Iwi selami newi! (that’s howdy in Amheric).

            Friends have asked Carll, who asked me, Who am I really? Carll’s invention, sidekick, ventriloquist’s dummy? A convenient confection? What’s my function (as if a creature needed a function – what’s your function!)? How many of the thoughts expressed by me (via CAI – Canine Artificial Intelligence) and transcribed by Carll are mine? How, in view of these ontological uncertainties, should I be read (as comic, ironic, subversive, earnest, etc.)?

            The question, albeit very human, is not without interest. Dogs tend not to dawdle over such dilemmas (or, if they do, lacking written language, we don’t know about it). To a dog, as I’ve argued elsewhere, what is is and we are where we are, no elsewhere or otherwise. CAI translates our thoughts from Dog to English – I’ve elected the faux-erudition style option, for kicks, — it does not interpret. You might object, with some justice, that translation is interpretation, but that would ensnare us in a thicket of abstractions inextricable except by eggheads (who do not know the price of eggs!). I mean, if I can, to keep it real here, so let’s soldier on.

            I am a dog and you a person. Unless you’re lucky enough to have met me, you must take my word for that. Carll has not made me up. He lacks imagination, as he often moans. If he’d had imagination, maybe he’d have been a bestselling novelist, leading the life of Riley, misjudged and begrudged by all. As it is, he’s a – he’s not even sure what – a polysyllabic hypothesizer perhaps – amusing to his microscopic coterie of chums. He claims to be a truth-teller, but what is truth, nowadays especially?

            Born in May 2023, I differ chronologically from Carll, born October 1951. While both Americans, I suppose, our worldviews hardly sync. We’ve different interests, objectives, concerns, permissions. Technically, I “belong” to Carll and Jane – as property, chattel – they feed me, house me, pay my bills (including for the bedroom carpet I despoiled, which cost a pretty penny). So I’m a slave. So was Epictetus. (Ever heard of Epictetus’ master, Epaphroditus, secretary to Nero? Well, there you have it!)

            I say what I see. In this I resemble Carll, but our vantages differ enough to contradict. Carll’s intellect trudges under the weight of human misapprehensions. He carries on about meaning, feelings, soul, justice, grace, beauty, deep (and deeper) truth, which, if they exist, remain undetectable to the canine nose, ears, tongue, or eyes. Like Porgy in his irresistible (albeit patronizing) opera, “I got the sun in the mornin’ and the moon at night.” Which strikes me (most days) as plenty and enough.

            This cartload of fantastic human concerns leads to curious, not to say hair-raising, results. War, for example: humans can no more resist it than I can sniffing poop. Climate defilement – imagine, soiling your own bed! Psychosis, child abuse, alcoholism, video games. Homicide, suicide, all the other -cides. Despair, doubt, birthdays, charity balls! Granted humans produce a lot of cool stuff too – I’m just getting to know Shakespeare and Mozart – two paws up – but at what price! For Bach’s B-Minor mass is the Holocaust the cost?

            Humans, swaddled in their myths and mythtakes, seem not to see or at least acknowledge the absurdity of their existential premise, so blatant from a non-human perspective. Hence, for me, a mission of sorts, a prophet’s, but without the angst. Unlike Jeremiah or Cassandra, I don’t care if my side loses, therefore no war, no tears, no risk of loss. We wag our tails and get along. Works out fine. Makes you think.