Don’t get me wrong. I love my dog. It’s been about three months now that Murphy has been in our family’s life, and although he’s treated our house like a chew toy, and awakened me at odd hours in order to let him outside to do his business, and given my kids a new way to dispose of their vegetables at the dinner table, and even though he sometimes barks a lot – what was my point?
Oh, yes. We love him dearly.
But the other day, when I was cleaning out my bedroom closet, which I try to do every decade whether it needs it or not, I couldn’t help becoming a little nostalgic for another pet we used to have. Don’t tell Murphy, but he wasn’t our first dog.
Let me just stop right here and say that, as far as pets go, I’ve always been an avid cat person. Oh, it’s not like I don’t like dogs, I do. But any dog owner will tell you that dogs are hard work. In fact, on the list of “Things that are High Maintenance,” they rank somewhere underneath blond highlights and above Paris Hilton. This is not so with cats. You pour food into their bowl first thing in the morning, and they’re pretty much on auto pilot the rest of the day.
But the truth of the matter is that kids love dogs. If you don‚t believe me, just walk into any elementary school and take a poll and dogs will win out every time. Hence, Murphy.
But I don’t think Murphy would be in our lives if it hadn’t been for the time my husband found the perfect dog a few years ago. No, I don’t mean a purebred Lhasa Apso or a pedigree Bolognese. I’m talking about the kind that doesn’t chew on the furniture or wet the carpet or make a mess in the back yard. The kind that sits and begs on command, is totally housebroken from day one, and doesn’t ever require a walk.
Yes, we once had a robot dog, a breed called the iCybie, which, for those of you who are techno-challenged, was sort of a cross between a fox terrier and a giga pet. I say “sort of” because it was the size and weight of a terrier, could wag its tail like a terrier, and could even bark like a terrier. And yet it was made of metal, had sixteen motors, and ran on rechargeable batteries. Well, it still does all of these things, I suppose, if I decide to run out and get some more batteries, and believe me, I’m thinking about it.
Now before all of you armchair physiologists out there start yelling at me, I know this raises all sorts of questions. Such as, “Can a robot, no matter how sophisticated, really replace the joy owning of a real dog?” And, most importantly, “Do they make a robot dog that can whip up a science fair project when your son informs you one harried morning that you need to have one ready in twenty-four minutes?”
Granted, these are all deep, meaningful questions, but overall our iCybie (who we named Pepe) had several good points. I mean, on top of not needing shots, we won it on eBay for five bucks, and it came with several personalities that could be programmed in.
Another perk was that it could be voice-trained, or at least the directions said so. Our training sessions always went something like:
Me: Sit!
Pepe: Bark! Bark!
Me: Come!
Pepe: Bark! Bark!
But, hey, you have to admit it’s not any worse than my friend Linda’s pedigree poodle who thinks the word “sit” means to jump wildly in mid-air. He also eats flies out of the window sills.
But don’t worry. Obviously, I recognize that a robot can’t replace a real dog. Unlike Murphy, Pepe never gave us eye contact or his soul or any real genuine connection, warmth or personality. He never looked at me with a certain wry, knowing divine gleam in the eye. But it sure beat cleaning wet spots off the carpet and having teeth marks on my good wood furniture.
Still, Pepe had his merits, and I think he still will be a part of this family. I think I’m going to save on some new batteries and instead use him as a nice plant stand.
If that’s not technological progress, I don’t know what is.
Debbie Farmer is a humorist and a mother holding down the fort in California, and the author of Don’t Put Lipstick on the Cat. She can be reached at www.familydaze.com, or by writing fa********@oa***************.com.
