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My Friends Had a Biological Dog
We all have those friends who are a bit weird, but who you’re still friends with. For me, Monica and Rand were those friends.
I’d initially met the couple through my ex-girlfriend Kyla, who’d introduced me to them at a party. They all went way back and we used to hang out a lot together as a group. When Kyla and I broke up and she moved away, I just kept socialising with them. They were fun people and always had a way of keeping things light that I enjoyed—even with their quirks.
They were the kind of couple who treated their pets—of which they had several—like children. I loved animals myself, so this wouldn’t have been an issue for me. But they were on another level. They owned a deluxe stroller for walking their rabbit, dressed up their cat in expensive outfits and cooked gourmet meals for their tortoise. But it never seemed enough for them.
When people asked if they planned on having kids, they’d always winkingly reply that they were trying to conceive—a puppy.
As someone else who didn’t want children, I’d always laugh along with them and their silly, tension-diffusing joke. Still, in spite of the ridiculousness of it, it slightly unnerved me. Knowing those two, part of me believed they really would give birth to a dog if nature worked that way.
The day eventually came when Monica and Rand finally announced that they’d welcomed a new furbaby into their family. They called me up eagerly to invite me over and meet him, and I happily accepted. They did have an eye for getting cute pets.
Arriving at their place with a chew toy gift, I was surprised at how tight-lipped the couple were about their new dog. Typically after acquiring a new pet, they would gush endlessly about the story of why they chose them, what breed they were and so on. But this time, they just beamed and led me upstairs to one of their guest bedrooms.
To my confusion, I saw that the normally empty room had been converted into what looked like a nursery. There were dog-themed toys and decorations set up around the room, but it looked more like something for a dog-loving infant than a dog.
Monica warmly gestured to the side of the room and I saw something I had expected to see even less: a crib.
“Meet our *biological* dog, Pete”.
I resisted the urge to cringe at my friends’ usual joke. Peering over the rails of the crib, I saw napping on the plush linen was…a puppy. A dog, just like they said it had been.
And at the same time, it was nothing like any dog I’d ever seen before.
The beagle pup had short fur, four paws, a tail—all the things a dog would have. But there was just something so…off about it. Its face looked uncannily like that of a human. Its arms and legs curled up the way a baby would. Its brown and black-toned fur felt familiar in a human way.
And as it stirred, blinking up at me tiredly, I saw its eyes. Bright blue eyes.
“Well, isn’t he precious?” asked Rand excitedly.
I shook myself out of my unease and remembered why they’d invited me here.
“Uh, oh yeah, he’s the cutest thing, haha” I said in the most adoring voice I could muster. “Where, uh, did you get this little guy anyway?”
Monica glanced over at Rand, held her hand up to her mouth and whispered.
“Okay, don’t tell anybody this but…”
My eyes widened, half-expecting some twisted birthing story.
“...we got him from a *breeder*”.
They both laughed, before quieting themselves for their sleeping puppy.
“Guilty as charged, I know,” said Rand. “We normally adopt rescues with our pets, but we just *had* to have this fellow. As I’m sure you can see, he’s the *perfect* dog for both of us.”
I awkwardly agreed, left the chew toy with them and departed. Monica and Rand had always been eccentric and over-the-top with their pets, I’d known that. But building an entire nursery for a puppy? They were the type to consider their pets their children, sure, but this was a bit much, even for them.
And then there was the appearance of Pete the puppy. Maybe it was the human name, or the crib bed, or the “biological dog” joke influencing my perception. But something about the way it looked did not feel right to me. Was this breeder story real, or had they gone out of their way to pick the freakiest looking dog from the pound to go along with their “biological dog” schtick? Those weirdos would.
Then again, I reasoned, Monica and Rand had been good friends to me over the years. When Kyla and I split, those two were the biggest cheerleaders of us getting back together. They played matchmaker for a while, trying to spark a common thread between the two of us that would unite us as a couple again, despite our differences. Maybe they just wanted to double date again. But I appreciated the effort.
A puppy that hadn’t grown into its look yet and a dog nursery was no reason to abandon a years-long friendship.
So, over the next few months, I saw more and more of strange Pete.
At parties and gatherings at Monica and Rand’s house, other friends of the pair expressed similar sentiments to me. I was apparently not the only one to notice the uncanny features of their newest pet. And, as they always did, Monica and Rand would just laugh and continue the joke.
