The few Pemalites who were able to escaped with the Chee were affected by a deadly virus the Howlers unleashed on them. They fled to Earth, a planet they had visited only once in the past, about fifty-thousand years beforehand, and arrived with only a few Pemalites still alive, though they wouldn't be able to make it. To keep part of their creators alive, the Chee melded the essence of the remaining Pemalites with an Earth animal very similar to the Pemalites; wolves, and from that union, the happy-go-lucky domesticated dog was born.