Dustie

Dustie is a German Shepherd/Lab/Beagle mix and a background character in Disney’s *Bolt*. This character interpretation is owned by VictoriousQueen88, and VictoriousQueen88 ***only***.

## Appearance

Dustie is a mixed breed with medium-length fur and a mainly cinnamon brown coat color. He has a "cape" of darker fur on his back and tail, as well as a little around his eyes and the top of his snout. His ears are flopped, and his eyes are brown. His paws are white, as are his tail-tip, and he has a white underbelly, chest, neck, and snout. Dustie also has a black nose. After being adopted by the Clarke family, Dustie gains a muted medium-dark red collar around his neck, which has a silver bone-shaped tag reading his name and owners' contact information.

As he ages, his right ear stays mostly flopped, though his left ear becomes semi-pricked as a reminder of his heritage. He grows to be a little smaller than Bolt.

Dustie is voiced by Kwesi Boakye (the voice of Darwin Watterson in *The Amazing World of Gumball* from season one to the season three episode "The Kids" - as a pup, he has the season one voice, though as a "teenager" his voice deepens to the one heard in "The Kids").

## Personality

Dustie likes to say that he is nothing if not optimistic; warm, cheery, and welcoming, he’s a loving and cuddly companion to the end, and very sweet to other animals and humans. He loves people and can’t stand to be away from his family for too long, He’s quite the pacifist and wouldn’t (intentionally) hurt a fly - although he did once step on a ladybug, start crying, and only later realize that it was a red Skittle. He will get upset if you try to hurt his friends, however. He just can’t keep from being curious - and maybe a little nosy, though most of the time he’ll back off if he’s being a nuisance - and wants to know everything, being energetic about it as well.

He’s resilient, and does not give up under any circumstances - he firmly believes there’s a way out no matter what. When combined with his adaptability, determination, and stubbornness, this makes him a bit of a triple threat. Dustie is also loyal to the very end, and will try to protect his family from anything - sure, he shouldn’t be doing this by climbing into Megan’s backpack and trying to follow her to school, but he’s trying, alright? He doesn’t like to be away from them.

In spite of the fact he is extroverted, Dustie has quite bad social skills - he doesn’t seem to register passive-aggressiveness and won’t realize someone is being rude to him until he is awkwardly told later by one of his friends that had to watch him being a train wreck. He’s also very oblivious to metaphors and romantic advances. He tends to leap into things before he looks, and this almost never ends well.

He likes to make up and tell fantastical stories - he’s great when it comes to bedtime tales - and he likes children (though loud noises make him cower). He also really likes puppies and playing, his favorite toy being a squeaky green rubber chicken that has somehow not broken yet. The chicken’s name is Buffy (as in Buff Orpington). He loves to run, play, and the great outdoors, though if you let him lead you somewhere out in the woods, make sure you still have cell phone reception to call for help when he inevitably gets the two of you lost. He’ll try to find his way back, though - he’s empathetic and cares about everyone’s well-being.

Dustie was, in his younger days, surprisingly naive. He was often manipulated by larger, stronger, even smarter dogs and puppies into being a bully, as he believed that nobody would ever do him harm - delivering rude messages from one dog to another (breaking up friendships, in a few cases), unknowingly agreeing to condescending statements, and following his “friends” around everywhere, not knowing what he was doing wrong. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t regret everything he’s done, and he’s constantly trying to make up for it.

## History

***this is a WIP*** - *working on wording it properly*

* Born in a dumpster on a rainy night in a litter of four to a mutt mother
* Taken in by an animal rescue worker who ended up keeping his mother, who later came to be known as Cinnamon
* Sent to the animal rescue with his siblings to be adopted out - makes friends with everyone he can, tries and fails to befriend a funny little white shepherd pup who seems to be more interested in either sleeping or playing with toys
* Adopted by the Clarke family - seven-year-old Megan, three-year-old Arthur, and their parents, Patrice and Glen
* They live in the suburbs near the city. Glen works an office job, Patrice is an author
* Dustie gets stuck in a trash can for about seven minutes before someone realizes he’s gone - to this day, they still have no idea how he got in there. He’s won their hearts through his misadventures and charmingly oblivious demeanor
* Glen gets a promotion and they move farther out from the city, seeing as he can afford to work from home now - it’s Patrice’s dream to live on a farm, so they start up a homestead near Penny’s house. Dustie spends his days chasing chickens, guarding goats, and trying (and, mostly, failing) to befriend their new donkey.
* Dustie, while trying to follow Megan on a Girl Scouts trip, gets lost and ends up at Bolt’s home. Bolt takes pity on him and they strike up a conversation - Dustie realizes halfway through that they've met before, and gets really excited
* Penny’s mother then notices a mixed-breed playing with her dog outside - said mixed-breed is wearing a collar and looks very comfortable. She connects the dots, calls the number on the back of his tag, and he ends up riding home with an embarrassed but polite Patrice
* Patrice and Penny’s mother end up becoming friends, and they start a book club. Dustie and Arthur like to tag along on meetings, stealing biscuits from the coffee table and playing in the yard and whatnot
* Dustie lives the rest of his life on the farm, having misadventures, content and happy and loving his family more than anything.

## Trivia

* Dustie gave all the puppies in Silver Lake Animal Rescue nicknames after he was adopted and explored the world around him, and named them after the things he’d seen. Bolt had the most nicknames, by far - “Snow Pup”, “Feather Pup”, and “Cottontail Pup” were used most often.
	+ When Dustie and Bolt met again, Dustie hadn’t seen Bolt’s show, and mentioned to the other dog, “Hey, you look familiar.” Bolt, assuming that Dustie meant his show, just nodded and didn’t think much of it, but five minutes later, the poor former star was tackled by an overexcited mixed breed who began shouting "SNOW PUP SNOW PUP SNOW PUP *SNOWPUPSNOWPUP!"*
* Dustie was initially a very different dog - Google didn’t save my edits, a WHOLE DOCUMENT OF NINE PAGES, online, and then my Chromebook died and deleted everything. I was very proud of the way I’d written everything, and it also deleted all my image files, all my IbisPaint X art I’d saved, and my progress on games. I hate this Chromebook *so much*, but that’s a story for another time.
* Most of his personality was lifted from a scrapped PAW Patrol space exploration pup concept. (This pup - Nebula - will eventually be revamped, though probably not in the main PAW Patrol - astronaut time, whee!)
* He has amazing puppy dog eyes, which will usually make the kids do whatever he wishes them to at the moment (and that’s almost always to give him food).
* His favorite foods are cheese, peanut butter, and biscuits, in no particular order. He goes *wild* whenever one of those is mentioned, and usually ends up crashing into furniture, people, and animals.
* He isn't the only pet at his farm - there's also a cat named Noel (and her sister Carol), a Great Pyrenees named Koi, and a whole herd of farm animals.
* Dustie is 100% convinced he can jump over his farm's fence if he only leaps high enough. Dustie is very wrong, but he refuses to stop trying.
* He's very people-oriented and makes a very bad shepherd dog, which is why Koi came in to help with the sheep and goats.
* Most of Dustie's dreams involve him reenacting adventure movies he's seen with his people, usually involving Buffy the toy chicken.
* Dustie is panromantic asexual.
* Megan did not know how to spell “Dusty” when she was younger, so she followed the spellings of “cookie” and “cutie” - two words she felt described him well. Out of universe, his name was chosen due to his coat color, but also because I wanted something that sounded slightly less threatening.