While at the dog park, Star throws her wand in frustration trying to deal with the laser puppies. The wand ends up in the maw of an ill-tempered and mysterious dog (later dubbed "Willoughby") that staunchly refuses to give it back.
Tropes:
- Bilingual Bonus: A missing piebald cat on a flyer is named Hei Bai, which is romanized Chinese for "black and white."
- Chekhov's Gag: Lydia and her obsessive desire to own a dog come across as a random joke at first, but they end up being the solution to Willoughby's problem.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- While at the dog park, Marco mentions that he has no idea why it becomes deserted whenever he and Star go there. He proceeds to pull out a fire extinguisher and use it to put out a fire caused by the laser puppies.
- Jackie mistakes the mysterious dog for a hat since it's on Star's head.
- Crazy-Prepared: Marco brought a fire extinguisher to the park for when the laser puppies start fires.
- Dumb Is Good: Willoughby turns out to be a highly-intelligent dog from another dimension. She laments her intellect and longs for the carefree life of an ordinary Earth dog.
- Eye Scream: Marco's eye gets struck by one of the laser puppies, making it glow red.
- Foreshadowing: Willoughby not being a normal dog is indicated early on when she goes into the bathroom and flushes the toilet.
- Good All Along: The dog isn't an ordinary dog and it did want Star's wand, but despite the way it acted it wasn't evil.
- Head Pet: Star ends up carrying the dog on her head when she heads to school.
- Line-of-Sight Alias: Lydia, the crazy old lady who claims to be the dog's owner, tells Star the dog's name is "Willoughby" on seeing a sign for Willow St. and a bee flying by.
- Mundane Utility: Star makes comments that indicate that she uses her wand to get herself ready for school and conjure up money to pay for things.
- Running Gag:
- Willoughby the dog sneaking into the bathroom. Turns out she's in there trying to use Star's wand on herself.
- Marco spends most of the episode trying (and failing) to open a juice box.
- Security Blanket: Star sleeps best with her wand under her pillow. Since the Willoughby won't let go of the wand, Star sleeps on the couch and uses Willoughby as a pillow.
- Suspect Is Hatless: The description in Lydia's lost dog poster is general enough to apply to pretty much any dog in existence. "Smallish medium to large dog. Has dogish face. May or may not bark." This turns out to be an invocation, as Lydia has not, in fact, lost a dog, but just wants to adopt any stray someone returns to her.
- Talking Animal: Willoughby turns out to be intelligent. She stole Star's wand in the hope of making herself carefree and clueless, like the Laser Puppies.
