He might have been taken aback that I should try for the fourth time, but he ought to have realised by now that the claim to immortality of a dog of my stature and reputation has become overwhelming.
The ascendancy of all dogs — since Dolly the sheep clinched cloning honours back in 1996 — has been unremitting. Lamb cloning didn’t catch on with your average sheep farmer, for reasons obvious to those who have ever tried conversing with a sheep.
But after the South Koreans cloned an Afghan hound named Snuppy, things moved quickly: Barbra Streisand cloned her Coton de Tulear pup, Samantha, and it wasn’t long before an American company, ViaGen, offered to clone dogs for the bargain price of $50,000.
It had occurred to me that The Boss might leave me a little more than that in his will; albeit a pittance compared to what truly adoring owners are doing for their pets.
That gorgeous, trend-setting real estate magnate Leona Helmsley, who died in 2007, left $12 million to a Maltese terrier named Trouble. Her jealous brats objected and clawed back Trouble’s windfall to a miserable $2 million. That would never happen to me.
Then fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld left a chunk of his $300 million fortune to his Burmese cat, Choupette, in 2019, which should keep the pampered puss eating chef-prepared food until she bursts like a balloon.
Unmoved by these trends, The Boss is showing a disturbing lack of awareness of the elevated treatment dogs are receiving these days, despite the hints I’ve been dropping.
Apart from cloning, the more enlightened owners are paying well-known painters to capture portraits of their hounds — portraits worthy of the Archibald — although for cheapskate owners like The Boss, Melbourne artist Mark Kingston will do a tasteful pencil rendition for a mere $500.
The thinking dog owner today takes his or her pooch on holidays, ensures it always has a comfortable dog mattress or, better still, invites the dog on to the matrimonial bed — king-size beds are preferred for hounds of my proportions.
Such dogs are plied with carefully selected food and treats; they are given special treatment in hotels and restaurants, and those with properly resourced owners travel around in private jets.
The current trend to have a social media account for one’s dog is another sign that humans are capable of adapting to the changing hierarchy, which is to say that dogs have become, indisputably, modern society’s royalty.
We dogs have long kept that truth between ourselves — it’s a given. Imagine, for a second, the inevitable conclusion to be drawn by aliens visiting Earth for a look: the sight of millions of humans stooping to pick up dog poo would convince them instantly of our place at the pinnacle of society. What other explanation is there? Woof!
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