Chad actually giggled, as he read about the dog's life that was planned for him. Spike was a service dog in training. Within the remaining schoolyear, Chad would be trained to assist a disabled person who lived on the other side of town. It would be Spike's job to assist and protect this unnamed person who was apparently Chad's age because they would be attending State College in the Fall. Chad found himself fantasizing about a blind hot coed. He wouldn't mind shepherding a hottie around.
Then it hit him, service dogs weren't just for blind people, and this dossier never said the person was female. He could be a service dog to a crippled guy. There had been a guy on another team who had been paralyzed in a game against Chad's team. But that wasn't Chad's fault. Though he was the quarterback and team captain, nothing about the play or instructions to his teammates had caused the injury. It was a freak accident. The other player was running to avoid or intercept or something like that. Chad couldn't remember precisely, but the guy had slipped on mud and gone headfirst into the bench on the sideline, flipped over it and came crashing down on his back on a football helmet that was on the ground. No one had hit him, had they? Nah, it couldn't be him, could it?
The idea nagged at Chad. How could a dog help a guy who couldnt walk? He imagined being a big dog carrying the naked kid on his back from his bed to the bathroom. He wasn't blind too, was he?
Of course, it could be someone else. It didn't matter. People couldn't turn into dogs, could they? And a simple leather dog collar wouldn't do it, if a person could become a dog. Chad envisioned a scene with him naked and restrained in his dad's veterinary surgery as a man in scrubs injected him in his belly with a huge syringe. Then he convulsed and grew fur and a muzzle. Chad shook his head. He kept staring at the collar.
He just had to put it on. Before he realized it, the collar buckle clicked in to place locking the collar around Chad's neck. He tried to unbuckle it, but his fingers were suddenly stiff. His hands and feet cramped up, then all his muscles cramped. He let out an inhuman yelp and tumbled from the bench to the sauna floor. The colors of the cedar wood and the yellow light seemed brighter, and then faded to monochrome. Then the background scent of hundreds of males sweating that was baked into the wood amplified a thousand fold. Chad twisted his growing snout back and forth trying to escape all the pungent odors overwhelming his senses. While his vision now was greyish red monochrome, his sense of smell was exploding with colors. Rust, magenta, orange, brown and yellow seemed dominant in the sauna scents though there were flashes of green and blue mixed in. Some many different odors.
Chad was panting. It was so hot. He wasn't sweating though, he had to admit he smelled like a wet dog. He managed to rollover and get up on all fours.
Damn, he realized immediately that this was bad. He looked over his shoulder at his back. It wasn't just hairy, it was covered in fur, he couldnt see any bare skin. His body looked a lot smaller than it had been compared to the sauna benches. Then he saw a tail, he concentrated. It wagged. Yep, it was all him. He whined and looked down at his paws. Well, this didn't feel like a prank any more.
He wished he'd read the dossier more carefully. It said something about him going to the veterinarian when he was done changing. Well, dogs need their shots, but people take their dogs to the vet to have them fixed. Oh, the sick twisted secret admirer probably planned to take Chad to his parents' veterinary clinic. Both his mother and father were veterinarians, and Chad and his brothers worked there part time.
Chad climbed up with forepaws on the bench and his hind paws on the floor. He looked down at the typed pages on the bench describing Spike's (now Chad's) new life.