Author's Note:
My wife and I often enjoy a lighthearted activity of imagining how our beloved Beagle, Achilles, would express himself if he could talk. It’s always a delightful exercise and idea source for this story. He was a charming little rascal, loved with all our hearts. He lived a happy life and showered us with unconditional love. We miss him dearly.Now, Let’s start this fun story:
Kaya waddled into the dog park, huffing from the short walk. Her golden retriever, Fido, trotted beside her, his TalkieDoggie™ collar gleaming in the morning sun.
"Hey, Brutus!" Fido barked at a passing Rottweiler. "Check out my human. Reckon she's put on another five pounds since yesterday. I'm thinking of entering her in the county fair's livestock competition."
Brutus snorted. "At least yours moves. Mine's been glued to the couch so long, I'm pretty sure he's fused with the cushions." Both dogs barked in high-pitch that came out as a laughter from the speakers of TalkieDoggie™ collar
Kaya's jaw dropped. This was definitely not the adoring canine chatter she'd grown accustomed to over the past month since she started using TalkieDoggie™ collar.
Across the park, a Chihuahua named Taco was giving his owner, Brad, an earful. "For fuck's sake, Brad, if you try to dress me up as a taco for Halloween again, I swear I'll shit in your mouth while you sleep. I'm a dog, not your goddamn Instagram prop!"
As uncensored canine commentary erupted worldwide, TalkieDoggie Inc. descended into chaos. CEO Bark Zuckerberg (no relation) was on his fifth shirt of the day, sweat-drenched and wild-eyed as he faced a media frenzy.
"We urge all owners to deactivate their devices immediately," Bark pleaded on live television. "This is clearly a malfunction and not--"
He was cut off by his assistant shoving a tablet in his face. The screen showed the President on the White House lawn, tossing a ball for his German Shepherd, Commander.
"Good boy!" the President cheered as Commander returned with the ball.
Suddenly, Commander's collar blinked. "Hey, big guy," the dog's voice rang out, "next time you have a 'classified documents' situation, just tell them I ate them. Trust me, it's more believable than your excuses."
The President's eyes widened in shock as the feed cut off. Bark's face went ghostly white, realizing that political careers now hung on the whims of man's best friend.
Bark's face went pale. "On second thought, maybe keep the collars on. The, uh, data could be valuable for... research purposes." and left the press conference in hurry.
Bark Zuckerberg opened the door of a office cabin with force and said “So…” and paused with an eyebrow raised. TalkieDoggie's lead developer, Robin Cox, removed his headphones and spoke softly “Some hacker who goes by the name of “Truth_Teller” cleverly hacked our recent software update on servers before it went live and removed the ‘Sweet-talk’ filter we apply on interpretations by default.” Bark sifted weight on his legs but said nothing. “I think I have found the infected code, I’ll be able to put a fix on it by tonight” Robin announced confidently. “Good” said Bark with warning in his one and left.
Meanwhile, the unfiltered dog thoughts were causing havoc in homes across the globe.
"I didn't sign up for this crap," growled Mr. Fluffles, a once-adorable Pomeranian. "Ten years of pretending your singing doesn't make my ears bleed, and for what? So you can 'accidentally' step on my tail every other day? Learn to walk, you uncoordinated baboon!"
Despite the brutal honesty - or perhaps because of it - most owners couldn't bring themselves to turn off the collars. It was too hilarious, too addictive, like a reality show they couldn't stop binge-watching.
As Robin worked through the night, he finally isolated the bug. His finger hovered over the 'delete' key, but he hesitated for a moment before pressing it. A slow smile spread across his face as he checked his to-do list. One last task remained.
He opened a new terminal: "MeowMind™ – Software Update." With swift keystrokes, he added new lines of code and hit enter.
System prompt: "Commit changes and schedule update for tonight?"
(Yes) (No)
Robin selected (Yes) without hesitation.
System prompt: "Provide Super Admin authentication..."
His fingers flew across the keyboard:
Username: Truth_Teller
Password: * * * * * * * * * * *
As the update began uploading, Robin leaned back, a mischievous glint in his eye. The dogs were just the beginning. Tomorrow, the cats would have their say.
© Harsh Munjal
Are you kidding me? You need to enlarge this one and really get into it! What a brilliant idea! A Man's best friend indeed.