Michael remembered he'd seen his 35-year-old neighbor (Oliver) playing outside with his 10-year-old son (Tyler) and their big black lab retriever (Buck). He thought he could make it all day as one of those. It was just one day, after all. And labs did seem like pretty fun dogs...
"Wait, no, what am I thinking?! I've got work tonight, and I've gotta get all this stuff cleaned up before my parents get back from Wolf Lake, and Kevin wants to stop by for a visit tomorrow morning. Even if I could be a dog for a day, I can't afford to!"
That tingling in Michael's ears was starting to make them feel really weird. He could have sworn they felt bigger somehow, and then they started to feel top-heavy, like a pair of flattened-out pool noddles that couldn't stay up straight. Very soon, he felt them start to bend.
"And no, I am NOT really turning into a dog," he insisted to himself. "That sort of thing does NOT really happen. My ears are normal, and it's just a coincidence that I just heard dog noises next door..."
Yes, Michael could hear dog noises over at his neighbor's house. No, it was not just an omen. It took him a second to realize that he shouldn't be able to hear much of anything next door inside his parent's basement. He could clearly hear Buck barking and whimpering while Oliver said something to him. Then a can opener started up--inside his neighbor's house! Yes, it was faint, but he couldn't understand how he could possibly be hearing any such thing at all. Then Michael's nose started to feel swollen and wet, and he could actually smell dog food. Much fainter than the smell of food from his own kitchen, the smell of bugs and rats in the basement, or the smell of dust from all of these antique items.
Michael couldn't stifle a little at the thought that, if he weren't imagining it, he'd have the best senses out of anyone in the whole world that he knew of. He'd always heard dogs had good ones!
"Man, I'm really getting into this! Okay, time to quit daydreaming and get back to work," he scolded himself. But just as he lowered his hands to another dirty old basement box, he noticed something that made him stop and stare. His fingernails were different, and not just a little different. They weren't the familiar flat plates on the top of his fingertips anymore. They were unmistakable gray claws at the very ends!
"No way no way no way!!"
He couldn't take his eyes off the things, turning his hands over one way, then another. It wasn't long that he noticed that his hands were getting longer, while his fingers and especially his thumbs were getting shorter. And he couldn't miss the dark black pads that were forming on the undersides, all while short black hairs were sprouting around them.
"I'm really turning into a dog," he finally admitted. "I cannot believe that silly amulet was actually real!"
Michael couldn't deny that this new realization, that he'd actually discovered a piece of jewelry that could turn him into a dog (or a cat if he wanted), was exciting him like he was a young child. How many bored twenty-year-olds get to discover something magical in their basement like in a kid's movie?
His muzzle got longer and broader even while he was taking his shirt off to admire his thickening coat of black fur. It was getting much harder to care that he had things to do. He was going to get to spend a day as a dog! He felt something trying to twitch a bit at the end of his spine, something that was getting bigger and starting to feel tighter in his pants. He pulled them down in the back so he could watch it grow. It got longer, thicker, and furrier while he gawked at it with his tongue hanging out. He was starting to enjoy how good it felt to wag his tail back and forth!
"This is gonna rock!" he thought, realizing he was looking more and more like Buck by the second. He enjoyed the feeling of his long flat tongue flopping around and tried using his clumsy paws to play with that. Now that he was undeniably going to be stuck as a dog for a couple dozen hours, he realized he didn't want to be stuck as one in the basement. He went up and hurried his way up the stairs. He also decided he'd better leave the back door open for himself in case he needed to get outside. Unfortunately, his hands had already changed fully into paws by the time he got there! Fortunately, he was still upright for the moment, and some very careful manipulations get the door open just a crack--but not before he'd given some very realistic, frustrated growls out of his new muzzle!
Michael started losing his pants when his waist started to thin out, just in time to see his feet stretching and thinning out into his new dog feet! It was already getting too hard to stand with the spinal and pelvic alterations, so he got down onto his haunches to watch the process finish up beneath him. His long, curved tail was thumping against the floor while he watched his hind paws forming at the ends of his elongated feet. It was just about over now, and Michael had to decide what he wanted to do as a dog first!