“Little Pete has both our eyes!”
“He gets his nose from his dad and lips from his mom!”
“Our hair colour genes are so strong, he got both!”
These little comments from the pair could have been funny if they weren’t so eerily true. Pete’s eyes really did look like a combination of the blue eyes Monica and Rand had—blue eyes were considerably rare for beagles. Pete’s crooked nose and thin lips really did resemble his respective parents’. And Pete’s light brown and black fur really was a one-to-one match for brunette Monica’s and raven-haired Rand’s.
Most people brushed off the strange coincidences of these features, thinking it a funny novelty. But, as the puppy grew into a dog, it became more and more apparent that these oddities didn’t end with the dog’s appearance.
I would catch sight of these occurrences more and more. Pete ambling around the way a toddler would, leaning back as if to try walking on two legs. Or him mouthing words whenever people spoke around him, like a child trying to learn to talk. But worst of all was the way he would stare at you. A stare not of happy canine curiosity, but of sad human pleading. That, and his barks that sounded like screams.
Being around the pair and their surreal pet became harder and harder for me. They indulged openly in the gag that he was their child, chuckling about what school he was going to go to or what sports he should compete in. It was sickening. Meanwhile, Pete did not get along well with any of the other animals in their household. I couldn’t stand to be around him, yet, he would always seek me out.
The last straw came the day when human-looking Pete shuffled over with his human gait, fixed me with his human stare, and dropped a scrap of paper in my lap.
“Oh, that’s so adorable, it seems that George is Pete’s favourite uncle” laughed Monica, sipping her wine.
“You know, George, maybe this is a sign that you should have one of your own” guffawed Rand, swigging his own glass.
I fake laughed as always and quickly hid the scrap of paper in my pocket. Fortunately, it didn’t look like anyone had seen me. Whatever this paper was, I instinctively wanted to read it away from the couple’s intervention.
When I finally stepped away from the group, I pulled out the scrap of paper from Pete and saw that it was the crumpled remnant of a business card.
*“The Kin Kennel*
*For the next piece of your animal family, with a piece of you.”*
It was from the breeder that Monica and Rand had used for Pete, I was sure of it. So the story they told me about going to a breeder had been correct after all, it would seem. But why had they been so private about the place? And why had Pete—a literal dog—seemingly wanted me to know about it?
I couldn’t bury my feelings about their pet any longer. I had to investigate it, if not more for my sake, then for that poor dog’s.
That evening, after leaving their house, I made my way to the address on that business card. It was a residential one in a nice suburb, which wasn’t too surprising for an animal breeder. Spying the doorbell, I noted that there were a few ways I could go about entering. However, I decided on the most reckless one. I didn’t want to just be sent away. I wanted answers.
So, instead, I crept around the back, pried open the cellar door with a spade from next to the shed, and descended inside.
When I flicked on the light, I had expected to find myself in a puppy mill of some kind. But what surrounded me instead was a laboratory. Sleek, shiny and sterile, like the inside of a veterinarian’s office, but with more scientific equipment strewn about. Behind me were shelved cabinets with various marked samples in them. I had no idea where to start looking for information. Thankfully, a source came along at that very moment.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in here!” shouted a man in a smoking jacket from the top of the stairs.
“I should ask you the same questions!” I retorted, immediately reaching for my phone. Before he could threaten to call the cops, I began snapping pictures left and right.
“Either you start talking about what it is you do to these animals or these go straight to the cops!”. For emphasis, I raised my phone at the bespectacled man. He paused for a moment, considering his options, and then smiled.
“Very well then, intruder” he said, clearing his throat. “My name is Dr Welsh. I was formerly an esteemed human embryologist and ardent animal lover. Then they fired me, so I decided to marry my two passions in life. I take it you’ve seen the results of my work?”
I looked around the room, trying to hold off the horrified comprehension that was dawning.
“My friends…Monica and Rand…their dog…it’s not a normal dog, is it?”
“It’s what the *new* normal for a dog should be,” he boasted. “Those two were great clients. They understood the truth—that animals are the perfect children. I hated helping parents have human children. Children are rude, loud, ungrateful. But I loved helping friends adopt animals. Animals are gentle, soft, loyal.”
