Every machine Ryder built was meant to go through regular wear and tear.

It embarrassed him to admit that the original blueprints weren't his, and at first, he didn't understand how any of it was supposed to work. The plans ended up in his hands mostly by coincidence after his grandfather died, and it was a wonder he learned how to read them at all, let alone build working models. Ryder was incredibly intelligent for his age, but he wasn't quite expert level mechanical engineer at age eight intelligent.

It took more than a few miracles to get the machines up and running after a long, long period of uncertainty, but in the end, every last one worked perfectly; puphouses that converted themselves into running vehicles on command and back again. A perfect fit for the Paw Patrol he put together. And a Lookout to hold it all.

But with any machine comes the need for regular maintenance. Only one pup was truly qualified to help him.

"Do you have everything you need, Rocky?"

Ryder stood outside Rocky's puphouse in what was a cold, bitter, windy Adventure Bay morning. It was three hours after sunrise, but as far as Mother Nature was concerned, it might as well have been the crack of dawn. The only saving grace amid the cool breeze and biting cold was that the sun was still shining brightly through the clouds.

The mixed breed tossed two of his best tool boxes out of his puphouse, followed by a green coat, green gloves, and a green hat proudly sporting the recycling emblem on it. They were the same ones he used every month. They had everything from wrenches to random bits of plastic he found lying around. Ryder smiled. The pup really knows his tools.

"These are my best tool sets," Rocky said, dragging them over to Ryder before pulling on his hat, coat, and gloves. "If it isn't in here, we probably don't need it. And if we do need it, I can fix something up."

"You have tools that help you make tools?"

"What kind of recycling pup would I be if I didn't?"

Ryder smiled. "I'm not sure. I'm just glad we have you."

"Aw, shucks," the mixed breed said, shivering a bit when a gust of wind hit. "Man, am I glad this is our last one until spring. I'm freezing my ears off over here."

"Yeah, December really isn't the best weather for banging hammers on puphouses," Ryder said, looking at the sky. There weren't a lot of clouds, but where there were, they were dark and ominous. "It's supposed to snow tomorrow night, though. We gotta get it done before then or we'll lose our chance until next year."

"Yeah. And who knows what kind of surprises the others have for us this month that maybe can't wait until then."

"That too," Ryder agreed. Rocky and Ryder were the only two members of the Paw Patrol's unofficial maintenance crew. The other pups helped where they could, but despite their wide range of skills, only Rocky and Ryder were really good with machines. The pups may have been smart and skilled in their own special ways, but only Rocky could really wrap his head around mechanical engineering.

The last time a pup tried to help with routine maintenance, it ended with Skye getting stuck in her own trunk and Marshall upside down with his head in a spare tire. For everyone's sake, it was easier for them to stay in the Lookout while Rocky and Ryder poked around their puphouses and made sure it all still worked.

"Where to first, then?" Rocky asked excitedly. "Let's get this show on the road!"

"That would be yours first, seeing as we're standing right here," Ryder said, pulling out a clipboard. A few sketches and blueprints were pinned to the clipboard under a piece of paper with the names of the seven pups on it.

"No complaints this year. Everything's in order. Whenever something breaks, I usually just fix it myself. "

"I was hoping you'd say that," Ryder smiled, crossing Rocky's name off the list. Rocky's puphouse was cleaner than any other pup's, and only Chase was ever really close to beating him. It's because Rocky never has any trash, the other pups would say. He just throws it in the trunk and calls it building material.

"A few months ago I replaced one of the transmission sensors because my gear shift was acting up," Rocky said casually. "And my voice commands weren't working for a while, but I think the microphone was just worn out, so I replaced it and everything was fine."

Ryder blinked. The mixed breed seemed to understand the machines better than Ryder himself. Ryder might have been jealous if he wasn't so impressed.

"Right," Ryder said, sheepishly flipped through the blueprints of Rocky's puphouse to get a vague mental image of what Rocky must have done. It had been a while since he actually looked at any of the models. He wasn't sure Rocky had ever seen them at all. "That puts Zuma next."

"Right on!" Rocky said, dragging his tool boxes across the pavement that separated his house from Zuma's. It took considerable effort, but the mixed breed managed to drag both with his mouth at the same time. "Here we are! Orange house."

"Well, it's supposed to be orange, anyway," Ryder laughed as Rocky spit out his tool boxes. The bright orange of Zuma's hovercraft tended to dull over time. The paint they used didn't usually last long in the sun, let alone in the water.

"Well, let's see what Zuma left us with this year," Ryder said. Rocky spotted a problem immediately.

"The back propeller is bent," Rocky said, spotting a problem immediately and running over to it. "It looks like it got banged on something in the water. There's no way this spins like it's supposed to."

"It looks like he . . . ran something over? Or backed into something?"

