Meeting a clown can be a shock

That was when I got a bad shock. We were in a kind of office—desk, chairs, computer, none of that shocking—and standing by the desk was the cop who’d spoken to Rick, also not shocking. The shocking part was the clown sitting in one of the chairs. I’d seen clowns on TV. They scare me every time, and this was much worse. The clown had a horrible white face with a red mouth and green eyes and nasty orange hair sprouting out of his head here and there. And it wasn’t just the sight of him: how about the smell? Partly he smelled like Livia Moon, who operated a house of ill repute, whatever that may be, in Pottsdale, and partly he smelled like a human male. I hardly ever go backward, but I was going backward now, and barking my head off.

Spencer Quinn, To Fetch a Thief: A Chet and Bernie Mystery (New York: Atria Paperback, Simon & Schuster, 2011), p. 25

Heavy eyelids

My eyelids suddenly got very heavy very fast. Don’t you find it hard to keep them open when that happens? And also, why bother?

Spencer Quinn, To Fetch a Thief: A Chet and Bernie Mystery (New York: Atria Paperback, Simon & Schuster, 2011), p. 16

Snacks!

Bernie came out [of the gas station], and I didn't spot Slim Jims or bacon bits, just a big bottle of water. That meant he still wasn't hungry, what with our little session at Max's Memphis Ribs . . . and maybe I wasn't hungry, either, but snacks often happened when we were gassing up. Snacks taste better when you're hungry, but do they ever actually taste bad? I ask you.

Spencer Quinn, Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery (New York: Atria, 2009), p. 212. (Chet, the narrator, is a dog, by the way.)

Humans can be fooled by humans; dogs are onto 'em

She said things like "I don't believe in fate." and "How could I ever let Dylan suck me back into . . ." I remembered Dylan: pretty boy, jailbird, loser. He couldn't have sucked me into anything, not on his best day. The truth was that humans didn't turn out to be the bet judges of other humans. We, meaning me and my kind, were much better. Once in a while they tricked us; some humans got up to a lot of trickery, strangely like foxes, but usually we were on to that type from sniff one.

Spencer Quinn, Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery (New York: Atria, 2009), p. 287.

Paper is very important to humans

"But I'm sure you keep records."

"Oh yes, records, of course." The man moved to a computer,hit some keys. "Here we go." A printer made some machine sounds, very unpleasant to my ears. The man handed Bernie a sheet of paper. Paper was very important to human beings: They spent a lot of their time messing around with it. The appeal was lost on me.

Spencer Quinn, Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery (New York: Atria, 2009), p. 215. (Chet, the narrator, is a dog, by the way.)