The New Dog.

Transcript

[The main showroom of Comfort Underfoot, Nuneaton. Eight chairs have been arranged in two rows of four. A ninth chair stands at the back of the room. Nobody in the building knows where the ninth chair came from. Nobody has moved it.]

[At the front of the room there is a desk, a laptop, and a bowl of water. The bowl of water is for the dog. The dog is not here yet.]

(Applause. The applause is brief. It is the first applause of the evening, and it is the longest applause of the evening.)

[Graham enters through the door between the carpet shop and the stairwell. He is carrying a laptop and a folder. The folder contains the presentation. The presentation is also on the laptop. Graham is carrying both because Graham does not trust the laptop, and the laptop has never given him a reason to.]

Graham

Thank you. Thank you for coming. For those of you who came for the carpet — [a pause] — the carpet shop is open, and it is downstairs. This event is about dogs. [a longer pause] The carpet will still be there afterwards. The carpet has always been there. The carpet is very good at being there.

(Laughter. It is polite. It is the politest laughter of the evening, because it is the first.)

Graham

My name is Graham. I am the Chief Executive Officer of Companion Systems. I am also the Chief Operating Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, the Chief Technology Officer, and the dog’s manager. I have prepared a slide.

[A slide appears. It is a photograph of the new dog lineup. It is the only photograph of the new dog lineup. It is the photograph on the website. There is one photograph.]

Graham

This is the new dog. We have spent two years studying how people actually live with dogs. I am going to tell you what we found, and then I am going to tell you what we did about it, and then I am going to try to answer your questions. I have been told to leave time for questions. I have left time. The time is at the end. It is ten minutes. It is not enough. I am told that ten minutes is enough. I am told this by the person who is telling me to leave time for questions. [a pause] That person is me.

(Laughter. It is shorter than the first laughter. This is the pattern.)

Graham

The average dog owner uses fewer than forty per cent of their dog’s capabilities. Tail wagging: observed primarily at mealtimes. Barking: triggered by postmen, by the weather, and by nothing. Fetch: initiated by the human in ninety-four per cent of recorded instances. Rolling over: reluctantly, and in one direction only.

[The slide changes. It is a list. The list has three items: ‘PREDATORS’, ‘PREY’, and ‘UNFENCED GROUND’. All three items have been crossed out.]

Graham

The remaining sixty per cent of the dog exists because dogs were designed for a world that most of them no longer live in. That world had predators, prey, and unfenced ground. Your living room has a sofa and a radiator. We have built the new dog for the living room. The living room does not have predators. [a pause] We have checked. We have checked the living room.

(Audience member, front row: “What about the garden?”)

Graham

The garden is between the living room and the world the dog was designed for. We have discussed the garden at length. The garden is the living room with weather. [a pause] The new dog is available in three models.

[The slide changes. It is the photograph again. The photograph has not changed. The photograph cannot change. There is one photograph.]

Graham

dog SE. From £199. Bipedal architecture. Two legs. One bark per day — the time is non-configurable. Twenty-eight teeth. One meal per day. Stationary platform. dog SE is the dog for people who do not need a tail. You do not need a tail. We have checked.

(Audience member: “How did you check?”)

Graham

We asked. [a pause] We asked a lot of people. The people who said they needed a tail were asked to demonstrate. None of them could.

(Laughter. It is the laughter of people who have never needed a tail.)

Graham

We removed more than two hundred skeletal components from the dog SE. We removed the hips. The hips were not being used. The hips were being carried. The customer should not carry what the customer does not use. The customer carries the dog SE. The dog SE does not weigh very much. We removed the weight.

Graham

dog. From £349. The classic experience. The dog you already know. Four legs. Forty-two teeth. Selective audio. A three-room range. One and a half meals per day. [a pause] I am going to move on.

(Laughter. It is knowing. The audience has read the FAQ.)

Graham

We retained the systems we could not remove without restructuring the dog’s entire motivational system. We are not confident we could put it back together. [a pause] We tried once. Not with a dog. With a filing cabinet. The filing cabinet is not the same. But it informed our confidence.

Graham

dog Pro. From £599. The complete feature set. Reinforced quadrupedal architecture. Full vocalisation suite. Forty-two reinforced teeth. Two meals per day. Loyalty pre-installed — the dog Pro greets you with enthusiasm entirely disproportionate to the length of your absence. Indoor and outdoor. Two walks per day, minimum. The dog Pro takes the role seriously. It will treat your desk as a perimeter. I recommend you treat it the same way.