"Has . . . has he been driving around like this for months?" Rocky asked. "He's gonna need a new one. I'm surprised this one hasn't fallen off already."

"Could you fix up something temporary until I can order a new part?"

"Probably," Rocky said as he ripped the propeller off its axle with his bare paws less-than-carefully. He dragged a hammer out of a tool box and tried to flatten the blade as best he could against the ground.

"I don't remember how I even attached it," Ryder mused, "but I know you shouldn't be able to rip it off with your paws alone."

"C'mon, did the guy who designed the hovercraft in the first place forget how it works?" Rocky laughed. Bang, bang, bang.

"Well, I didn't really design it," Ryder admitted shyly as he inspected the rest of Zuma's hovercraft. Everything else looked to be in order.

"Oh?" Rocky asked, peering up. Bang, bang, bang. "I always thought you did."

"I wish I was smart enough for that," Ryder laughed, "but I was just the guy who turned the wrenches. The blueprints were designed by someone . . . well, someone a lot smarter than me."

"And who would that person be?"

Bang, bang, bang.

"It's kind of a long story."

"I like long stories," Rocky said, putting the hammer away and setting the propeller back on the axle. "That should hold Zuma's propeller for a while."

"Everything else with the hovercraft is fine," Ryder said, dialing Zuma's pup tag. The Labrador answered immediately. "You're all good, Zuma."

"Hallelujah," Zuma said tiredly, hanging up. Ryder laughed.

"Not even a goodbye," he mumbled. Rocky packed up his tool boxes as Zuma stumbled outside and across the lot.

"Your propeller was bent," Rocky said. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"The boat went forwawd," Zuma shrugged.

"Did you even notice something was wrong?"

Zuma smiled. "Should I have?"

"Zuma . . ." Rocky laughed, rustling the Labrador's head as he walked by and back into his puphouse. "So, Skye's next?"

"That she is," Ryder said, wandering towards the pink puphouse. The pink paint was still clear as day, since Skye was in the habit of repainting once a month.

"So," Rocky said, dragging his tool boxes again with his mouth. "You have a long story?"

"Oh, right," Ryder said as he gave Skye's puphouse a once-over. "These were all designed by my grandfather. He was the true brains of my family. Mechanical engineer, graduated from Harvard. And a year early!"

"So could you, if you tried," Rocky smiled. "You're as smart as anything."

"Maybe someday," Ryder smiled back, flipping the puphouse into a helicopter. "Everything looks okay here."

"Leave it to Skye to keep things in order," Rocky said. "I've seen her use a lint roller on her steering wheel mid-flight before."

"Sounds like Skye alright," Ryder said, jiggling the steering wheel with his hand. "Huh. That's a little stiff. Doesn't turn as fast as it should."

Rocky pulled a small bottle of power steering fluid out of a tool box.

"Throw some of that in the engine," Rocky said.

"I won't even ask why you were carrying this in your tool box."

"I thought it would make me look more like a mechanic. You know, to give the illusion that I know what I'm doing."

"You do know what you're doing. You seem to know these machines better than I do, even," Ryder said, handing the empty bottle back to Rocky, who stashed it away in his tool box. Might need it later, the recycling pup thought. Why trash it?

Ryder dialed Skye, who picked up halfway through the first ring.

"We good?"

"I didn't know it was even possible to answer so quickly."

"Sorry! Just excited."

"Your steering was rigid. Everything else was fine."

"I knew it! I told you so, Rubble! The steering was rigid!"

"You're just upset that I'm stronger than you," Rubble joked somewhere in the distance. "I could pull that handle no problem!"

"Oh – get over here!"

Skye disconnected somewhere in the fits of laughter that followed. Ryder and Rocky exchanged glances.

"I don't know, my money's on Skye," Rocky said, shivering as he grabbed his tool boxes with his teeth and dragged them off towards Chase's police cruiser. The cold wind was starting to get to him.

Chase usually left it in vehicle-mode ahead of the annual inspection. He insisted it was to be efficient and save time. The other pups joked that he was just worried about what they might find in his puphouse. Stuffed animals, constellation posters, lava lamps? Nobody really knew, except maybe Marshall. Chase was always a teensy bit secretive.

"Oh, Chase," Ryder mused. "This one's always acting up. It was hard as heck to build. All those lights and sirens, all those wires . . ."

"Must've been just as hard to design," Rocky added. "How did your grandfather do it? Why did he do it?"

Ryder got on the ground to inspect the cruiser from below. "Well, to start off, he was really smart. A serious genius. Like, 'ivy league colleges fighting over him' genius. And one day he just . . . sat down, and designed all these vehicles. As for why? There's a story about that, too. One that's been passed down through my family."