Resentment began to invade his voice.
“There was only one problem to fix. Parents of children get to see themselves in their offspring. Parents of pets don’t. It’s an injustice that I now solve. I inject human DNA from both ‘dog parents’ into the embryos of their future pets. Then, when the litter is born, I present them a puppy with a little piece of each of them.”
That left only one grim question for me to ask.
“...where are these litters?”
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when Dr Welsh led me outside and opened the shed door.
At once I understood that Pete, as disturbing as he looked, had been the most presentable spawn of his siblings. A sea of twisted, aberrant faces and bodies of puppies spanned across the dim shed. Creatures halfway between human and dog, with jumbled mashes of features like skin and fur, hands and claws, bottoms and tails. Uttering childlike, animalistic screams, begging confusedly for death.
I granted it to them.
While Dr Welsh feebly tried to stop me, the aged man was unsuccessful. I set the shed alight with a match that night, ending every one of the demented hybrids’ suffering. Most importantly, however, I left the house laboratory intact—for when the authorities arrived.
Monica and Rand were arrested for their use of the illegal experimental breeder not long after. Good riddance. Mercifully, after being seized by the police, their “biological dog” was euthanized too. Pete’s desperate blue eyes would haunt me no more.
Word spread amongst most of our friends about what had happened. It was all very hush hush though, as people didn’t want to acknowledge turning a blind eye to the clearly humanised dog for so long.
The best outcome of this furore, however, was Kyla reaching out to me a few weeks later. She had no idea why our friends had been arrested, and it was on me to break the news to her. Over coffee, my old flame and I started reconnecting like no time had passed. When I mentioned Monica and Rand’s name, she chirped up first.
“Apparently, they went to prison, can you believe it?!” she exclaimed. “And to think it happened right after they showed up and dumped this weird puppy on me.”
My blood ran cold. The teaspoons on the table suddenly reminded me of those I’d used at the couple’s house, covered in my DNA.
I watched, horrified, as Kyla reached into her handbag and pulled out a little cocker spaniel puppy—a gift from our dog-altering, matchmaking friends.
“George, you’re not gonna believe how much this little gal looks like both of us…”
#entertainment
source
We all have those friends who are a bit weird, but who you’re still friends with. For me, Monica and Rand were those friends.
I’d initially met the couple through my ex-girlfriend Kyla, who’d introduced me to them at a party. They all went way back and we used to hang out a lot together as a group. When Kyla and I broke up and she moved away, I just kept socialising with them. They were fun people and always had a way of keeping things light that I enjoyed—even with their quirks.
They were the kind of couple who treated their pets—of which they had several—like children. I loved animals myself, so this wouldn’t have been an issue for me. But they were on another level. They owned a deluxe stroller for walking their rabbit, dressed up their cat in expensive outfits and cooked gourmet meals for their tortoise. But it never seemed enough for them.
When people asked if they planned on having kids, they’d always winkingly reply that they were trying to conceive—a puppy.
As someone else who didn’t want children, I’d always laugh along with them and their silly, tension-diffusing joke. Still, in spite of the ridiculousness of it, it slightly unnerved me. Knowing those two, part of me believed they really would give birth to a dog if nature worked that way.
The day eventually came when Monica and Rand finally announced that they’d welcomed a new furbaby into their family. They called me up eagerly to invite me over and meet him, and I happily accepted. They did have an eye for getting cute pets.
Arriving at their place with a chew toy gift, I was surprised at how tight-lipped the couple were about their new dog. Typically after acquiring a new pet, they would gush endlessly about the story of why they chose them, what breed they were and so on. But this time, they just beamed and led me upstairs to one of their guest bedrooms.
To my confusion, I saw that the normally empty room had been converted into what looked like a nursery. There were dog-themed toys and decorations set up around the room, but it looked more like something for a dog-loving infant than a dog.
Monica warmly gestured to the side of the room and I saw something I had expected to see even less: a crib.
“Meet our *biological* dog, Pete”.
I resisted the urge to cringe at my friends’ usual joke. Peering over the rails of the crib, I saw napping on the plush linen was…a puppy. A dog, just like they said it had been.
And at the same time, it was nothing like any dog I’d ever seen before.
