As Rover's hips got thinner, it got harder to hold his waistline up, which felt uncomfortable against the underside of his new tail anyway. At last, he gave up and let them fall. It was at that moment that he saw that his new fur had spread all the way down to his knees anyway. He decided he was going to love his bushy coat, it was so warm and cozy, and the black and grey patches looked marvelous. He grabbed a handful of fur and then just ran his hands through it. It felt just like the fur on a real canine!
Unfortunately, his legs were widening and shortening, and his ankles were thinning, and he found himself wobbling around trying to keep his balance. His changing back and pelvis felt increasingly strained by trying to keep his weight up like this. It didn't take long to find himself toppling forward and catching himself with his hands.
"Woof, woof!" he barked playfully, finding himself on all fours. His feet had thinned out so they were easy to slip out of his shoes, although he did have to take his socks off to really see them. Short brown fur had already grown down the lengths of his feet, but an odd tenseness took hold of the bones down there, and he realized his feet were getting longer. After they were thinner than his hands, white fur had enveloped the tips, and he watched the balls of his feet start to widen along with his toes. He realized it was finally starting to look like he had paws like the beautiful shepherd he was becoming. He felt an odd puffiness at the end of each foot, so he reached down and grabbed them and felt his pads for the first time. It was strangely pleasant to touch his paws like this, but he realized something was missing. It would feel much better if his fingers were warmer, wetter, and not really fingers ...
A bizarre and frankly disgusting thought crossed Rover's mind. The tongue in his mouth felt flatter, more flexible, and he couldn't get the idea out of his mind that it would feel intensely soothing between his white-furred toes. He was sure the concept would never have occurred to him before, but his changing digits were beckoning to him. He had to try it, just this once. Curling himself around instinctively, he realized he was flexible enough to reach his feet with his mouth, and his tongue was agile enough to finger them as well as fingers could. The tastes and smells of the floor were vivid on his paws and on his palette, and his moist saliva was luxurious on, around and under every toe. He lost himself to the act for a few moments, and he realized that he finally understood why dogs do it, and that he would be cleaning his paws this way fairly often. A sudden scrape against his flat tongue made him realize that his toenails were sharping, and when he looked down he could see that his claws were fully formed. He thumped his tail against the floor and sat back up to watch his hands, which still looked human, if a bit shrunken and less dexterous.
"I can scarcely wait for another pair," he thought, still fascinated by and somewhat proud of his new paws. An itch on his side that he couldn't quite reach with his less flexible arms anymore showed him just how useful his new hind paws were going to be, when he managed to move his feet just right to dig his claws into his fur.
"I wonder why the caretaker is taking so long," he thought. "That strong-scented beef is really making my mouth water, even more than the pasta that's over-boiling!"