Editing Bitch's Dogs (section)

==Empowerment==
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What truly sets these canines apart is the pseudo-[[Changer]] form their protector [[Rachel Lindt]] can grant them.

When using her power her dogs seem to swell, with muscles and bone spurs bursting out of their skin. The dogs are kept safe in a sack near the center of the mass. The created tissue is effectively dead, yet still usable.<ref name="14.3 e2">Amy put out her hand again, and [[Sirius]] sniffed it.  Gingerly, she laid her hand on the length of his snout, running her fingers over calcified muscle, bone spurs and braided lengths of muscle and other tissue.<br><br>“The hell?” she muttered.  “Can’t wrap my head around this.”<br><br>“You can’t make him bigger?”<br><br>“No, I don’t think I can.  Can’t make something from nothing.  But I think I can stall the shrinking.  Whatever I do might get undone the second he’s back in range of Hell- of Bitch.  It’s hard to describe.  I can see the aftermath of what she does, but not the process.  It’s like the tissue grows, then it dies as it gets pushed out of the core, but some of it stays functional… there’s a normal dog inside there?  Intact?”<br><br>“Yeah.”<br><br>“Okay.  Think I’ve got it.  He’s not going to shrink anytime soon.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/prey-14-3/ Excerpt] from [[Prey 14.3]]</ref><ref name="19.1 e1">There was a pause as her body heaved, my bugs could sense the movement as one of the bulkier dogs was repositioned inside her monstrous lower body, and then she puked up one of the dogs, along with a handful of humans.<br><br>It wasn’t large, wasn’t mutant.  Well, it was a mutant, but it wasn’t one of Rachel’s mutants.<br><br>“Bentley,” Rachel ordered.  “Kill.”<br><br>The bulldog lunged and seized the smaller dog in its jaws in a matter of seconds, crushed it in a heartbeat.<br><br>“Yeah,” Rachel said, her voice low enough that only I heard it.  “Feels wrong.”<br><br>“Why?” Miss Militia asked.  “Why was it small?”<br><br>“When we were hanging out with Panacea during the Slaughterhouse Nine fiasco, she put her hand on Sirius,” Tattletale said.  “And she said that the tissues die as they get pushed out from the center.  They’re more like super zombie dogs, really, with a juicy, living center.”<br><br>“And Echidna doesn’t copy dead things,” Miss Militia said.<br><br>Tattletale nodded.  “We got lucky.  I was worried it would only be a little smaller.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/02/19 Excerpt] from [[Scourge 19.1]]</ref> As the enhancement occurs there is also has a [[Healer|restorative effect]] on its subject, though it cannot correct old injuries that have already healed. It can deal with cancers, parasites, drugs, poisons and other damage and disease. Its use increases the overall health of the subject, and will usually heal any damage the dogs take when they are in monstrous form.<ref name="7.2 e2">Sirius started to grow.  Muscles rippled underneath his black coat, and he yelped, pulling away.<br><br>“Couldn’t we maybe get him tranquilized, first?” I asked, watching the lab try to get away, despite the chains binding him.<br><br>Bitch held the length of chain in her hands, keeping him in place.  “No.  My power would burn away the drugs.”<br><br>“He doesn’t like it.”<br><br>“It takes getting used to. But this is better than what he’d go through if a vet took care of it.  Safer.”  - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/buzz-7-2/ Excerpt] from [[Buzz 7.2]]</ref><ref name="7.2 e3">She turned her attention to Sirius, who was lying prone, his chest heaving.  “Heartworms have a bacteria inside them.  When they die, the bacteria gets released into the dog.  Having a vet treat it is a long process that involves injecting arsenic into muscles and lots of antibiotics.  Like this, his body won’t just kill them, but it can kill the disease.  He’ll be fine by tomorrow.”<br><br>Sirius let out a long, mournful noise, somewhere between a whine and a howl, loud enough that I had to turn my face away and cover my ears.<br><br>When I was sure he wasn’t about to do it again, I dropped my hands.  I asked Bitch, “Have you done this before?”<br><br>She shook her head.  “I’ve used my power on most of them, but only a little, to keep them healthy.  Sirius is the only one I’ve made this big since Angelica, Brutus, Judas and Rollo.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/buzz-7-2/ Excerpt] from [[Buzz 7.2]]</ref><ref name="7.3 e1">“The one you were talking to a few minutes ago is Bullet.  She’s the smartest in the group.  Her breed craves exercise, they’re meant to run around all day with hunters… except she was used as a beta to warm dogs up for one of the dogfighting rings around here and her shoulder was torn up pretty badly.  Even with the shoulder healed as well as it’s gonna get, it hurts too much for her to run as much as she needs.”<br><br>I spotted Bullet in the crowd.  Sure enough, she was lagging behind the rest.  I thought maybe she was favoring one leg.<br><br>“If your power heals, why doesn’t it help her?  Or Angelica’s eye and ear?”<br><br>Bitch shrugged.  “Lisa said it has something to do with me making a ‘blueprint’.  It’s babble to me.  All I know is that it doesn’t help older health problems.  It gets rid of disease and cancer, and parasites, and most damage they take when they’re big.  That’s all.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/buzz-7-3/ Excerpt] from [[Buzz 7.3]]</ref> This does not apply to her powers effect on wolves though; with these canines it is a far smother process with much less tiring feedback then normal.<ref name=11ae8>Almost without thinking about it, she used her power.  Just the smallest amount.  She felt almost none of the vibrations or shudder she experienced as a visceral feedback on her power with the other dogs.  It was only when she saw his skin splitting that she realized it was actually working.  Faster, quicker, with so little of the temporary exhaustion she so often experienced on her end.<br><br>Was it ''easier'' with him?  What did that mean? - [http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/interlude-11a/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 11a]]</ref>
<!--When enhanced the power [[Healer|heals]] them from things like malnutrition or even parasites. Thanks to the empowerments effects they are durable and far more agile than any animal of equivalent size would be. It is unknown what the upper limit is for her animals to function when under her power is but they were active throughout the New Delhi deployment which was known to take several hours. When outside her power the Dog flesh stats degrading until it eventually sloughs off. At truly large sizes the dogs will be in a womb like organ that keeps them safe in the es.

They can be empowered to the point that even with their enhancements they become constrained by physics again.-->

The size increase does not last forever, and when her dogs decrease in size again they shed the extra muscle and bone like an outer coat, meaning the dogs sometimes have to be extracted from the mound of flesh. The leftover mass usually leaves a large mess due to the bodily fluids involved.<ref name="10.1">Bitch and her dogs were all lying together on and around the couch, Bitch’s hand on Angelica’s head, where the dog lay just below her.  Only Angelica’s eye was open – Bitch and the other three dogs had their eyes closed.  Angelica’s excess flesh had been shed and deposited on the floor as she shrunk down to her natural size.  It looked like Bitch had kicked most of it one corner of the living room; blood and other fluids streaked the carpet between the base of the couch and the corner. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/04/24 Excerpt] from [[Parasite 10.1]]</ref>
===Riding===
One innovation of Rachel's was using the dogs as transport.

While the augmented dogs are not ideal they are still serviceable.<ref>Angelica bolted, nearly unseating me, as she made a headlong run into the absolute darkness.  I was on a creature more than twice the size of a horse, without a saddle, and she wasn’t suited for riding in the same way a horse was.  I had one foot resting on a horn of bone that jutted from her side, while the other dangled.  My hands were gripping the straps we’d fitted her with, the only thing from keeping me tumbling backwards, head over heels, as she lunged forward at run that would probably outpace any cars on the road - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/09/17 Excerpt] from [[Agitation 3.12]].</ref>