One day I told my wife I wanted to get a dog.

She seemed surprised. "Why do you want a dog?" she asked. "We have two cats already. One of those can be 'your' cat, if you want."

"Cats are nice, but they're not the same," I said. "A man needs a dog. Besides, you have a horse."

She couldn't argue with that.

 

Our friend Jen offered to let us have some genetic material from her great dog, Puck. So I sent his toenail clippings to our old friend (and my surrogate Mom!) MaybeAmanda at MCRU, and soon I had a puppy PuckClone in the vat.

 

Finally the day came when Mom Amanda sent me my surprise!

And I was surprised, all right...

 

I was expecting something... bigger. Blacker. A Lab, you know?

 

"Humans have 46 chromosomes; dogs have 78," Amanda said. "So you can see why it took a while. Also, when mapping Puck's genes I found a few things that, well, in my business we call the deleterious recessives -- in other words, potential bad news, particularly for a cloned virtual pet.   So I had to make a few substitiutions, which resulted in the smaller stature, slighter build, decidedly terrier look, and greyish fur (I'm still confused about that last one, myself, but sometimes these things happen)."  

 

Visions of myself enjoying important manly pursuits with my big manly dog were fading fast.

 

"Anyway," Amanda went on, "this guy has a sweet disposition, eats very little, is fully housebroken, and is just the right size to frolic on your homepage."

 

 

I wondered aloud if the dog might grow into himself. My wife suggested magick.

 

"Good goddess!" said my brother, #5. "She's not gonna magick your dog, is she?  Cyberstuff and magick are not a great match -- you could end up with a freakin' pteradactyl..."

 

Now that he's been here a while, though, we like the Pucklet just the way he is.

 

He's portable. He fits on the bed with me and my wife and the two cats. And I can tell that everyone thimks he's cute by the way women will even cross the street to ask me all about him whenever I take him for his walk!

 

I just can't understand why my wife says that doesn't have much to do with how cute the dog is...