Spots Haunted Doghouse

I know a lot of you have heard this story before, but I swear this one's different. This is the version you
haven't heard. It's my story about what really happened the day that a ghost moved into my doghouse.

It was Indian Summer, very near Fall, when the days were still hot, and the leaves had just barely begun
to clutter the streets and yards of my neighborhood. I had only been living with this human family for a
little under a year when it happened, and I was still a puppy. So there I was, napping under the porch,
when a strange odor drifted past my nose. I tried to ignore the smell, since I was very tired from a long
night of lost sleep, (My human owner snores. Loudly.) but it just wouldn't go away. I sat up and decided to
investigate.

First thing, I tried to figure out where the smell was coming from. I sniffed the garbage near the gate, and
although it was particularly ripe, it was not the origin of the unusual smell. After that, I trotted along my
neighbor's fence to see if my friend Bacon, a brown Chihuahua, had abused his owner's ferns again, but no,
that still wasn't it. As a last ditch effort, I sniffed myself to see if maybe I had rolled into something
undesirable, but finding only my usual doggy cologne, I sat down with a huff. I was stumped.

Then, something caught my eye. I saw a glimmer of something coming from inside my blue doghouse. It
looked like a shadow, but since the inside of my doghouse was already dark, I decided that couldn't be it. I
mean, what's blacker than black?

Something told me to stay away. That I should just go back to my porch, and forget about it all. That
someone or something was in there, and it didn't belong to me anymore. But puppy pride knocked all of
that aside. It was my doghouse after all. Why should I just roll over for a shadow, when I won't even do it
for Darryl, my owner? Nope, I was going in, and nothing was going to stop me.

A deep chuckle came from the doghouse. Except maybe that, I thought. "You're a brave pup aren't you?"
the thing asked, and I could see now that it was a shadow after all, with green glowing eyes. I finally
mustered up the courage to answer it. "Well, who wants to know?" I asked. (Lame, I know, but they
always say that on TV.) Another laugh came from deep inside. "This place is mine," it said. "Stay out." And
then the eyes disappeared.

I paused for a minute, resisting the urge to scratch a very persistent flea. Wait a minute, I thought,
whose house is this? "Mine," I said as I pulled myself together. Trying to stand as tall as I could, while at
the same time bowing my legs out slightly to look a bit wider (doing a bad impression of a bulldog actually)
I stepped forward intently.

Nothing happened. I scooched in a few more steps, before finally inching into the doorway. A large tunnel
was cut into the back of my doghouse, and seemed to go on forever. I cocked an eyebrow, and walked
back out of the doghouse around to the back where there was no tunnel at all. It just looked normal.
"Huh?" I said, as I made my way back to the front. Yep, there it was again. "Maybe its painted on," I
reasoned. After all, that was a favorite trick in cartoons right? So I took a running start, and thinking that
I'd run right into the wall, I raced for the tunnel, and passed through it into the darkness. I quickly skidded
to a halt, and started to back-peddle when a fog rose up, and a fierce wind lashed out at me. "Get out!"
the voice screamed. I yelped, and high-tailed it back to the yard, where I barked excitedly. I needed help.
Police, Bacon, Ghostbusters, anybody! I barked as loud as I could.

"What are you doing Spot?" asked Darryl, and he came to stand beside me. Okay, I thought, I'll have to
take help where I can get it. Since I can't seem to make humans understand me, I jumped around, and ran
in circles around the doghouse trying to let Darryl know what was going on. Stupid human that he was
though, just didn't get it. How did Lassie do it?