows if there are people in here? There could be dog catchers looking for you and Callie right this heartbeat. No, we wait until night. Better safe than captured.”
    Shep was stalling — he wasn’t ready to let his friends leave. If the other dogs smelled this, they kept it to themselves. They didn’t argue with his order. Even Callie kept whatever thoughts she had to herself.
    Pumpkin sulked in the corner of the clearing under a scrubby bush, then sprang up yelping about the horrible insect that buzzed by her ear. Zeus retreated to his nest of leaves near the tunnel and Oscar followed him, yapping at Zeus about whether he needed help with his paw or a drink or something to eat.
    Shep curled up on the bank of the stream. He couldn’t shake the dread that covered him like a coat of mud. He didn’t want to take the pack to the shelter. Even if he didn’t go home, what was he going to do, run around the city alone? How would he form a new pack? In truth, he didn’t want a new pack — he wanted his friends to stay with him, to want to stay with him. He wanted things to go back to how they used to be.
    Pumpkin sighed with a dramatic flourish of her tail. “There’s nothing to do until sunset,” she whined.
    Snoop pawed a dead branch. “Want-to-play-Big-Stick-huh-please?” he yipped.
    Pumpkin trotted toward Snoop, tail wagging. “I want to play! But I’m too small for Big Stick. Does any dog have a Ball?”
    Daisy snorted. “Where would one of us have gotten a Ball?”
    The white girldog slumped into a sit. “Fine, then I’ll just sit here and watch my fur grow.”
    Rufus growled from his nest under a bush. “You’re not making the heartbeats pass any faster by whining.”
    Ginny shook herself, rustling the dead leaves around her. “How about I tell you a story?” she yipped.
    â€œOh, yes!” barked Pumpkin. “I would love a story! What’s a story?” She waved her tail and smiled at the dogs.
    â€œIt’s something Shep dug up,” woofed Ginny.
    â€œI didn’t dig up anything,” Shep snuffled. “All I did was woof to Callie what an old timer had snuffled to me when I was a frightened pup. You and Oscar took that stick and ran with it.”
    â€œAnd look at all the trouble that — snort — caused,” grumbled Daisy.
    â€œHow could some old timer’s woofs cause trouble?” yipped Pumpkin.
    â€œTrouble? Pish posh,” snapped Ginny. “Oscar’s and my stories made a whole pack of abandoned pets feel safe in this storm-wrecked world. Whatever else happened wasn’t the stories’ fault.” She looked sternly toward where Oscar hid behind the tunnel wall.
    â€œThese story-things sound very powerful,” woofed Pumpkin in a hushed bark. “Do they bite?”
    â€œIn a matter of barking,” Ginny answered, a smile on her jowls, “I guess they do. This one is about a dog who’s woofed to me all my life.”
    Â 
    Many cycles ago, there was a dog named Lassie, and she was loyal and kind to other dogs. One sun, she caught a strange scent. Worried that this scent might be from a threat to her pack, she followed it through the woods. It led her out of her pack’s territory, far from her den, through strange waters and thick leaves. She began to worry that