"What's up Max!" Roxy greets me. The Earth of 3082 is a lot different from the one 1000 years ago. In 2164, a plague struck the Earth which wiped out all humans and animals, except dogs. Now we are all the 'top dog' on the newly named 'Planet Woof '. Roxy is one of my best friends, and one of the best professional fetch players in the world.

"Not much Roxy. How was your competition."

"It went okay," she replied, which for any other dog meant that it was an amazing performance, "I didn't return the ball to the robotic thrower fast enough and took third place."

"That's great, Roxy!" I try to cheer her up, "I would be dead last in that competition." My breed was a dachshund and our legs are very short, so we're slower than most dogs.

"The dog who took first place looked suspiciously like those oddly delicious looking things in our history textbooks," Roxy responded, "What are they called?"

"Cats," I supplied her with the word, "The old fashioned way to get in exercise was to chase them."

"Yeah, those," she responded, a far off look in her eyes, "I'm going to investigate." Then she ran off.

"Wait!" I yipped at her, but she was already too far away to hear me. I was going to have to follow her scent to catch up to her.

A few hours later, after following her scent around bends and curves, I stopped outside the Pawsh Hotel, the place that houses the visiting athletes for the fetch competitions. The first place dog must be staying here, I thought to myself, as I pushed the doors open. I stopped at the front desk and asked if they had seen an athletic Great Dane.

"One just went up to the third floor, room 228," the clerk told me. Excited, I ran upstairs to the room he told me, and found Roxy standing in the doorway of the room, blocking the escape of another dog.

"Tell me where the others are!" Roxy snarled, "or else I'm telling the cops." She stomped a paw down to get her point across. I was wondering why Roxy was threatening another dog, until the dog's floppy ears fell off to reveal pointed ones, like those of a cat's. Suddenly, I knew what was going on.

"We have been in hiding since the apocalypse," the cat said, "With no humans to pamper us and take care of us, we felt hopeless, but when we heard about you dogs living your best life up here, we had to investigate." Suddenly, more cats appeared from vents and under tables.

"We wanted to investigate to see if we could take over," a vicious looking cat snarled. Then they charged.

The apparent leader, a flat-faced ball of dark and white calico fuzz, sat on her haunches with a villainous smirk as the wave of fur rushed around her.

The cats darted in and out and between Roxy's pillar-like legs, just quickly enough to avoid the flashing snaps of her teeth. Roxy spun and snipped and barked in frustration, catching nothing but air, empty strands of fur, or, once, her own tail. They prodded and nipped at her heels until she was a sweaty mess. Tired, her feet tangled and the massive Dane came crashing to the floor.

I still stood down the hall, in shock and frozen on my shaking stubs of legs. Roxy was the strong one. She was the one that won trophies. That could reach things on the top shelf. Dane and Dachshund. She was top dog, and I was barely a dog. And these evil critters had just taken her down.

In two sniffs, the mob of felines took up the end of the hall carpet and rolled Roxy into a great helpless burrito. For extra measure, a slinking black cat with ghostly green eyes snatched a lampshade from the room to stuff over Roxy's still dangerous muzzle.

The leader approached the Great Dane with calm menace.

"I don't think you'll be calling the Shepherds," she said. Roxy growled through her bound maw, and the calico slapped the lampshade and Roxy's head back to the floor. "You're about to be cat chow."

There was a weak creaking noise, like the trusses of a bridge about to crumble, and every cat spun toward me, their slitted gold or green eyes piercing into whatever part of my brain had just made me, I realized, whimper like a pup.

A fat bi-color looked to the calico. "We can't have witnesses, Bubbles."

Bubbles sneered as if she'd spotted a rat in her food. Before she could speak, Green-Eyes purred, "Oh, good. Hors d'oeuvres."

A mangy tabby casually licked her paw like she was washing up before a meal. Another flexed his claws into the door jamb, and the image of a chef honing his knife on steel came to mind. Green-Eyes grinned and began stalking toward me across the carpet like a plume of noxious smoke.

Move, Max... Move!

There were so many of them, and most nearly as big as me. I looked at Roxy's bulk wrapped in the rug and whined again, despite myself.

Green-Eyes loaded his weight to pounce.

Bubbles let out a commanding hiss, just as the ding of the arriving elevator sounded behind me.

