By E.S. Gardendigger

A hearty helloooo to you out there. I’m Nick, that’s short for Nicolai Nicolovitch the 3^rd., private eye extraordinaire. When we last saw each other, I was finishing off a big bag of doggie treats, courtesy of my clients who had lost their musher. Thankfully we found him just in time for dinner. I would have hated to see those little Sibes go hungry. After all, mealtimes are the most important part of our day. Anyway, since then, I’ve learned a new game…it’s called Scrabble. You play it with these little wooden chewies (I call them woodies), and every time you spell a word you get to eat a woodie. I’ve learned that the faster you eat the vowel woodies the sooner you get to eat the rest of them. The trouble is, each time you want to play a game, you have to go to the store and buy a complete new set of woodies.

As I was sitting here contemplating where to get the bones to buy another set…the phone rang. This was the first caller to use my new "Sibephone." I padded over to the phone and putting my paw on the bar, pressed the receiver switch, "Hellooo," I howled, "Canine Detective Agency, Nick here."

"Hellooo, Nick, Nick here too."

"Hi, how am I?" I joked woofingly. It was my brother calling from Toronto. I come from a large family, three boys and three girls. My mother’s name is ‘Rockababe’ and she had quite a sense of humor. She named all the boys Nicolai Nicolovitch, One, Two and Three. Naturally, I was number three. Number Two was on the phone. He told me that a terrible thing had happened. Our mother had disappeared and couldn’t be found anywhere. I agreed to leave for Toronto right away to help him solve the "Case of the Purloined Parent."

I called a sled on my new Sibephone to take me to the airport. When it arrived, it was the same lead dog that showed up two stories ago. He was still grumbling over the dog tags I paid him with. Seems they could only be redeemed for peanuts. This time I promised him a good tip, sooo, off to the airport we went. Upon arrival at the flight gate, I gave him a pawful of old dog tags and whispered the tip in his ear…"dog #3 in the 5^th race". He was not impressed and when he flew out of there I could here him mutter "Cheap, cheap, cheap". I then headed for the washroom to put on my Bogie disguise, tan shoes with pink shoelaces, a brown panama with a purple hat band. When I fly, I like to travel first class, ever since that time they sent me baggage class in a crate. How degrading that was! I got in line for Toronto Tickets and approached the ticket seller. I woofed "one please".

"That’s quite a cold you have there. Better take care of yourself," he remarked.

I paid with my Husky Express card, (I never leave home without it.) Its better than cash, when you get hungry, you can chew on it. After trotting up the ramp and onto the plane, I found my seat and buckled up. As the plane taxied down the runway, the loudspeaker came on.

"This is Captain Siberian Shepherd speaking. We will be flying at an altitude of forty thousand paws. Water and cookies will be served once the plane is en route."

Zoom, straight up in the air, or so it seemed. We were finally air borne. The stewardess came around, a petite little poodle. "What would you like to drink, sir?" she crooned.

"Water with a dash of lemon, shaken, not stirred," I rumbled.

After my drink, I dozed off, dreaming of how 'Oh La La' would look as a stewardess sashaying up and down the aisle. The next thing I knew, we were landing in Toronto. I immediately followed the signs to the debarking area. I thought Calgary was tough on dogs, Toronto debarked all its passengers before letting them leave the airport. As I was trotting down the corridor I heard a low woof.

"Nick, over here."

I turned and saw my brother hiding behind a ‘No Smoking’ sign. "Come on, lets get out of hear," he woofed.

I ran after him, down some moving stairs and out through a door that goes in circles. Once outside, we hailed a sled. It was the strangest sled I had ever seen. The lead dog had his head wrapped in bandages and he woofed in a funny way. I wondered what the other guy must have looked like. We jumped on the sled and headed for the scene of the crime. Nick Two told me that he’d talked to mother the day before she disappeared. He lives only two houses away from where we were born. Talking yard to yard is quite common in this neighborhood. When we got to mother’s house, Nick Two paid the lead dog in biscuits and asked him to wait. Hey! I thought, we could’ve eaten those.

"Well," Nick Two whispered, "This is where she disappeared from two days ago."

"Lets snoop around," I answered.

We tiptoed around the back and looked in the run. Nothing there. Next, we checked out the house. The T.V. was still on. An old rerun of ‘Katz and Dog’ was showing and a copy of the Siberian Inquisitor was laying half open on the floor. My mother was extremely well-educated. Unfortunately, I take after my father….I think.

"Looks like she left in a hurry," I mumbled.

"Lets look in the yard," Two suggested.

While he was looking under the bushes next to the swimming pool, I went out into the alley. A cat growled menacingly from the inside of a garbage can, so I took out my wind-up mouse that I always carry for these confrontations and let it go down the alley. The cat hesitated as the mouse ran by and finally took off in hot pursuit. I lose a lot of mice that way but I’ve never lost a battle with a cat. That would be a CAT…astrophe. I was about to give up when I spotted something white peeking out from under the cat’s can. I picked it up….the first clue.

"Nick," I howled, "come here."

Crash, bang, clatter. Nick Two had jumped over the fence and landed squarely in the garbage can.

"Look what I found. A business card for a place called ‘Puppymill Farms’. Do you think they might have taken mother there?"

"Lets check it out," he sang.

We hopped on the sled (which had waited out front) and gave the lead dog directions to ‘Puppymill Farms’. "When we get close, turn off the radio and douse the lights. I don’t want them to see us arrive." I advised.

We mushed up the Gardendigger Expressway, hung a hare at the Spumoni Highway and traveled north until we reached our destination. The ‘Puppymill Farms’ was a desolate collection of run-down kennels bordered by wire fencing. Inside the fence, a kingpin (that’s a large Doberman Pinscher as opposed to minpin, the pint-sized version) was standing guard. From way in the back I could hear a forlorn howl. It was the saddest song I’d ever heard.

"Nick Two, you distract the king and I’ll check out the kennels."

Two went over to the gate, opened it and growled a challenge to the guard dog. "Lets play chase, he challenged." The race was on.

Off they went over the hill and out of sight. I tiptoed through the open gate into the kennel area. It seemed deserted. Suddenly, the howling began again. I followed it until I reached the spot where I thought it was coming from. It seemed to be reverberating from the house inside the kennel. "Mom," I whispered, "Its me, Nick Three."

"Where have you been? I’ve been here forever waiting for my son, the Private Eye to find me."

I let her out of the kennel and we headed back to the sled. I gave the lead dog directions back to mom's place and off we went. We picked up Nick Two on the way, he had given the kingpin the Siberian slip when he ran through a sea of mud. We don't mind getting our feet dirty sometimes if it means getting away from a bad old dog chasing us. A short time later we arrived back at mother's place. "You two guys can stay in the kennel tonight," she woofed. "Thanks for getting me out of that place Nicks," she sang. I'm going in to arrange a family reunion and picnic now that we are all back together again.

The next day we all went on our family picnic, Mom, Nicks one, two and myself and our three sisters. Everyone seemed to live close by and getting in touch with them was easy. We called a sled and took off for Toronto Island. We spent the day there, at the dump, scavaging, rooting, chewing, sniffing, chasing, scrounging and playing. I must say that it was one of the most enjoyable picnics I have ever been on. Only one thing could have made it better, if I could have shared the occasion with 'Ou La La'.