Virginia Creech woke up one morning from a strange dream about rabbits, of all things. She raised up her furry head. Wait, furry head? She looked at her body as best as she could. She was covered in coarse, rough, grey fur. She had large paws and claws instead of hands. She was robust in appearance, but also trim looking. Instead of arms, she had front legs. She had a long tail and sharp teeth.

She stood up on the bed and looked in the mirror that hung on the wall, realizing that she was a large dog of the form of a Scottish deerhound or Irish wolfhound. She stood, by her estimation, thirty- two inches tall at the shoulder. She weighed perhaps 110 pounds. Her vision was strange and she shook her head, trying to fix it. She could not distinguish red or green, which momentarily saddened her, as green had previously been her favorite color, but it didn't really matter anyway, she thought. She had good eyesight overall, though, which made sense as both deerhounds and wolfhounds are sighthounds. But man, the smells! She could smell so many things! And so strongly! She didn't know where they all came from yet. It was overwhelming!

She sat back down and tried to think about her situation. What would her family do? Would they realize it was her? Would they get rid of her? There was an animal shelter in the neighborhood, quite near the house in fact. The thought of being put there was horrible. To be shoved in a cage and never see her family again. She had to stay with her family. She had to protect them, and her friends. What would her friends think? Would she ever see them again? And the landlord. He didn't allow animals in the house! What if he she was banished from the house and forced to live outdoors!

She hopped off of the bed and tried to walk around. Walking around on four legs took some getting used to. She kept tripping over her paws like a puppy would. She managed to close the door. This would buy her a little time. She leaped back on to the bed and lay down, thinking desperately.

She heard a knock on the door. It was her mother shouting at her to get up and get ready for school. "I'm coming," she tried to say, but all that came out was barking.

The door opened and her mother came in. "How did you get in here? And where is Virginia?" she asked.

"I think that is Virginia" said Katherine, the sister, who, while only eleven, had always been perceptive. Virginia wagged her tail and moved her head up and down in her best approximation of a nod.

Virginia was given some meat to eat and some water and her mother and sister left for work and school. While her mother still was not entirely sure what had happened to her daughter, she did love animals, and had not had a dog in many years. She thought she would keep this one, landlord or no landlord.

Virginia spent the day walking around the house and looking forlornly at the room she had neglected to clean, and the books she could no longer read. She knew her friends would email her, wanting to know why she was not at school, but she could not reply. The lack of opposable thumbs was quite bothersome. Finally, she settled for looking out of the window at the birds and squirrels, which afforded some amusement, and waited for her family to return. When her mother and sister came home, she was allowed outside. She ran over the grass. She was so fast as a dog! She could not keep her tail from wagging.

When her father came home, she was lying contentedly in the middle of the living room floor. "Why on Earth is there a dog in the house?" he asked angrily. When the full story was told, he reluctantly agreed that the dog could stay, though the entire situation seemed outrageous.

As days and weeks passed, Virginia gradually grew used to being a dog. She still missed having thumbs and speaking and normal things humans did, but she had to admit that being a dog wasn't all bad. She was fed sometimes meat and sometimes dog food, and played in the backyard every day with her sister, who treated her much more kindly now that she was a dog. Her mother still loved her. Her father gradually warmed up to her a little. She had to admit, it was a much less complicated life, being a dog. Many of the worries she had had as a human were now negated. She missed her friends greatly and she missed reading. How she wished she had opposable thumbs to turn the pages. Her sister read to her sometimes, but never as much as she would have liked. She could watch television if someone else turned it on. She guarded the house and protected her family. She was allowed in the yard to run every day, but for a former cross country runner, that was a small space. Her family began to take her to parks, and they would go hiking and camping, activities she had loved as a human, which were all the more special now, as they gave her an opportunity to get out of the house and see more of the world. They would take her with them on fishing trips. Seeing how much these activities cheered her up, her family did them more often than they had before her transformation, making them all fitter. They got many comments about her, because many people have never seen a wolfhound/ deerhound cross before, as both breeds are fairly uncommon in the United States. She was still attempting to figure out how and why she had become like this, but she was making the best of the situation. She believed that everything happens for a purpose. Right now, her self appointed purpose was to watch over and protect her family, especially her sister, and she would carry out this task for as long as possible, and just try to forget her difficulties and enjoy being with them.