The world paused as the elevator opened up. The clerk stepped out, holding a bucket of water. All the cats paused, staring at their greatest fear. Water. Then, as one, they scattered, fearful meows following them.

"Thank you," a grateful Max, told the clerk, "How'd you know we were in danger."

"I'm an undercover police dog," the clerk responded, "The hotel owner had reported some suspicious activity, so they sent me over to check it out." Both dogs walked over to Roxy, who was still tied up.

"Are you okay, Roxy?" asked Max with concern in his voice, "I should have helped, but I got so scared when they took YOU down."

"It's okay, Max," Roxy responded, the lamp shade gone from her muzzle.

After Roxy was untied, and checked over, they went on their way.

"This has changed how I think of the world now," Max yipped, "All the dogs here could actually be cats in surprised."

"Don't be so frightened," Roxy reassured him, "The cats said that they were in hiding, so they're not in the open." Suddenly, two dogs near them ripped off fake ears, to reveal that they were cats. Roxy and Max looked around. More and more dogs were revealing themselves to be cats.

In not much time at all, almost all the dogs that had been around them were actually cats. Max and Roxy looked up and saw the lead cat from the hotel, on a balcony, tail swishing through the air.

"Cats, revolt," it yelled, and the beginning of the end was started.

"This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening," I covered my eyes with my paws, and whimpered. Roxy stood tall and proud, growling at all the cats, daring them to approach. We were surrounded by mostly cats, some dogs were also in the circle with us.

"What are we going to do?" asked a small dog, about my size.

"We need to take a stand against them," A large Husky growled, "We can't let cats take over."
"How long have they been living with us?" An Akita asked.

"I don't know," Roxy responded in her deep bark, "But one of them beat me in fetch today. I won't let them do that ever again." The circle of cats shrunk on us, teeth and claws out, ready to attack.

"This is your last chance to surrender and be our slaves," the lead cat said, now down from the balcony, and on the front line, "If not... You will have a much worse future. Or maybe not even one." He laughed, an evil cackle that reverberated throughout the streets.

"We will never surrender to you!" one tall Labrador yelled, "we forced you into hiding, we can do it again!" But the circle was getting tighter. Dogs of all sizes were pushed up against each other, and backing into each other, no room to navigate.

"I would like to see you try!" the lead cat hissed. Suddenly, a loud siren sounded in the distance. Police dogs!

Seclusion. After the long-ago Great Pestilence, a small number of forest animals had survived in isolated wilderness areas. Many species no longer existed, and, for many years, there had been few survivors of any kind. Yet now, a healthy community thrived in the Weminuche Wilderness among the San Juan Mountains, in the land that humans had called “Colorado”. Gnomes were clearly the dominant species; their kind had been spared from the Pestilence, as they were not quite humans and certainly not animals. They made their homes in the many mines which humans had excavated in the mountains.

In the montane forest of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir, a lonely sentinel guarded the narrow canyon which provided access to the Chicago Basin. GNelson was short and stocky, even in comparison with other gnomes, and he resembled the proud stump of a 300-year-old mighty Doug Fir. He was fond of saying, “I pity the fool that tries to get by me.”

Tonight, the third night after the full moon that followed the Estival Solstice, the animals had gathered to discuss the dangerous, chaotic situation in the canine ‘city’ around 200 (human) miles to the east. GNoah, ancient and wise, had called the assembly and now took charge of the meeting.

“Our friends, the ravens, have brought us disturbing news. The eternal hatred between the canine and feline communities has erupted into great violence. It seems that there are far more cats than we, or the dogs, ever knew. If one of those species destroys the other, they may try to expand into our wilderness homeland, attack and destroy us!”

GNathan spoke out. “The dogs have always behaved as if they were the only creatures that mattered, that they were entitled to take anything they wanted, and to destroy everything else. They had lived too many generations with humans, and they took on human conceits.”

A heated discussion ensued. GNaomi asked, “What should we do?” GNapoleon responded, “We must form a mighty army to attack, conquer, and destroy these pugnacious beings.” Someone shouted, “Not just the pugs! We must subdue all the other dogs and cats!”GNicholas spoke next, “Yes, we must build Feline Flight Facilitators to fling those pussies beyond the clouds!” “Do you mean something like a catapult? That would be far too cruel; it even sounds like a human thing to do.”

The meeting ended with an agreement that GNoah, GNick,and GNap would study the matter and produce an Action Plan.