[A slide appears. It is a stock photograph of a handshake. The photograph is not of anyone at Companion Systems. The photograph is of a handshake.]

Graham

Silence. Some of you have asked about silence. Silence is available on dog Pro through Quiet Mode, as part of Companion+. Quiet Mode is £14.99 per month. I am not going to apologise for the price. I am going to explain it. Silence turns out to be expensive to guarantee.

[The audience shifts. It is the first shift of the evening. There will be more.]

Graham

The dog SE is quiet. The dog SE’s quiet is not guaranteed. If you require silence, you require Quiet Mode. If you require Quiet Mode, you require dog Pro. If you require dog Pro, you require £599, and then £14.99 a month. The requirements compound. Everything at Companion Systems compounds. [a pause] I have been told that this is not the tone for the third slide. I am on the fifth slide. I have exceeded the tone.

Graham

Availability. The new dog is available from Q3 2027.

[The audience shifts. It is the second shift. The first shift was about silence. This shift is about Q3 2027. The two shifts are not the same. We have logged both.]

Graham

I am going to explain the delivery schedule, because I am asked about the delivery schedule more than anything else, including the legs. The delivery schedule is part of the product. The dog is arriving in Q3 2027. The dog is not arriving before Q3 2027. We considered arriving before Q3 2027. We are one person. We are hiring. [a pause] If you are interested in working at Companion Systems, the application is one page, and the page asks for your name, your email address, and whether you have ever been bitten by a dog. The answer does not disqualify you. It informs our confidence.

(Laughter. It is the laughter of people who have been bitten by dogs.)

Graham

DogConnect. From £4.99 per month. Your dog, connected. Every enrolled dog is assigned a Network ID. Connections form autonomously. Every 100 days, accumulated social capital is converted into a Connectivity Dividend. A new dog. Delivered to your home. At no additional cost.

[The audience stops shifting.]

Graham

The Dividend dog is enrolled automatically. Auto-enrolment cannot be disabled. This is a core network feature, not a setting. A Dividend dog that is not enrolled does not earn. A Dividend dog that is not earning is not connected. A Dividend dog that is not connected is not on the network. [a pause] All dogs on the network are enrolled.

(Silence. It is the longest silence of the evening. It is not Quiet Mode. Quiet Mode is £14.99 per month. This silence is free. We have not charged for it.)

Graham

The network has never lost a dog. The network does not lose dogs. [a pause] The network also does not retain dogs. The dogs are where the dogs want to be. The dogs want to be with their owners. The network is with the dogs. We are with the network. It is a complete arrangement.

Graham

I have prepared a document about the network. It is called the DogConnect Technical Paper. It is eight pages long. It contains the protocol specification, the settlement mathematics, and the network sustainability analysis. It is available on the website. I recommend it. It is the most complete document we have ever produced. [a pause] It is the only document we have ever produced. The terms of coexistence are not a document. The terms of coexistence are an agreement. The dog did not read them.

Graham

One more thing.

[The slide changes. The photograph has not changed. The photograph cannot change.]

Graham

The dog SE has two legs. Some of you have written to us about the legs. The letters are in the filing cabinet. The filing cabinet is full. This is why we have expanded into the room next door. The letters say: can it have four? The answer is yes. The Additional Leg Pair is available now, from Accessories, for £89.99. The installation guide is seven steps. The seventh step is ‘verify’. We have verified the seventh step. [a pause] The dog SE walks in a very wide circle for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours. This is expected. The circle is calibration. We have put this in the guide. The guide is the leaflet. The leaflet is in the box.

Graham

Thank you for coming. The carpet shop is open until five. If you have questions, I will be in the stairwell. [a pause] Knock twice.

(Applause. It is the shortest applause of the evening. It is also the final applause of the evening. The two facts are related. We have logged both.)

[Graham leaves through the door between the carpet shop and the stairwell. The dog enters through the same door. The dog has been waiting. The dog is not part of the presentation. The dog is part of the building. The dog is left in the room with the audience. The dog is asked whether it has questions. The dog does not answer. The dog has not answered. We have stopped asking the dog.]