"Wow, this is easy!" you think, effortlessly backtracking the scent of whoever left you the Chronivac box. "I'll be back to wherever they came from in no time."
You can clearly tell, as you follow this path, the person's scent is getting older. They were here before they entered your apartment building. Theirs is just one out of possibly millions of scents, but it is unique and impossible to confuse with that of any other human. Speaking of humans, there are lots of them walking around these streets, and they are very loud and smelly. Some of them are walking dogs, some of them have cats at home. Some of them have eaten some very enviable meals recently. Some of them are several blocks away.
"How do dogs go through every day like this?" you think, feeling like you can hear and smell everything. It's like it's impossible to not know anything. Well, you still don't really know how you ended up with the Chronivac, or whether it was really intended for you exactly. But being a bloodhound is the closest thing to omniscience you've ever experienced.
Trot, trot, trot. Your four legs carry you down the sidewalk at just the right pace for you to process new smells. The mystery delivery person's scent is still there and so is the scent of ... tomatoes? Bread? Something dairy... melted cheese? Herbs and spices? Pizza!!! Your big brown muzzle pivots automatically toward the scent of food. Wow, you're just outside a little lunch shop. You wag your tail steadily, knowing what's inside there. Your mouth waters. You begin to drool. But you've turned yourself all the way into a dog! You won't be allowed inside until you change back. But your bottomless dog belly is rumbling. You've been tracking for so long. Surely you've earned a treat?
You sniff the air a bit longer and your nose drives you like a car to the bottom of a garbage receptacle. There beside the bin, someone has dropped a half-eaten slice that didn't go in. The hours-old pizza has vanished down your throat before you realize what you've done.
"Damn, food is going to be hard to resist while I'm like this. Yuck, did I eat garbage? But it tasted so good... Nevermind, gotta find the person's scent."
Ugh, you still feel hungry. You still smell pizza. And hamburgers. And chips. Everything in the food shop and the garbage can, even though you're walking away. The curry that someone is cooking in their kitchen on the third floor of the building on the corner. How do dogs endure this? Smelling food everywhere no matter where it is?
"Just six hours," you remind yourself again. But of course it isn't six hours any more. How long have you been tracking this scent now? Ten minutes? Twenty? Surely not an hour yet. It's fine. You're getting closer to where the Chronivac came from and then you can head back and put an end to this. You gave yourself a bloodhound body so you could find foo--I mean, find a clue in this mystery of how you got a magical device. Snuffle-snuffle sniff. Trot, trot, trot.