It had been fun, being a dog, for the first couple of occasions when he and his brother had been messing with the amulet.
It was no longer fun. He was sick of eating dog food and snacking on bugs. Blech! He remembered how he crunched that beetle like ill-flavored popcorn.
He was tired of it all.
And now, his own brother had just walked off and abandoned him, or that's how it felt as he watched Kevin ride off to school in a car, once belonging to Jared, now driven by the impostor.
He howled, and each howl summoned more of the primal expressions from somewhere deep inside him.
Jared was in the midst of another howl when his mom stepped out the back door, clicked her heels across the lanai, and spoke sharply to him. "Bad boy!" She clapped her hands and made a sound that was unpleasant to her former son's now canine ears. "Stop that howling! You'll have all our neighbors complaining!"
Jared cringed on his belly and actually felt himself crawl like a legless worm a short space toward his scolding mother. "Mom, please! It's me! Jared!" He whimpered and whined as he crawled.
"Honestly! I knew loaning you out to stud to the Thomasons would just cause problems!" Mom said.
If he hadn't been covered with fur, she would surely have noticed the burning blush on his face at the reminder of what he had done with the Thomasons' dog Mitzi.
"Well, I hope you enjoyed it," she continued as she watched the sheepdog's whimpering display. "I'm calling Doctor Brinkley today and making that appointment." She reached down and patted his head. "We'll make you a nice, docile, suitable dog, won't we?"
Doctor Brinkley! The vet! Appointment? Jared mulled over his mother's implied threat. "Mom, no, not that!" Jared cringed. "I'll be good."
He leaped to his four paws and wagged his hindquarters. "Please, mom!"
Mrs. Webster softened a bit. "Good boy," she said. "Let's not have any more commotion."
She turned and returned to the house. "Mom! Wait!" Jared whimpered as she left. "It's me!"
The door slammed with a resounding crash that plunged Jared back into despair.
He sank onto the grass. He moped for a few moments, abashed at the way his former family now treated him like the dog he had become. Then he felt an itch. He pushed his snout into his fur and dug with his teeth at the source of the itching, caused by a tiny flea that managed to completely evade his efforts as it continued to prove a maddening irritant to the dog that had been a boy.