The Harpercops meet Beethoven

Chapter 8

Early the next morning, the Harpercop siblings came over to the Newtons house while George and Alice were still asleep. 

All the kids had a plan to do all the dog chores for Beethoven. Ted and the twins took Beethoven for a walk, Emily fed him, and all of the kids pitched in to give the big dog a bath. 

Not too long after, George came downstairs into the kitchen to discover that the kids had made him breakfast and to see Beethoven all cleaned up, shiny as a whistle with a bow tied around his collar. 

The kids then explained to George, saying how they divided up the dog chores so he wouldn't have to do anything for Beethoven from now on.

Later, the big kids were all playing a video game, Mario, while Emily was playing with her stuffed toy dog. 

Just when things were starting to go right for everyone, little did they know, Dr Varnick had come over to do a follow-up exam on Beethoven. 

The Harpercops' dalmatians came outside once they heard voices next door and came up looking over the fence to see Alice letting Dr Varnick into the dog kennel just as Beethoven came out of his dog house. 

"Beethoven, how are you doing, huh?" Varnick asked while the big dog just tilted his head at him oddly. 

"Lookin' good. Lookin' good" Varnick turned back to see that Alice had left the yard. He then looked around cautiously to make sure no one was watching him, then started ripping up his left arm sleeve. 

"Beethoven, this is gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me" Varnick told the st bernard while he kept ripping at his sleeve then put fake blood on his arm. "But it's a great benefit to mankind"

Meanwhile, the kids continued playing their game while Emily had gotten bored and came up to look out the window, seeing Dr Varnick with Beethoven and getting suspicious to what he was doing. 

Varnick then put some fake blood on Beethoven's mouth to make it look like he had hurt Varnick. "Okay, that'll do ya"

"All right now" Varnick grinned evilly, getting ready to do something while Beethoven backed up slightly. Then without warning, he hitted Beethoven. 

"NO!" Emily cried out as she watched from the window and ran downstairs. 

"Emily, what's the matter?" The other kids followed after her, abandoning their game.  

"Come on, you big stupid mutt!" Varnick taunted Beethoven and kept hitting him until finally, the big dog leapt up on Varnick and made it look like he was attacking him.  

Jane and Walter, who were also inside with Alice, helping her with dishes when they looked up to see Varnick crying out for help as it looked like Beethoven was attacking him. The adults and kids all rushed outside to stop this. 

"Beethoven! Beethoven!" George shouted, running over and into the dog's kennel first, quickly followed by Walter. "Get off him!" 

"BEETHOVEN!" Everyone looked in shock to see what the st bernard had done, including the dalmatians who had witnessed the whole event from the fence. 

"Stay there!" Jane and Alice told their children to stay outside the kennel for their safety. 

"Beethoven. Oh my gosh, look what he did!" Everyone looked shocked to see what Beethoven had done to Varnick while George and Walter helped him up.  

"Are you all right?" Alice asked Varnick. 

"I don't know" Varnick said, pretending to look shaken up from the attack.  

"What happened?" Jane and Walter asked. 

"He just lunged at me!" Varnick explained dramatically, referring to Beethoven attacking him.