The beagle pup had short fur, four paws, a tail—all the things a dog would have. But there was just something so…off about it. Its face looked uncannily like that of a human. Its arms and legs curled up the way a baby would. Its brown and black-toned fur felt familiar in a human way.
And as it stirred, blinking up at me tiredly, I saw its eyes. Bright blue eyes.
“Well, isn’t he precious?” asked Rand excitedly.
I shook myself out of my unease and remembered why they’d invited me here.
“Uh, oh yeah, he’s the cutest thing, haha” I said in the most adoring voice I could muster. “Where, uh, did you get this little guy anyway?”
Monica glanced over at Rand, held her hand up to her mouth and whispered.
“Okay, don’t tell anybody this but…”
My eyes widened, half-expecting some twisted birthing story.
“...we got him from a *breeder*”.
They both laughed, before quieting themselves for their sleeping puppy.
“Guilty as charged, I know,” said Rand. “We normally adopt rescues with our pets, but we just *had* to have this fellow. As I’m sure you can see, he’s the *perfect* dog for both of us.”
I awkwardly agreed, left the chew toy with them and departed. Monica and Rand had always been eccentric and over-the-top with their pets, I’d known that. But building an entire nursery for a puppy? They were the type to consider their pets their children, sure, but this was a bit much, even for them.
And then there was the appearance of Pete the puppy. Maybe it was the human name, or the crib bed, or the “biological dog” joke influencing my perception. But something about the way it looked did not feel right to me. Was this breeder story real, or had they gone out of their way to pick the freakiest looking dog from the pound to go along with their “biological dog” schtick? Those weirdos would.
Then again, I reasoned, Monica and Rand had been good friends to me over the years. When Kyla and I split, those two were the biggest cheerleaders of us getting back together. They played matchmaker for a while, trying to spark a common thread between the two of us that would unite us as a couple again, despite our differences. Maybe they just wanted to double date again. But I appreciated the effort.
A puppy that hadn’t grown into its look yet and a dog nursery was no reason to abandon a years-long friendship.
So, over the next few months, I saw more and more of strange Pete.
At parties and gatherings at Monica and Rand’s house, other friends of the pair expressed similar sentiments to me. I was apparently not the only one to notice the uncanny features of their newest pet. And, as they always did, Monica and Rand would just laugh and continue the joke.
“Little Pete has both our eyes!”
“He gets his nose from his dad and lips from his mom!”
“Our hair colour genes are so strong, he got both!”
These little comments from the pair could have been funny if they weren’t so eerily true. Pete’s eyes really did look like a combination of the blue eyes Monica and Rand had—blue eyes were considerably rare for beagles. Pete’s crooked nose and thin lips really did resemble his respective parents’. And Pete’s light brown and black fur really was a one-to-one match for brunette Monica’s and raven-haired Rand’s.
Most people brushed off the strange coincidences of these features, thinking it a funny novelty. But, as the puppy grew into a dog, it became more and more apparent that these oddities didn’t end with the dog’s appearance.
I would catch sight of these occurrences more and more. Pete ambling around the way a toddler would, leaning back as if to try walking on two legs. Or him mouthing words whenever people spoke around him, like a child trying to learn to talk. But worst of all was the way he would stare at you. A stare not of happy canine curiosity, but of sad human pleading. That, and his barks that sounded like screams.
Being around the pair and their surreal pet became harder and harder for me. They indulged openly in the gag that he was their child, chuckling about what school he was going to go to or what sports he should compete in. It was sickening. Meanwhile, Pete did not get along well with any of the other animals in their household. I couldn’t stand to be around him, yet, he would always seek me out.
The last straw came the day when human-looking Pete shuffled over with his human gait, fixed me with his human stare, and dropped a scrap of paper in my lap.
“Oh, that’s so adorable, it seems that George is Pete’s favourite uncle” laughed Monica, sipping her wine.
“You know, George, maybe this is a sign that you should have one of your own” guffawed Rand, swigging his own glass.
I fake laughed as always and quickly hid the scrap of paper in my pocket. Fortunately, it didn’t look like anyone had seen me. Whatever this paper was, I instinctively wanted to read it away from the couple’s intervention.
When I finally stepped away from the group, I pulled out the scrap of paper from Pete and saw that it was the crumpled remnant of a business card.
