Tom Watson - Stick Dog Wants a Hot Dog

For Elizabeth

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication For Elizabeth (YLITMDALCUTIFN)

Chapter 1: Let’s Get a Few Things Out of the Way

Chapter 2: BARK! Shake. Rumble.

Chapter 3: What Is a Frankfurter?

Chapter 4: Stick Dog Cannot Fly a Helicopter

Chapter 5: Karen Is Gone

Chapter 6: A Donkey?

Chapter 7: Someone Seeks a Girlfriend

Chapter 8: Plummeting Clumsily

Chapter 9: Stackifying

About the Author

Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next Stick Dog adventure!

Copyright

About the Publisher

This is Stick Dog.

Now, I don’t really want to get into a big explanation about Stick Dog’s name. See, his name is not really about HIM. It’s about ME. When people aren’t such good drawers, they draw stick people. Well, I draw stick dogs because I stink at drawing.

So his name is Stick Dog.

Stick Dog has four main friends – you probably met them in the first book. Their names are Mutt, Poo-Poo, Stripes, and Karen.

Here’s some quick background on Stick Dog’s four friends.

Karen is a dachshund who loves potato chips and once lived in the back of a French-Asian fusion restaurant.

Mutt is a mutt. He once lived far away with a mailman named Gary. Mutt sometimes stores – or loses – things in his fur.

Poo-Poo is a poodle and is not named after, you know, going to the bathroom. Poo-Poo really doesn’t like squirrels. Really. A lot.

Stripes is a Dalmatian who once was a guard dog at the mall down Highway 16. She lost her job after the Nacho Cheese Grande incident. She is unwilling to talk about it.

All five dogs are strays.

It’s not sad. They have each other.

The other thing you would know from the first book – besides that I don’t know how to draw so well and Stick Dog has four strangely named friends – is that Stick Dog’s main focus in life is food. He’s always trying to find something to eat.

See, he doesn’t trust humans all that much. He thinks they’re kind of weird looking. If you really think about it, humans are kind of strange. I mean, why legs? How about wheels instead? And ten fingers? How about twenty? And two elbows on each arm would be better, wouldn’t it? Then you could reach more places and pick up more things. And TWO eyes on ONE side of your head? How about ONE eye that spins around on top? Soooo much better, don’t you think? And ears … don’t even get me started on ears.

So Stick Dog doesn’t like humans because they’re weird looking. But he doesn’t like them for another reason too: they keep all the good food for themselves. They’re a bunch of no-good, sneaky, food-hogging, only-have-fur-on-top-of-their-heads, keep-everything-for-themselves evil beasts. This one family did give them some food once at Picasso Park (well, the dogs actually sort of earned the food with this great plan that sort of worked and sort of didn’t). They gave them hamburgers … but that was really just kind of a miracle thing. That was in the first book.

Okay, Stick Dog basics: bad drawing by me, Stick Dog’s friends have weird names, finding food really important, can’t trust humans. Good enough?

Great.

Oh, wait, one more thing before we get started. The fact that I’m not such a good drawer is something that I accept and live with. But I sort of need you to accept and live with it too. In other words, you and I need to agree that you won’t interrupt me when the drawings are not so good.

For instance, if I’m in the middle of describing a UFO that has landed right in front of Stick Dog, you’re not allowed to interrupt and say something like, “Excuse me, but that UFO looks more like the pancake I had for breakfast than a spaceship full of aliens.”

We agree that this will be a hassle-free experience, right?

Also, I tend to get distracted and sometimes go off on little side stories now and then. Or I might, for instance, stop and provide some small bit of wisdom or make a little comment. It’s just who I am. I can’t help it. You’ll need to bear with me through some of that. Okay?

Good.

Now, we can really get started.

On this day, Stick Dog and his buddies were all at his home playing a game. Stick Dog lives in a big pipe out in the woods and sleeps on an old couch cushion. The pipe is nice and dry, and the couch cushion is nice and cushy.

The game the five dogs were playing is called BARK! And the game goes like this: Whenever something moves anywhere – a leaf in the wind, a bird flying by, a triceratops charging out of the forest – the first one to bark gets five points. The second one to bark gets four points, the third barker gets three points, and so on. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

Whenever you see two or more dogs barking somewhere, odds are pretty good that they are playing this game.

You should try it too. Get a friend or a sister or a brother or a grandpa and play. Hold real still and then as soon as something moves, bark real loud a couple of times. Keep score and everything. A couple things to remember when you play this game: First, don’t play it at school unless you want detention. Second, when you play this game, people are going to think you’re crazy.

After a couple of hours of playing BARK!, the five buddies went down to the creek to get a nice cool drink of water. They walked into a shallow part of the creek, lowered their heads, and slurped away.

“Have you ever seen little humans drink?” Karen asked the others after getting her fill. Now, Karen is a dachshund, so it didn’t take much to fill her up – several hearty mouthfuls and her thirst was quenched. “It’s kind of strange.”

“How so?” Stripes asked.

“They use this magic thing.”

Mutt had now walked into a deeper part of the creek, cooling off his whole body in the slow-running water. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the obvious way to drink is like we’re doing right now, of course,” Karen began to explain. To demonstrate, she dropped her head and took a quick lap of water in her mouth and swallowed. “You know, find some liquid, lower your head, and drink. No big deal. But the way they do it is bizarre.”

Mutt had risen, soaking wet, from the water and began to walk to the shore. “How’s that?”