Mr. Smith was halfway back towards the supermarket when he realized that he had just finished shopping for food moments before. Sometimes he cursed his old age… forgetting things you had just done moments earlier was no way to live! Still, things just were never the same since Mrs. Smith passed away, and he knew he would be joining her soon enough. But, worse yet, he had realized that he had left his fourteen year old grandson Mark at home alone with no one but the three great danes he kept outside in the back yard.
Mr. Smith had a military background, and a firm belief that some children could take care of themselves when they were home along just fine. It wasn't his opinion of Mark, though. Smart as his grandson had been, he was very impressionable. The boy had just 'graduated' from middle school which was something Mr. Smith found entirely without merit. What were they teaching kids these days that somehow making it out of the eighth grade was an accomplishment worthy of an award ceremony?
Still, nothing could prepare old Ian Smith for the complete absence of his grandson. Oh, he looked for days and days, called up the police, informed his daughter and son-in-law of the news… everything that needed be done in the search for the missing young boy. Little did he know that 'Maid', who he had given decent effort to finding the home of, was in fact little Mark. He kept her around for a time, thinking her arrival and Mark's departure must have had something to do with each other. Oh, if he had only known!
Meanwhile, Mark became distress. His young mind did its best to rectify the two different sets of feelings within the bitch's skull. On a human level, he had always enjoyed playing with Butler, but had not really ever thought much of the dog himself. On a bitch level, Maid could feel her body swelling with the addition of puppies soon to come and was doing everything to prepare for it. While Mark wanted to badly to be human, the motherly instincts of being Maid had made him consider that if he did that, the puppies might be harmed.
Weeks passed, and eventually Mark's mindset slipped to a more human thought process. Puppies or no… he wasn't old enough to even want to be a mother in human terms, even if he could… and as neat as it was to be a dog, loosing his virginity as a bitch had certainly soured his whole feelings on the matter. He came to enjoy Butler's company as a male dog of the same breed, but hated Butler as the dog which had done him in as this. Growling her discontent, she decided to make a new effort to get free.
This was complicated slightly be the appearance of Duke one day outside their fence. She understood how dogs spoke now and everything that he had indicated to her was that the collar she now wore was supposed to have been for his master, Hugh. A deepening growl from her throat and a baring of her fangs revealed a new hatred for this cur of an animal next door. Not only was she a bitch six weeks into giving pregnancy, but it wasn't even supposed to have been her! If she got out of this, she was going to give that Hugh a piece of her mind.
Some days soon after, she was in the backyard with Butler and the other dogs. Due to them all being outside pets, Mark had rarely seen his grandfather in his time being Maid. The coughing sound from her throat as she had her paws up against the collar pushing it upwards got Mr. Smith's attention through an open window. All Ian could tell was that this pregnant bitch seemed to be trying to cut off her air in some kind of futile effort to get off the magically perfectly sized collar over her great dane head.
"How would your kids feel if you tried to kill yourself? Stupid bitch," Mr. Smith grunted as he reached down towards her. Slipping his hands to either side of the collar and pulling open the latch, Mark and Ian both discovered that the collar was easy to remove when the wearer wasn't the one trying to do the removing. It slipped off and fell to the ground with a soft thump in the grass. Maid gave Mr. Smith a elated yip and licked his face before realizing that she wasn't turning back into a human being.
"Your welcome," Ian said, rolling his eyes at the stupid dog that had just tried to kill herself. She was a black and white, cow-like color that great danes sometimes were, and had human-like deep reddish brown eyes. She would breed find pups, to be sure, but she in some ways reminded him each day of his missing grandson. Picking up the collar from the ground, Mr. Smith turned to head back inside.
"Wait!" barked the great dane. Through holding, but not using, the collar… Mr. Smith understood the dog's command. Jerking his head back, he saw that she was rolling around on the ground, her black and white fur falling out. Her tail began to suck its way back into her body, her muzzle crumpled in each direction until it flattened towards her head, and her arms and legs began to change shape into something decidedly more human.
"What in tarnation?" Ian asked as his eyes went wide at the sight. He held onto the collar with both hands as her hind legs slide backward and shifted up into the more cream colored of human legs as the flesh had lost all fur. Her extended stomach flattened inward and her vulva pushed up and outward as dog-like testicles fell out into place… and a moment later even those lost their fur and coloring and became the genitals of a young boy.
"Grandpa!" came a startled but happy scream as the dog's face pulled back into the appearance of his fourteen year old grandson. His nose pushed back out and faded from black to something normal. The ears on the side of Mark's head were no longer triangular but instead turned into human ears. The long and slender front legs turned into arms as Mark's shoulder and chest turned back to normal human… his bitch tits flattening back up into his body as the human flesh overtook them once more, and his penis falling back out between his legs over his restored balls.
Mark rushed over to hug his grandfather as dust flew through the air and covered over his body. Though Mark was intent on his freedom, Mr. Smith watched in shock as the boy's underwear and clothing materialized up all over him. Soon enough the young man looked just as he had the day he went missing… no fuss, no muss… everything about him had returned like nothing had ever happened at all!