*“The Kin Kennel*
*For the next piece of your animal family, with a piece of you.”*
It was from the breeder that Monica and Rand had used for Pete, I was sure of it. So the story they told me about going to a breeder had been correct after all, it would seem. But why had they been so private about the place? And why had Pete—a literal dog—seemingly wanted me to know about it?
I couldn’t bury my feelings about their pet any longer. I had to investigate it, if not more for my sake, then for that poor dog’s.
That evening, after leaving their house, I made my way to the address on that business card. It was a residential one in a nice suburb, which wasn’t too surprising for an animal breeder. Spying the doorbell, I noted that there were a few ways I could go about entering. However, I decided on the most reckless one. I didn’t want to just be sent away. I wanted answers.
So, instead, I crept around the back, pried open the cellar door with a spade from next to the shed, and descended inside.
When I flicked on the light, I had expected to find myself in a puppy mill of some kind. But what surrounded me instead was a laboratory. Sleek, shiny and sterile, like the inside of a veterinarian’s office, but with more scientific equipment strewn about. Behind me were shelved cabinets with various marked samples in them. I had no idea where to start looking for information. Thankfully, a source came along at that very moment.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in here!” shouted a man in a smoking jacket from the top of the stairs.
“I should ask you the same questions!” I retorted, immediately reaching for my phone. Before he could threaten to call the cops, I began snapping pictures left and right.
“Either you start talking about what it is you do to these animals or these go straight to the cops!”. For emphasis, I raised my phone at the bespectacled man. He paused for a moment, considering his options, and then smiled.
“Very well then, intruder” he said, clearing his throat. “My name is Dr Welsh. I was formerly an esteemed human embryologist and ardent animal lover. Then they fired me, so I decided to marry my two passions in life. I take it you’ve seen the results of my work?”
I looked around the room, trying to hold off the horrified comprehension that was dawning.
“My friends…Monica and Rand…their dog…it’s not a normal dog, is it?”
“It’s what the *new* normal for a dog should be,” he boasted. “Those two were great clients. They understood the truth—that animals are the perfect children. I hated helping parents have human children. Children are rude, loud, ungrateful. But I loved helping friends adopt animals. Animals are gentle, soft, loyal.”
Resentment began to invade his voice.
“There was only one problem to fix. Parents of children get to see themselves in their offspring. Parents of pets don’t. It’s an injustice that I now solve. I inject human DNA from both ‘dog parents’ into the embryos of their future pets. Then, when the litter is born, I present them a puppy with a little piece of each of them.”
That left only one grim question for me to ask.
“...where are these litters?”
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when Dr Welsh led me outside and opened the shed door.
At once I understood that Pete, as disturbing as he looked, had been the most presentable spawn of his siblings. A sea of twisted, aberrant faces and bodies of puppies spanned across the dim shed. Creatures halfway between human and dog, with jumbled mashes of features like skin and fur, hands and claws, bottoms and tails. Uttering childlike, animalistic screams, begging confusedly for death.
I granted it to them.
While Dr Welsh feebly tried to stop me, the aged man was unsuccessful. I set the shed alight with a match that night, ending every one of the demented hybrids’ suffering. Most importantly, however, I left the house laboratory intact—for when the authorities arrived.
Monica and Rand were arrested for their use of the illegal experimental breeder not long after. Good riddance. Mercifully, after being seized by the police, their “biological dog” was euthanized too. Pete’s desperate blue eyes would haunt me no more.
Word spread amongst most of our friends about what had happened. It was all very hush hush though, as people didn’t want to acknowledge turning a blind eye to the clearly humanised dog for so long.
The best outcome of this furore, however, was Kyla reaching out to me a few weeks later. She had no idea why our friends had been arrested, and it was on me to break the news to her. Over coffee, my old flame and I started reconnecting like no time had passed. When I mentioned Monica and Rand’s name, she chirped up first.
“Apparently, they went to prison, can you believe it?!” she exclaimed. “And to think it happened right after they showed up and dumped this weird puppy on me.”
My blood ran cold. The teaspoons on the table suddenly reminded me of those I’d used at the couple’s house, covered in my DNA.
I watched, horrified, as Kyla reached into her handbag and pulled out a little cocker spaniel puppy—a gift from our dog-altering, matchmaking friends.
“George, you’re not gonna believe how much this little gal looks like both of us…”
#entertainment
source
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