"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.

How would the forest animals deal with the dangers of a war between dogs and cats?

GNicholas spoke first. “Before we consider attacking those fierce, ferocious, furry brutes, we must prepare to defend our homeland.” GNoah responded, “Yes, indeed. You show great wisdom in what you say. Do you have a plan?” GNapoleon said, “We need barriers to block an enemy force before it can assail our forest home.” “Yes. Let’s ask the beavers to dam the Animas River above and below the Needle Creek confluence. We will also need dams on Needle Creek itself. The cats won’t cross standing water, and the ponds will slow the dogs.” “Good idea! What else can we do?”

“We need a great wall on our border to exclude the vermin-ridden immigrants!” GNoah spoke, “I’m not sure that’s a workable idea. Besides, it sounds ugly.” “Yeah, I suppose that idea is just too grandiose.” “Can we post guards and sentries on the border?” “Yeah, okay. Let’s post squirrels high in the trees; from there they could see everything and chatter a warning if we need one. Raccoons and pack rats on the forest floor can infiltrate the enemy lines and steal small pieces of gear that could be used against us.”

“We’ll need more than sentries; we’ll need some troops on the ground for defense.” “Hey, no fences!” “I didn’t say ‘fence’, I said ‘defense’, you know, like ‘protection’”. “How about roving patrols of porcupines? You know the foolish dogs will attack them and be disabled when their faces are impaled by quills. And the porcupines won’t be seriously hurt in the encounters.”

GNapoleon wanted more troops on the ground. “We should release rabbits and squads of squirrels to run around in front of the dogs. The dogs will exhaust themselves and disrupt their own formations in unproductive chases.”

GNick had the final idea. “Skunks. Of course, their obnoxious spray will disorient the dogs and render them unable to benefit from their sense of smell. Also, at close range, the skunk spray will irritate the attackers’ eyes and may cause temporary blindness. Furthermore, the odor will alert our home troops that the enemy is near.”

“Okay. That sounds like a plan!”