 Tim finds a lost dog and brings him home hoping that Martin can find out from the dog where he lives. It ends up not being lucky for Martin since the dog, Tutu, drinks Martin, turning Tutu into a talking dog. You see, Martin s new gizmo has the ability to distillate animal and vegetative matter down to their water form, and to reverse the process to return the objects back to the original state. He distillates himself to be light enough to escape Earth s gravity, and with Tim s help in launching his spaceship, to return back to Mars. But first, he now has to separate himself from Tutu. But before that happens, Tutu gets caught by the dog catcher and gets sent down to the dog pound, from where Tutu s real owner picks her up. So when Tim goes down to the pound, he knows he s on the right track when the dog catcher tells tales about hearing voices when only dogs were around. At the home of the Frisby s, Tutu s owners, Tim has to convince them to let him have Tutu if only for a short time, especially since they hear Tutu talk and think she s a goldmine. Tim also has to get over Bernard Frisby s suspicions that Tim is his wife s lover. Tim is ultimately successful in the former but not in the latter, and gets a black eye from Bernard s fist in the process. But at least he gets Tutu and by association Martin home to transform Martin back. It does take a couple of tries, but they do manage to separate Tutu and Martin successfully. Unfortunately in doing so, they used up the rare Martian chemical Martin had on hand needed to distillate. Martin s plan to return back to Mars is once again put on hold.