He drifted to sleep, although he did so fitfully, whimpering and growling from the occasional intrusions of bad dream sequences in monochromatic intensity.
One particular dream must have dug deep into his anxiety. In the dream, Kev and dad visited him in the backyard.
Kev brought a pad of paper and a pen. "I'll prove it," his kid brother vowed.
He put the pad and pen on the ground. "Jared, just write your name and prove that you're really Shaggy," Kev said as dad looked on with a pinched look. "OK?"
Jared sniffed of the pen and paper.
His dad made a scoffing sound. "Are you finished wasting my time, Kevin," he said. "Really! What has gotten into you?"
Kev watched dad walk back into the house. "Jared, why didn't you prove it?" Kev asked.
Jared tried to answer. What did Kev expect? After all, he was a dog.
Just a dog... he opened his eyes drowsily and felt the collar and lead. "Dogs can't write...or talk..." He yawned and curled back into a warm, shaggy ball of fur before he drifted back to sleep.
"Wake up, boy," Kev said. "Sorry...I meant Jared."
The dog's eyes opened and he saw his owner looking down at him. Its nose detected something incredibly appealing.
"How did you sleep?" Kev asked.
Instead of listening, the dog sniffed near Kev's pockets.
Kev pushed the dog away. "Jared, I asked you something."
He waited for a single bark from his transformed brother, but the dog remained silent.
"Jared, is anything wrong?"
The scent of the bacon hidden in Kev's pocket tormented the dog. A steady stream of drool fell from the sheepdog's partly open jaws.
"Oh!" Kev said. "Right! You smell the bacon."
Kev removed a napkin and unwrapped the bacon. "I sneaked you two slices from breakfast while mom wasn't looking."
The dog went nuts for the bacon, pushing against Kev.
"Jared, cut it out," Kev said. "Now listen. If you want the bacon, bark once."
The dog kept pushing and whining without making any attempt to bark.
"Jared, can you understand?"
The dog whined.
"Oh boy," Kev said, worried. He finally relented and offered the treat, watching the sheepdog scarf down the two bacon slices with a couple of crunchy bites.
"Jared, you're not really a dog," Kev said. "You remember that, right?"
Kev waited, but the dog simply looked at him with big, brown, dumb eyes.