Anne Hart

Dogs with Careers: Ten Happy-ending Stories of Purpose and Passion Anne Hart

"They're library dogs, Charlie. They're all dog-faces," laughed the space station manager, as he waved goodnight to his security dogs and locked the gates. "They're not just dogs with jobs, but detective canines with investigative sniffing careers at the space station and in outer space."

At night, the space station's library is eerie, dim lighted, and in places, simply velvet-shadow dark, except for the human's dogs. They mingle with the shape-shifting immortal space dogs that prowl the space station library's corridors and live among the rows of computers.

Career dogs just want to have fun traveling onboard the space shuttles as working companion dogs, never locked behind gates. These dogs don't bite. They are dogs with purpose and passion.

This is a team of working dogs that can shape-shift from dog to human and human to dog live outside of time. And in this century, they work for a mother and daughter astronaut team.

"Which dog sprayed wolf graffiti on the space shuttle?" A ground controller dog, a mellow, Chocolate Labrador retriever, studied the photo. "But how did it get there?"

"Maybe it's a paste-on tattoo that the astronauts put on board to celebrate all those years here," the pack leader howled in a licorice-sweet yelp. The omega canine hurried to switch off another computer.

'Retriever,' formerly a "library greeter dog" but now the ground controller's pet, sniffed with curiosity. He stretched and curled up on top of the filing cabinet.