Can This Really Be?

Can This Really Be?

           Can this really be? I am beginning to think that this isn’t just a hallucination. The dog has in one day demonstrated that he is good company when I am working out of my home. It is just this one weirdness that has me wondering.

What Started It All

The pandemic caused big changes in many people’s lives. What I experienced could be about the strangest aspect of all. During the peak period of the pandemic many people stayed home, and did work from there. It was often a lonely experience, something to which I would attest, as my wife worked at her office, so I was all alone at home. 

One popular reaction to that situation was ‘pandemic pups’. Many home-working people sought canine company. The regular breeders often upped their prices, but more extreme than that were what were called backyard breeders, who saw an easy route to earning money. Many people bought from them, as they had little choice in the matter..

Then, when the pandemic was essentially over (it has still not completely ended, and I don’t think that it ever will be), many people could then leave home and go back to their work. For some, an unfortunately significant number, they no longer could be home for their dogs, and felt that they did not see the need for the dogs anymore and released them into the wooded and fielded outskirts of towns and cities. I find it hard to understand how they could be so heartless to a supportive friend.

That was bad enough, but soon enough there was a dangerous repercussion that was in some ways a predictable result. A killer disease soon began among the abandoned dogs and spread like the proverbial wildfire. First the feral dogs died, but within days, predictably and sadly, many dogs that were living with their humans caught the disease as well, and likewise died. There was a desperate need for people to have dogs that would not be so affected.  Preventative medicines were eventually developed, but that took time, and the shortage of dogs became more and more apparent.

Several alternative strategies were taken by the hapless dogless population. Some of them took to having cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and other mammal replacements. But for many, only a dog would do.

I needed a dog, I am still working at home alone, and don’t think that will change. But the prices have been outrageously high. I had this resolved one day in the local bar – The Toby Jug. I was in the midst of a particularly loud complaining session about the cost of dogs, when a rather tall man walked over to our table, and said, in a drunken loud volume.“ So you want a dog.” I stared at him for a few seconds, not knowing what to do. Was he looking to make an over-priced sale on a dog? Was he going to tell me to ‘Get a life’?

It was when that latter thought was uppermost in my mind when I recognized him as someone who had been in several classes with me in high school, years ago. We had never became what you would call friends. Come to think of it, I can’t remember him ever having friends. He received the highest marks in every class, getting a mark of 100 in physics and biology.  Classmates did not talk to him much, although they did talk about him, nothing kind. It was even said about him that if he were ever constipated that he could ‘think it out.’

Then he spoke again, “I think I recognize you from high school. Your name is Andrew.” I responded with “I recognize you too. Your name is Clive.” He then stretched out his hand in a formal way. We shook hands, and then he said, “I can get you a dog, relatively cheap, if you really want one.”

“What breed of dog is it?” (not that I cared about that so much, I just wanted to maintain my end of the conversation).

“Well it is not a specific breed that you would recognize. He’s a bit of an experiment, but he has a lot of charm – very likeable.”

“How much then?” My interest was rising.

“Only 100 dollars. The one condition I would set on the sale is that you would have to tell me regularly how the two of you are getting along. He might not be the right dog for everyone. My memory of you suggests that you would probably like this particular dog.”

I didn’t think that he would have had any memories of me, other than my being a major stoner. That made me a little leery, but I was still interested. I had to ask whether the dog was a biter, or one that liked to pee indoors. He laughed and said, that the dog was no problem in those ways.

I looked over the barroom table to my wife, Anita, who so far had uncharacteristically said nothing. She nodded her head and said, “Let’s do it.”

           So I stood up, and Clive and I shook hands again. It was a deal. One hundred dollars passed from hand to hand.

The First Days with Jasper

           Now I took a lot of drugs when I was in high school. I had a habit then of hearing things that weren’t really there, mostly voices – like that of my recently deceased grandfather. That habit still persisted, not the drug use, but the hallucinating of sound still occasionally happened. Anita was very understanding, so that when I said that I heard anything unusual or unlikely, she would say in a relatively kind and forgiving tone. “Was that a real sound or something your mind created?

           That brings me to what happened in one of our first days with Jasper, named after a park in the Rockies that we liked to visit. He had just a few minutes earlier eaten his supper, and he walked over to the back door. That’s when I thought I heard him say “outside”. I laughed a bit, and took him outside. He looked back at me, and I swore he said, ‘thanks’. Well, at least my hallucinating was being consistent. I thought that it would be due to my being excited about finally having a dog.

           But it persisted over the next few days, never sentences but single, bark-like words. So, taking a chance in sounding ridiculous, I gave Clive a call. I remembered his saying that I should call him about our experiences with the dog. Maybe he invented a talking dog. I called. We discussed. He told me how he had experimented for years until he finally created a talking dog. I jokingly asked him whether he planted some parrot genes in Jasper. There was silence, then he said, “That and a little AI….You know, animal intelligence.”