I’m also tempted to write something less glib about smartdogs – as it happens, I came across this book review the other day, which suggested that they’d be much more different to us than I’ve suggested above. It’s quite humbling that even an animal that’s so closely allied to humans would experience the world in such a radically different way.

If I were going to riff on *your* idea, though, I would take it through to the incredible love and loyalty of dogs, and what a passive-aggressive nightmare it would be if that constant, enthusiastic, and terribly uncomplicated yet needy affection were allied to a higher intellect. You would be called upon to demonstrate and demonstrate and demonstrate your reciprocity in more and more elaborate ways. It would be like dating the psycho from Hell, only much, much worse.

Ooh, you’ve given me an idea…

The theme for the night was Future Human, an exploration of transhumanism and the Singularity and all that malarkey. First story up was The Angina Monologues, by Philippa Moore (here’s her account of the night); second was The Nose, the tale of a vintner who decides to radically upgrade his sense of smell, by James Bridle (and here’s his account).

Matthew de Abaitua, author of The Red Men, asked what the back-story to The Nose might have been: why would a master winemaker take such a huge risk? Starting with that premise, he built a world in which sybaritic pet-owners treat their pampered pooches to fine wines.

My imagination, however, had gone in a quite different direction. The result was the piece above, which I wrote during my commute the next morning. It took about twenty minutes, which is why it’s pretty rough and ready: I’ve been meaning to rework it since but haven’t had a chance. (I imagine it might never come round if it were to go on the operating table.) But it was fun to riff off not one, but two other writers’ ideas: so here it is.