Scene from the House in Dogtown

Fourteen year old Riley is currently living in Dogtown, a town in which everybody is a dog–except for her. Nobody knows her true identity. She lives her day to day life disguised as a dog wearing a fur suit to ensure that none of the dogs find out that she is actually a human. As of now, she is waking up for another day and we see an encounter in which her neighbor Mr. Barkford finds Riley’s behavior to be suspicious–potentially a giveaway.

When she opened her eyes nothing was different. No people walking down the street or babies in carriages crying for their mothers to swaddle them to silence. She hadn’t known there was another possibility. As she sat up from her bed her back ached from a restless night where she had slept in a lopsided position. Truthfully, she was always worrying. What if they had seen her? As in actually seeing her in flesh and bones rather than the fur suit she was forced to don daily. She peeked through the crappy shingle blinds with just her thumb and pointer finger to check the weather. Cloudy…maybe it’ll rain. She breathed in a whiff of the outside air and concluded it was around 65 degrees. The greatest reality of all though was that the dogs weren’t looking at her. The other day Riley saw Mr. Barkford staring at her house with a cold squint that she had never seen before. His beady eyes traced her door and then up into her bedroom window. She had been sitting in her living room watching it all take place and luckily Barkford, being the elder man he is, never remembered to turn the volume of his translator down. He had been standing there as another neighbor Mrs. Rufus walked by. “Don’t you find this peculiar Mrs. Rufus that Riley keeps her shades down even during the daytime,” he pointed to the upstairs window, “it’s not even a sunny day. She ought to let some light in her room; it seems rather strange not to. Also, she’d be wasting the electricity bill by leaving the lights on every single day.” Mrs. Rufus sighed and put her paw on his shoulder. “Barkford, she has always been like this. I wouldn’t waste my time trying to keep up with the newer generation, they’re all so unpredictable.” He shook his head, not satisfied with that answer. “You do not understand. When I go to water the plants I see that girl hurry out the door with her matted fur every school morning. It’s a habit that she’s late which I would think at the age of fourteen I’d have under my tail by now. I’ve attempted to aid her or make conversation as well. I’ll say to her she better set up an alarm system or get her parents, who I have never seen, to create a schedule for her. She will simply reply with “I’m working on it” or absolutely rush past me. It’s incredibly rude.” He huffed disdainfully. “Oh, Barkford, she is just a puppy. I would not expect her to be indulgent in your interrogations, especially since she is late. Come on now, let’s go to the store.” Mrs. Rufus replied as she got him to unwillingly tear away from Riley’s home. Riley knew at this point that she couldn’t keep this act up much longer. If Mr. Barkford was suspicious who knew who else would be too.