Ryder smiled as he dug out his flashlight, scanning over the rust underneath Chase's cruiser. There was shockingly little.

"My grandfather's roommate started a fire in their dorm trying to make ravioli. By the time the fire department got there, half the floor was on fire."

"Oh . . . yikes," Rocky said.

"Yeah," Ryder laughed. "My grandfather was upset that it was so avoidable. The fire department was slow, the police were slow, even the reporters were slow. Everyone was slow."

Ryder got up off the ground and turned off his flashlight.

"Thankfully, nobody was hurt. But my grandfather was convinced he could make a better system. A system so easy, he swore, that 'a dog could use it'," Ryder smiled. "And then he did."

"Huh," Rocky said. "So the Paw Patrol exists because an old man was mad about some burnt ravioli?"

"He wasn't an old man at the time," Ryder laughed. "And the Paw Patrol exists for more than that. He wanted a better system, and when he was older and out of college, he found a small town he could use as a proof of concept."

Ryder raised his arms and gestured vaguely at their surroundings.

"Huh," Rocky said. "Then what happened?"

Ryder shrugged. "Life happened. Things got in the way. By the time he died, he had been living in Adventure Bay for thirty years and was so busy with his company in Adventure City that he never got the chance to make his dog rescue team."

"What about when he retired?"

"He didn't exactly get to retire. Cancer came as a surprise when he was in his fifties. When my parents were settling his estate, they found the old blueprints he made for the dog rescue team that led him here. And they ended up with me."

"And then you found us," Rocky smiled.

"And I wouldn't trade it for anything," Ryder said as he dialed Chase. His cruiser was in good order, like it always seemed to be. The shepherd picked up after four rings.

"Sorry. I had the ringer off."

"You're all set. Somehow, your puphouse is always fine."

"I knew it would be. I run a tight ship!"

"You wanna come back out?"

"It's a bit cold out. I think I'll wait a bit. See you soon!"

"See ya," Ryder said, hanging up. "At least some of us get to be warm. And he even has a fur coat! Not all of us get to have fur," he added to Rocky, who was already dragging his tool boxes towards Marshall's puphouse. "Four down, three to go."

"Uh . . ." Rocky said. Ryder looked over. "Does Marshall literally have a flat tire?"

"Looks like it. It's really close to being flat, if it isn't already. Doesn't he know you're supposed to fill your tires up in winter? The air pressure deflates them. I'm almost sure there's a warning light for that."

"You would know. You did build them, even if you didn't design them."

"You got that right," Ryder said, sticking his spare key in the engine and turning on the dashboard lights. "Yeah, right there. Tire pressure is low."

"And blinking, too. How did he ignore that?"

"Marshall is, uh . . . well, Marshall is Marshall," Ryder said. "He's a bit forgetful sometimes. I'm sure we tell him about this light every winter and then he forgets the next day."

"Nothing we can't fix," Rocky said, flipping open his tool box.

"If you have a tire pump in there, I'll be seriously impressed."

"Not yet, but I can definitely make one," the recycling pup said, pulling out the empty bottle of power steering fluid. "An empty bottle is full of air! Air fit for a tire! All we need is a way to pump the air out."

"You could try squeezing it."

"Good thinking," Rocky said, fixing the bottle to the nozzle of the tire. "Your hands are better for this."

"The perks of having opposable thumbs," Ryder said. Marshall's tire inflated in no time. "Let's see if he can remember next year."

"Fat chance," Rocky said, dialing Marshall on his own pup tag. The Dalmatian was slow to answer.

"Heyo!"

"Marshall, your truck is on fire!"

"Are you ever gonna stop saying that?" Marshall laughed on the other end. It was the same way Rocky always greeted him after monthly inspections. "I swear, you're gonna be the pup that cried fire. Someday my truck will actually go up in flames and I'll be sitting here eating kibble thinking you're lying."

"It might not go anywhere at all if you don't fill up your tires," Rocky said. "Don't you ever look at your warning lights?"

"Ooooh," Marshall said. "Is that what the circle thing was? My tire light?"

"We tell you this every year!"

"And I can't wait to forget next year, too!"

"Marshaaaall!" Rocky moaned with a big smile. "Get out here. Your truck is all ready."

A very tired looking Dalmatian ran out of the Lookout to greet them.

"Watch your warning lights, Marsh," Rocky said, ruffling the Dalmatian's ears as he walked by. "Especially if it's big and flashing!"

"Yeah, yeah," Marshall smiled, disappearing into his puphouse.

"Two to go," Ryder said, crossing a few more names off his clipboard. "Rubble and Everest."

