The auditorium is packed and the audience waits in fevered silence. A single spotlight splits the darkness like lightening illuminating a solitary microphone on stage. Now hounds and cats alike are on their feet, they strain for a first glimpse of the legendary dog who is about to command the spotlight. Suddenly a silhouetted figure can be seen striding across the stage. Slumped shoulders, roman snout, guitar slung across his back & He steps into the light, swings his guitar across his chest, grabs the mic & “Good evening! I’m Lonely Dog!” The audience erupts in rapturous applause.

It was not always so for the little hound with the big guitar. He began his life as Arthur Snout. Arthur Vantrong Snout to be precise. No one is sure why he was thus named. His parents sadly passed away soon after his birth. Smaller than most other hounds, he had a heart that always seemed larger. Raised in the Houndside County Orphanage he recalls many a time when all he had left was that big heartedness.

He credits his old headmaster, Rolph Flannegan, with planting that first musical seed. A seed that would later bloom into the legendary ‘hound-sound’. “He took me to Revellers Green! I’ll never forget it. I had my eyes opened that night!” “I heard Rolph and his revelers houndskiffle that night and I knew, just really knew with all my heart, that that is what I wanted to do!” And do it he did!

Rolph Flannegan still lives in the old red bricked building that housed the Alveridge County Orphanage. Even now it remains impressive, in a Gothic style, despite its current forlorn condition. The orphans have long since vacated the dormitories and the tired old schoolroom hasn’t heard a houndlings laughter in many years. His residence is in one small corner of the rambling building, where he is and always has been a confirmed and committed bachelor.

To see him holding forth, in his tattered beige cardy, down at his favorite watering hole, Marvo’s Bar and Grill, is to see a feisty octogenarian pounding the table, demanding that all who hear him “should mark my words!” But give him a few pints of Wilks and his mood will change, usually corresponding directly to the number of hounds gathered around his table, and also to the number of empty jugs at his elbow, to tales of the orphanage and in particular his early influence in the life of Arthur Snout aka Lonely Dog.

He never tires of telling it, although the audience sometimes tires of hearing it. How, according to Rolph, he personally encouraged, nay, tutored the young Arthur Snout in the manly art of playing the 5 string Alveridgean Guitar. “His first chords were the ones I taught him! Now that’s an umbilical chord that can’t be broken! He plays guitar now exactly as I showed him then.”

Celia reclines seductively on her pure white chaise-longue delicately sipping champagne from a flute of Felanian crystal. She is a cat of supine beauty. For Celia Crème is a high fashion goddess, (and high fashion is not something hounds have ever aspired to.)

Her range of feline haute-couture however is the high-water mark of Catside fashion. Her signature fabric, a sinuous combination of cashmere and silk she calls ‘cashmilk’, can be seen draped over the languorous forms of felines everywhere. Her ravishingly coiffed face appears regularly on the covers of tabloids and magazines and is instantly recognized and admired by Catside hoi polloi.

Not the least for her association with the legendary Lonely Dog. “It was at the orphanage here on Catside, many years ago now, one forgets the exact date, but then one doesn’t like to dwell on those times.” “We became companions, strange as that may seem, a kitterling and a houndling. He was a perfect gentleman even then, so strange for a hound.”

She sipped champagne and turned to look out the generous bay window, a single tear escaping her perfectly sculptured eyes. In spite of all the fame and fortune her fashion empire afforded her, Celia Crème still carried in her soul the memory of those barefoot years in the orphanage.

Bronson stands out in any setting, literally, head and shoulders above all other hounds in Alveridge. He can be seen on any given evening drinking with his biker boy buddies at any one of a number of bars and eateries in the Port. Always attired in the Howlers blood-red patch and sporting dark shades no matter what the time of day, he is a study in houndly aloofness and coolness personified.

Many would wish to make him Mayor, but he shows not only no interest at the very thought, but utter contempt for the whole political process.

“Hounds have been riding bikes, cruising the streets, and howling out loud for generations. We set our own time, sleep when we want, eat what we like, drink till we drop and there will never be any law against hounds doing such things in Alveridge now or never! So I say no politician, cat or otherwise, will ever change what was never meant to be changed. You see, we hounds are governed by a higher law the Law of the Wild!” he beams a full tooth smile, “You could call me the Mayor of the Wild!”