| Dog | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Naming | |||
| Binomen | N/A | ||
| Morphology | |||
| Body type | Canine | ||
| Intelligence | |||
| Sentience | Sentient | ||
| Sapience | Sapient | ||
| Aggressivity | Harmless | ||
| Language | Human languages | ||
| Ecology | |||
| Place of origin | Earth | ||
| Locomotion | Quadrupedal | ||
| Behind the Scenes | |||
| Universe | City | ||
| Created by | Clifford D. Simak | ||
The dogs are a sapient race of pacifist, psychically-inclined talking dogs originally created by Bruce Webster. Their society, alongside the robots and ants, would eventually constitute one of mankind's unintended legacies, long after the apparent demise of humanity.
Biology[]
Bruce Webster was the first man to notice the elevated intellect of the common dog and scientifically experiment with ways to alter their vocal cords and give them the ability of speech. Although a surgical procedure at first, the alteration eventually became hereditary, and from then on all dogs were born with the innate capacity to learn how to speak.
It was later discovered that these dogs also had latent extrasensory abilities: a racial trait that had already manifested in the species long before Webster's experiments, as exemplified by their howling and barking towards things that man couldn't detect and that, in his arrogance, man had unceremoniously dismissed as nonexistent.
History[]
About a thousand years after Webster's experiments, very few humans remained on Earth, as most of them had undergone biological conversion and rebuilt themselves into Lopers to colonize the vast and paradisaical Jupiter. The few humans to remain behind included antisocial mutants like Joe and a small colony of non-mutant men in Genebra, most of which eventually entered suspended animation to experience an artificial dream-like reality. As such, the Earth was largely abandoned and inherited by the intelligent dogs and their loyal robot helpers.
Over the next centuries, the dogs and robots developed a peaceful and prosperous (if largely non-technological) civilization, occasionally seeking advice from Jenkins, the old faithful robot who had previously belonged to the Websters. While man had sought knowledge in the fields of chemistry and technical sciences; the dogs focused on eliminating violent instincts, assisting the intellectual development of other animal species, and exploring parallel versions of Earth, including those inhabited by the mysterious cobblies.
At first, there were still a few humans around, who hadn't left the physical world and who participated in this bucolic society as equals. This proved disastrous on the day when, after centuries without any creature being intentionally killed by a sapient being, a man managed to invent a bow and arrow and used it to kill a bird. Seeing that the continuing existence of the humans would always represent a latent threat to this world, which had been built and developed on other principles; Jenkins decided to gather all the humans and peacefully relocate them to the world of the cobblies. This provided both humans and cobblies with an opponent that they could potentially engage in combat with, while leaving the non-combative dog society alone to develop on its own terms. Additionally, Jenkins tried to make the dogs forget about humans, to avoid being influenced by their past.
Thousands of years passed before the next big threat came in the form of the sapient, mechanically-inclined ants, who threatened to take over the entire planet with their ever-expanding cities. Unable to come up with a solution, Jenkins sought help from Jon Webster by temporarily awakening him from his suspended animation. Jenkins asked Webster how the humans used to fight ants, and Webster informed him that they used chemical means to poison them. Jenkins, realizing that the dogs would have neither the means nor the mindset to do so (having lost all knowledge of chemistry and all desire to kill another being), concluded that the only way to keep the dogs safe was to relocate them to another parallel Earth, while leaving the original Earth to be inherited by the ants.
Once on their new world, the dogs continued to prosper, but their knowledge of the universe eventually regressed to the point that most of them regarded the old stories about humans to be nothing more than legends. These dogs had no idea about how their self-perpetuating robot helpers could have originated; and expressed skepticism of the notion that the stars are actually distant suns with planets, and not simply lights in the night sky.
Appearances[]
- "Census", by Clifford D. Simak (1944)
- "Paradise", by Clifford D. Simak (1946)
- "Hobbies", by Clifford D. Simak (1946)
- "Aesop", by Clifford D. Simak (1947)
- City, by Clifford D. Simak (1952)
Notes[]
- Sapient dogs are also featured in Simak's 1953 story "The Answers", a.k.a. "And The Truth Shall Make You Free". These, however, are depicted as a spacefaring civilization, exploring the stars alongside humans and alien races, which wouldn't seem to fit in the chronology of the City tales. Assuming the stories are set in the same universe, these could be interpreted as another kind of uplifted dogs, unrelated to the descendants of Bruce Webster's dogs.