"What is it?" she for his new name again, seeing his hesitation. "Speak, boy!"
"MAX!" he blurted out loudly, almost involuntarily, without a moment's pause. It was the name he'd always used with his brother when he used to pretend to his pet when they were kids. The audience giggled a bit.
"Ah, yes," she said. "A short, efficient name, humbly and deceptively mundane, but with a certain evocative boldness in its pronunciation. Also a name with touch of a humanity, as well. An excellent name for a shepherd, just as you always thought it was."
Damon didn't know how she was reading his thoughts so easily, and he was actually a little freaked out. Then Illusia's wand started to glow brightly, and the audience moaned in awe. Damon felt dizzy for just an instant, and then a startling but painless SNAP jerked some kind of bone loose at the end of his back. He yelped in surprise, and Monica covered her mouth in concern. A wiggly spasm started over his butt than he'd never felt before, so he craned his neck and turned his body back and forth a bit. The audience gasped and awed and chuckled at the sight of his tailbone sticking up under his skin and twitching around, and also at the sight of "Max's" futile attempts to see what they saw.
Damon stopped and groaned as he felt his wiggly portion start to strengthen up and swell a little. Monica and part of the audience saw his unruly bone firm up into a thick, two-inch-long nub. Monica gasped. "It's real magic!" she exclaimed aloud. Madame Illusia smiled. Damon's eyes lit up at the mention of real magic and the idea that others could actually see something impressive happening to him. The frantic, aimless spasm settled into a soothing side-to-side rhythm behind him. He decided he liked that feeling.
Madame pointed her wand up and a bright flash of light wowed the audience above him. Confetti-like sparkles of energy started falling down around Damon, and the audience watched his nub start to glow orange while Damon felt a strange warmth. He was just discovering some discretion over the thing he was moving--finally starting to become comfortable with it--when a sudden build-up of pressure made him take a deep breath and bend over as though in expectation for something. Within seconds, nearly all the pressure released itself out through the far end of his back: he felt his new moveable part seem to double and even triple in size and keep lengthening until it felt like almost his whole back had nearly doubled in size. A few experimental twitches revealed a lot more strength and flexibility in what he still thought of as his tailbone. The audience was cheering. Standing straight up in a hurry, he felt himself flailing around with something and even felt it thump against his thighs a couple of times. Looking backward, he saw a blurry length of his own skin-color swinging around almost too fast to see clearly. He gasped and realized exactly what the performer had seemingly given him. He caught it in his hands and held it, this sturdy appendage that he would be clumsily wielding behind him for the rest of his days. It started growing black and brown hairs even as he examined it: German shepherd hairs.
"You've been doing without one of those for a long time, haven't you boy?" said the Madame. Max barked. He didn't even think to use the word yes. He realized he didn't see the need to use words anymore. He even noticed that he was having trouble trying to remember what his name used to be, before it was Max. It was interesting, but not as interesting as his new tail! Once the appendage was all furry, it felt good to run his hands along it; he smiled and felt it try to jerk within his grasp. He realized wanted to wag it more than he wanted to hold onto it. He'd always wanted to wag one of these! He let go and watched it wave behind him like his own personal flag, grinning widely as he felt the wind in his fur as it went. The audience was chattering and asking themselves how Illusia had done that.