Almost the instant that the genie had decided to transform him, the people responsible for keeping the wealthy suburb free of strays had magically received instructions to pick up a copper-brown, medium-sized, short-haired mongrel on Mulberry Lane. It didn't seem magical to them, of course. Just all in a day's work! There was a time when it would have been all in a day's work for the genie, too, back when her master had been young enough and well enough to use the lamp often and indulge her mischievous but well-meaning sense of fair play with frequent, well-placed wishes. Only a few things in her vast ages of life could give the genie quite as much pleasure as swiping the humanity from those who didn't deserve to be human. Manipulating mortals into making the outcome even more appropriate was one of them.
So it was, that when the the hardened criminal before her had finished his descent into dogdom, a big grey van was already way. They were still much too far away for a human to detect, but that was no obstacle for the 38-year-old biker turned 5-year-old mutt, who was still sorting through the onrush of input served up to him by his new ears and snout. Unlike the dozens of other vehicles he was aware of in different parts of town, this one caught his attention because of the desperate barks and howls of the animals inside it. His ears perked up, his new canine instincts processing their distress. His nose twitched at the scent of diesel getting closer, and the scent of at least four separate canines approaching him at driving speeds. By the time the van pulled up and parked by the curb right in front of him, he was trembling, wondering if he needed to be as worried as those other dogs seemed to be. He looked back around to the genie again, but she was gone! Her sight, her smell, her sound, she had simply vanished away somewhere, as far as he could tell, leaving him alone with whatever was about to go down.
His nervousness melted away when he saw two humans in uniform getting out of the car. They must have found out what happened and come to rescue him! (Or so he thought.) Apparently, even a genie couldn't get away with ... whatever crime you would call this. He desperately tried to greet them and thank them for coming just in time, but he only managed a few playful barks. At least his new body was able to signal his excitement at both ends, he realized, jutting his long tail up in the air and whipping it left and right before it even occurred to him what he was doing. 'Come on, man!' he thought to himself wordlessly, 'pull yourself together!' A lone-wolf tough guy known for his street cred could not be seen here bowing and wagging his tail like a pup! 'Oh, well, who cares, it's almost over. These pros will have me back to normal in no time!'
The uniformed figures spoke to him in ways that made his tail wag even harder, even though his doggy brain couldn't piece together what they were saying. Needless to say, finding himself locked in a little tiny cage in the back and hearing the van door slam before they drove off was a rude awakening for him. He joined in the whining and howling of the other dogs, all the more so because HE didn't deserve to be here! 'Fuck, guys, surely you can tell I'm not really a dog! You can't leave me back here!' "ARRRROOOOO, arf arf, ARROOOOOOOO!"
Getting practically dragged out of the van on a tight leash into a smelly building and locked into a wire-fence kennel really drove the point home. It felt like a prison cell, but worse. He could think of some people who would have probably thought that maybe he DID deserve this, not just the genie or the woman she caught him with, but also other people like those queers he used to beat up downtown or that other biker he'd stabbed in Achicola. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this! He was supposed to come out on top no matter what all those nobodies thought of him! They were supposed to be jealous! Shit, even in prison he'd have been entitled to some basic human respect, not left in here naked with nothing but two dog bowls on the floor.