It all started, as most misadventures do, with a wildly overconfident family and a delusional sense of direction. The sun was shining, the humans were optimistic, and their beloved but borderline-sentient camper van, Phillippe, coughed to life like a 90-year-old smoker with asthma and ambition. He was old. He was questionable. He smelled permanently of damp socks and expired hope. But he was their noble steed.
Inside Phillippe, riding like royalty on a velvet blanket throne, sat Athena. Nearly two-year-old Husky, supreme overlord of sass, intelligence, elegance, and chaos. Her coat was black, grey, and white like she’d been artfully dipped in moonlight. One eye was nearly ice white-blue, the other a rich, smug chocolate brown. She was delicate, soft-hearted, energetic, and fully aware she was the Beyoncé of the canine world. She did not walk through puddles. She did not tolerate grass if it was the wrong temperature. She once held a grudge against a worm for slithering too close to her paw. She was, in short, a majestic drama queen.
Her just one-year-old Malamute brother, Obito, on the other paw, was the exact opposite. A fluffy, oversized baby walrus of a dog, with a black face, tan eyebrows, and the coordination of a potato in freefall. He had the body of a tank, the brain of a scrambled egg, and paws the size of dinner plates. Every step he took sounded like a toddler throwing a tantrum in clown shoes. His love language was full-contact affection, wet sloppy kisses, and flopping his body across laps like a collapsing hairy couch.
Together, they were Miss Princess Pants and Mr Toe Beans. They were also about to ruin everything.
The journey began well enough. Athena curled up like a snowy sphinx, quietly judging the humans’ choice of snacks. Obito tried to stick his entire head out the window and ended up accidentally chewing a fly. He spent the next ten minutes gagging dramatically, convinced he’d been poisoned.
Then it happened.
The map.
The old, wrinkled, coffee-stained, barely legible paper map that the humans were using to navigate because "Google Maps doesn’t work in the hills." It was balanced precariously on the dashboard like it knew it was living on borrowed time. And just as Phillippe rattled over a pothole the size of Neptune, the map took flight like a sad, crinkly bird.
Athena’s eyes tracked it mid-air. Obito, assuming it was a snack, lunged at it with the force of a wrecking ball dipped in joy.
The result was catastrophic.
Obito landed on the gear stick, honked the horn with his butt, and sent the van into a momentary stutter-shuffle that nearly took out a postbox. Athena snatched a corner of the map in her dainty little teeth like she was rescuing a national treasure, while simultaneously growling at Obito for breathing near her blanket. The humans, in a state of pure panic, shouted things like “Athena, no!” and “Obito, not the handbrake!” while trying to steer, bribe, and not cry.
Obito, determined to help, promptly sat on the map. With his entire behind.
The humans glanced back to see two sets of fluffy heads “reorganising” the map using only paws, noses, and vibes. Athena, taking her role as lead navigator very seriously, slapped her paw on a spot near a vaguely labeled “Dog Trail & Something Festival.” Obito sneezed on it, which the humans took as confirmation.
And off they went. Straight into destiny.
Three hours later, the van rolled up to a field full of tents, balloons, inflatable bones, and more dogs than the average biscuit factory could handle. A banner waved gently in the breeze, reading “Welcome to Woofstock: The World’s Waggiest Weekend!”
The humans blinked.
Athena stood at the door of Phillippe, staring down the chaos like a general surveying her troops.
Obito immediately tripped over his own tail, landed face-first in a bowl of kibble samples, and was declared “a mood” by three teenagers with Instagram accounts.
Within minutes, the festival staff, convinced Athena and Obito were part of a surprise guest performance, handed the humans complimentary passes and ushered the dogs toward the “Canine Chaos Challenge.” Before anyone could protest, Athena was wearing a sparkly ribbon and Obito had on a headband that read “I Lick, Therefore I Am.”
The first event was an agility course.
Athena dashed through the first hoop with the elegance of a gazelle who just paid her taxes. She zipped over the seesaw, weaved through the poles, and then stopped dead two feet from the finish line. There, in her path, was a patch of slightly damp grass.
She lifted her paw, sniffed it, and then turned to the judge with the expression of a queen asked to wade through sewer water.
She leapt onto a hay bale instead, struck a pose, and refused to move.
Obito’s turn was less refined. He charged into the course like a bowling ball wearing a fur coat, knocked over every obstacle, took a detour into the snack tent, and returned dragging three sausages and a paper plate. The crowd went wild. A poodle fainted.
Next was the Synchronized Howl-Off.
Athena’s voice rang out like an ancient siren song, a haunting melody of majestic drama. Obito joined in with a noise that can only be described as a haunted trombone trying to yodel. A Labrador next to them panicked and peed on a judge.
They scored 10s across the board.
Then came the smile contest. Athena delivered a demure little curl of the lip, as if she’d just gotten away with corporate embezzlement. Obito rolled onto his back, let his tongue flop out, and gave a derpy, blissed-out grin that made a grown man cry.
A woman in the audience shouted, “I want to marry that dog!”
The festival ended in chaos when Athena escaped backstage and commandeered a float designed to look like a fire hydrant. Obito, chasing her, crashed into the bubble machine and emerged looking like a frothy yet determined marshmallow. By the time the humans found them, they were both being crowd-surfed by enthusiastic children and someone had given Athena a flower crown.
When they finally staggered back to Phillippe, covered in glitter, gravy, and something suspiciously sticky, Athena immediately curled up on her blanket like nothing happened. Obito, grinning from ear to floppy ear, snored with one leg twitching and a half-chewed dog biscuit stuck to his eyebrow.
The humans sat in silence for a full minute.
Then one of them muttered, “We should have just gone to the lake.”
Athena opened one eye and farted delicately.
Phillippe wheezed into the night, carrying two canine celebrities, one shredded map, and the kind of memories that stick to your soul like dog hair on a black sweater.


©️Lainey Green — intwined.blog