"Rubble's is bound to be fun," Rocky said, knowing it would be anything but. The bulldozer got more banged up than any other vehicle. Rubble managed to avoid the worst of it, but skilled as he was, moving boulders tended to leave more than a few dents. With dread and excitement, Ryder and Rocky turned around and looked to the yellow bulldozer, and were rewarded with the sorry sight of a heavily-dented clump of metal. With one look, the pair instinctively sucked the frigid morning air through their teeth.

"Well, at least it's . . . holding up," Ryder said.

"Holding up?" Rocky asked, aghast. "What has Rubble been doing, throwing this thing down a mountain?"

"This is gonna take some time . . . and a whole lot of effort. You got a plunger in there?"

"Lemme see," Rocky replied, digging through his tool box. "Somehow, Rubble's puphouse shocks me every year," he mumbled as he searched.

"I know. You said it looked like he threw it off a cliff last year," Ryder teased.

"Yeah, and I can't wait to see what it looks like he throws it off of next year . . . ah-ha!" The mixed breed turned to Ryder with a plunger in his mouth, which the boy gratefully took. And a little more digging later, Rocky produced a bottle of water and put it on the ground. "Pour water on both the plunger and the dents for better suction, remember."

"I got it," Ryder said, patting Rocky's head before taking the bottle.

A battle between man and machine took place for a few minutes as Ryder carefully worked the wet plunger into the dents and yanked as hard as he could. One by one, the dents disappeared and the yellow puphouse started looking like it once did. Rocky didn't even mind the cold as he sat enraptured, watching his owner fight, and for a while lose against, a box of metal that he himself built. For a child, Ryder was deceptively strong.

And eventually, with one final yank, the final dent came away.

"And . . . done!" Ryder grunted, wiping his brow with his forearm.

"Nice job, Ryder! That alone was worth the price of admission."

With one final scan by Rocky, Rubble's puphouse was deemed good to go. If nothing else, Rubble was good at keeping everything under the hood in working order, raising any big issues with Ryder as soon as he could.

Satisfied, Rocky he went to dial Rubble, only to pause midway through. "Wait a minute," the mixed breed said.

"Oh, yeah," Ryder winced, remembering that Rubble was still probably locked in an epic battle of his own with the team's aviator pup. However that was taking place, they couldn't know. Wrestling, Pup Pup Boogie, mahjong?

We'll find out soon enough, Ryder laughed to himself.

"Er, let's tell him later," Rocky shrugged.

"Yeah, let's. Anyway, last but not least would be Everest."

With the hard part done, that just left Everest's snow plow. One that, on the surface, looked surprisingly-pristine. Despite the general wear-and-tear, it was like Everest had been the most careful out of all them.

"Looks fine from the outside," Rocky shrugged. "Maybe the last one is meant to be the easiest," the mixed breed said hopefully as he pulled on the door.

As he did, no less than a pound of snow poured out of the driver's seat and onto the ground. Rocky and Ryder stared in shock at the snow, and then at each other. And then back at the snow. And then back at each other.

"Did . . ."

"Why . . ?"

"I'm not even gonna ask why Everest had a pile of snow in her driver's seat."

"Or how it got there," Rocky said, dusting the rest of the snow out. "Probably for the best. That pup is a mystery."

"You can try asking her. She and Jake are staying here another two weeks before heading back."

"Oh, I'm sure she'll have a good story for us. She always does."

"Well, if the snow plow is in working order, which it looks to be, then . . ." Ryder said, crossing off the last name, ". . . we're done!"

"Another month in the books," Rocky said, dragging his tool boxes back to his own puphouse. "Another year in the books!"

"You know it," Ryder said. "Meet you back here in the spring."

"You know it."

"Come on, let's go see if Skye and Rubble settled their differences."

"And to ask what Everest was doing with all that snow!" Rocky called out as he followed Ryder in. "My money's still on Skye, though!"

Ryder, the ten-year-old genius, the maybe-future graduate of Harvard. The brave leader of the Paw Patrol. The boy who took blueprints he didn't understand and turned them into working machines unlike any other ever built. And all on a budget of less than two month's rent. In a way he was too humble to admit, he was a miracle worker.

But today, at least to Ryder, it felt like the mixed breed was the true miracle worker. The only other pup who was qualified to stand in the cold looking at rusty vehicles, doing manual labor. For free. Ryder smiled, wondering how different his life could have been had he never found those blueprints. If his grandfather never had the ambition to change the world he lived in for the better.

Ryder looked around at his team, at the pups he had assembled and grown to love. Then he looked somewhere up at the sky.

I hope I did you proud.

A/N: Welcome back to Snowshots: 2023 Edition! This chapter was Beta'd by, edited by, and even partially written by PyreFly77, the best in the business. It's simply amazing the amount of things an author can overlook until a fresh set of eyes reads it and points out obvious plotholes! Anyway, thanks for saving this chapter from a few embarrassing blunders. Up next: a snowball fight, a foul ball, and an apology . . .