Mr. Smith had listened with interest as Mark told his story. The boy explained that he had put the collar in only in fun, but that the situation had turned so dark so fast. He explained how it felt like it had clouded his mind and made the transition from human into a dog somehow reasonable when it happened. "Not afterward," Mark had said. His time with Butler changed from a male dog protecting over the one he was to sire puppies with to a human who couldn't stand listening to the life of those around him fall apart.
He remembered the crying of his mother and father when they'd come to see Mr. Smith and how she had yelled at him so for loosing her boy… saying it was all Ian's fault. Mark was so sorry to have caused that trouble, but couldn't have done anything about it. The story itself had turned to troubled young tears as it had come to a close… the boy just happy to be out of it for now.
"For now?" Mr. Smith had asked. "Son, you are back now. I'm going to call up your mother and father, and this is… this is going to be as great a day for them as it is for you and me," Ian said with a sigh. "Maybe I didn't say it around the dogs… but you going missing. Who's fault could it be but my own? If I had only known this had happened to you—"
"I never thought it could happen either," he said, "but listen… as crazy as it sounds, this is all the fault of that dog Duke next door." Mr. Smith handed Mark another fruit punch with ice as he sat back and listened to this part of the story. "Duke said there was this… this dog-woman… who had been a littermate of him—that's like a sister, right?—that had given his master a cursed collar," Mark explained, pointing to it on the table. "If ever put on by a human, it will turn them into compatible couple… same breed, right sizes, etcetera. More than one dog, that becomes a fight… or maybe a mixed-breed on the part of the human… not clear on that," the young man tried to explain. "They go into… it was hot. I guess that must have been the 'heat' I heard about on Discovery," he tried to make the ends meet. "It's magical, though… so if the collar is taken off… the person goes back to they way they were before, cloths and all," he said. "But if it gets put back on… their doggie life picks back up where it left off."
"It doesn't end there, does it?" Mr. Smith asked, trying to understand all that was happening this evening. "That's what Duke told you next."
Mark nodded, "He said that the ones who are joined are joined in life until one dies. But, dog's don't normally live that long… so it evens out the lifespans of those joined by the bond. That means that while I've got… uh… puppies… Butler will live longer and I… I wont live as long as I would," he explained. "The only other way to break the bond is to have another human take the collar off while neither of the bonded are… are pregnant," Mark frowned deep, thinking it over. "That means… I'll keep understanding dogs until I don't have puppies… and even then, I'll still need someone to take the collar off again," he explained.
"You're not having puppies!" Mr. Smith said, slamming his glass of bourbon down onto the table. He glared at Mark. "No grandson of mine's going to have his life dictated by some stupid animal. I'll have Butler put down if I have to!"
"That would work too," Mark realized with a soft voice as he sipped his fruit punch. The part of him that was tied to Butler longed to be guarded over and protected while she nursed their young. Shaking his head, though, he continued, "You don't have to kill Butler, grandpa. But can I ask you… did you understand me when I barked for you to wait?" he wondered.
"What? Well… yes, why?"
"Because that means one of your dogs… or both of them… have been bonded to you by holding the collar. You'll keep hearing dogs speak until that's resolved," he explained. "Collar on, then collar off without having puppies," Mark added as if it meant nothing for his grandfather to be turned into a dog. It was simply a fact of the matter, and nothing could be done about it. "Then again, maybe you'll be alright hearing dog's talking in your head for the rest of your life… but even if you do, there's still Duke and Hugh next door."
"You think they're still bonded, then? That's what you're getting at?" Mr. Smith asked, refilling his drink and listening to all this magic talk. He'd never have believed any of it if he hadn't seen it earlier. Hell, maybe he still didn't believe it, even with Mark sitting here.
"I do. Duke, if no one else, deserves to be punished in all this," he said, but left out important knowledge from his grandfather. Mark was right. For the passed seven weeks, Hugh had been hearing all the dogs speak. He never came by Mr. Smiths' yard after his quick escape from it… bad memories… but it still had an effect on him. The only positive side to this was that Hugh was able to talk directly to Duke… who he reminded constantly that—as soon as Hugh has the money—Duke was going to get fixed.
But the part that Mark left out was simple: The collar works both ways. It can also turn a dog into a human, which is something that Duke never bothered to tell Hugh. It was something Mark was thinking of telling him, though. The other portion was that the collar worked to mate those in the animal kingdom, so it only ever made the wearer the opposite sex from bonded mate. What did this mean if there were two dogs of opposite genders fighting over a human? What did it mean if one human put the collar on another human? These were all questions that Mark had thought of since his conversation with Duke days before… but he had no answers… yet.
"Sounds good, then," Ian Smith admitted to his grandson. "I 'supposed we should call your parents, though," he said, his voice a little slurred from all the alcohol. "Then again…" he said, looking towards Mark.