Click, Click was the sound of my paws hitting the square tile floors in our grey and blue house in the middle of a gigantic neighborhood. My family are to see me after a week of work at school. They all leaped out of the burgundy highlander, and the black camry ready to see me and pet me in excitement knowing it’s the weekend. This was my amazing family. I have a dad, mom, brother, and sister. My dad has hazel eyes with a variety of colors, and brown hair laid back to one side. He was wearing black shorts, blue t-shirt, and black flip flops. My dad is really nice and caring too. The one with shiny brown hair, and colorful brown eyes is my mom. She had on a pink shirt, and khaki shorts with flip flops. My mom feeds me, along with the others every once in a while too. Then, there is my golden blond hair and ocean blue eyes brother and my sister who has wavy brown hair and sparkly brown eyes. Both my brother, and my sister love me a lot, are super fun to play with, and are always happy. Lastly, there is me, Pepper, a female black lab. My eyes are brown and they are constantly on the look out to protect my family. I am also funny, entertaining, smart, energetic, caring, and I LOVE having fun and being outside. This is my nice, caring family and I.
“We have to go to bed early tonight,” said my mom.
“Yes, we need to be ready for tomorrow,” my dad replied.
Why did we have to go to bed early? Is it for something important, I thought as we got up bright and early ready to start off the day. To my excitement, I did not even have enough time to finish my mouthwatering dog food before the kids came sprinting outside. Are they going to hit the tennis ball to me or play against each other, I wondered. As they hit the green tennis ball into the yard using a red racket, I realized they were playing with me. After several hits, I suddenly became exhausted, so I took a break and lied down. When I lied down I could see my mom and dad were packing. They brought everything out including my doggy bed. What are they packing for? Do I get to come with? Where are they going, were the thoughts scrambling through my mind.
“You are going to come with us, Pepper,” my sister, Natalie shouted with excitement.
“Yeah, we are almost ready to go,” said Tommy, my brother.
By the time I stood up to play again it was already time to go. I am not quite sure where we are going, but hopefully it won’t be a long car ride. It turns out the car ride was long, but at least I could see the mindblowing forest. The forest smelt fresh with a light breeze in the air as I stuck my head out the window. Trees stood high in the air with beautiful, grass green leafs on its skinny, brown branches and big, chocolatey brown trunks. The birds made a peaceful chirp, and the squirrels have chubby cheeks from the nuts in their mouths. It was an amazing scenery.
Then we stopped at a gas station to fill up on gas. Once the car was filled up, we hopped in the car and drove on the road again to where ever we were going.
After passing a grocery store on the corner, the paved roads suddenly turned into dirt roads, and all you could see looking through the back windshield was a cloud of dust behind us. The low cloud of light brown dust blew into your eyes when the windows were down, so my family had to roll them up. All you could see were roads up ahead as squiggly as a green snake slithering on the ground. Bump, Bump! We now were on an unpaved driveway leading to three cabins. We parked the car next to the middle cabin in dark brown. The cabin was nice inside, but the best part of the cabin was the lake it was on. My family even had canoes, and a boat to ride on the lake. There was even sand on the shore, and beach toys to play with. My family has life jackets to swim in the deep parts, and they even have one for me too.
My eyes widen after my family told me I could swim in the water. I searched for the closest stick around, and grabbed it as fast as I could. I begged my sister to throw, but it was not going to be easy because she has to tug on it until I give up. While we were both tugging, it suddenly came flying out of my mouth. My sister ran on the dock all the way to the end and threw the small, brown stick. With a KERPLUNK, it landed in the water twenty feet away from the dock. SPLASH! I hit the water and paddled as fast as I could swim. Every swipe with my feet I became closer and closer. Almost there, I thought while paddling. With three more paddles, I opened my mouth as wide as the length of hockey stick, and grabbed the stick. Once the small, brown stick was in my mouth I made my way back to shore. After shaking off the water from the lake, I jumped up and down waiting for the next throw. The thrill for the next throw was overwhelming.
This is the best day of my life, I thought. My cabin is a dog’s dream land.
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137,564 Literary Works • 672,044 Reviews
Happy Review Day!
The point of view here is very unique, but you already know that. The dog's constant observations and questions are refreshing and quite humorous.
At the beginning, there's a slight info dump. To interrupt a story completely to detail a bunch of characters at once often sticks out and can easily be forgotten. Instead of flat-out describing them, you might give characterization through what the dog notices as she looks at them, or simply anecdotes of them from the dog's earlier days. It's up to you, but as it stands, the information is a bit hard to remember. That may well be your intention, but I'll mention it anyway.
You don't seem to utilize a wide vocabulary here. A simple vocabulary may be fitting for a dog, but you still have to watch out for redundancies. You tend to use nice, caring, and brown too often in the beginning. You could probably come up with some creative substitutes without sounding too off. Like "the color of squirrel fur" to replace brown, or "food-giving" to replace caring; something like that. You shouldn't aimlessly repeat adjectives in the same paragraph, or the paragraphs around them. You're capable of making each and every word original.
You may want to rework your dialogue. People often use contractions when they're excited, so fix the children's speech.
On a solitary nitpick, don't say "my dad replied." He wasn't giving an answer, he was agreeing. You also have a few grammar mistakes throughout the piece, but it's nothing gratuitous commas can't fix.
This story was, as a whole, giddily cheerful, and was a pleasure to read. Cheers.
-Chaser
Hello! I'm here for just a short review. Before I go on, Happy Review Day!
I love the twist of perspective - how it's in a dog's point of view is a very refreshing read, and it's a very unique idea. You also did a very good job doing it; the actions of the dog were nicely written, like the clicks on his paws and paddling. It makes it obvious this character is a dog, which is good.
I was a little confused about the talking between the dog's family - of it's siblings and parents. If anything, I would presume it to be in like a "woof woof" kind of thing. The talking makes it feel really fantasy genre-y, and that doesn't make this story "feel" nice.
Also, make sure you split up your paragraphs! They were pretty chunky, and more than once while reading I kind of got tired. If you split it up, you can keep your readers attention longer, plus it just looks better.
I hope this helps! ^_^ Keep writing,
~ EternalRain
Dear natdog30,
The point of view of this short story is very unique and well written.
What I like most about the piece, is how the dog asked so many questions to himself. It makes me stop to think and wonder,"What does my dog really think?" How you wrote in that he smelled the forest, also gives us a good reminder that we are following the life of a dog....inside it's head.
The way you described the gravel dusty roads was very descriptive. =)
"My family even had canoes, and a boat to ride on the lake. There was even sand on the shore, and beach toys to play with. My family has life jackets to swim in the deep parts, and they even have one for me too."
During this part above, I think you used the word "even" too many times. It through the flow of the story off a bit.
It made me smile when the dog's first thought was to find a stick. Brilliant idea!
I have a small suggestion for this line: "Every swipe with my feet I became closer and closer." You don't have to do this...but I thought if you wrote paws instead of feet, it would sound more dog-like.
All in all, I really liked this story. It was happy and upbeat, usually how I imagine the life of a dog would be with excellent owners. And this dog seems to have awesome owners! Great job and keep up the good work.
Thanks for posting!
~Rose