"At least you appreciate me, don't ya boy?" said Parker. The friendly retriever barked. Parker thought about changing Buddy into a human, and then he asked himself, what would be the point? So Buddy could live with him as yet another brother in Troy's shadow? So Buddy could get grounded with him whenever his grades dropped because he had to spend more time helping Troy with his homework than doing his own? So their parents could remind Buddy every day what a failure he was if he wanted to be an author rather than become a doctor like everyone else in the family had? Besides, his parents would be furious to have yet another human to take care of, and it would all be Parker's fault, like always. Hardly a day went by that Parker didn't get reminded that his parents only intended to have one child, although his parents would never admit that that's why they were always disappointed in him. It was always just, "Why can't you be more like Troy?" or "Why didn't you do more to help Troy; he's a busy boy, you know!"
Come to think of it, Buddy's life was a lot better than Parker's, or so Parker thought. Daily walks in the park, praise and treats for simple things like a handshake, toys to play with whenever he wanted, and no school or summer jobs to worry about. Oh yeah, and there was no one to constantly nitpick Buddy's choice of clothes, because Buddy never had to wear anything but a collar, and maybe an embarrassing costume on Halloween. Parker did more work than anyone in taking care of Buddy, but no one else ever thanked him for doing a good job--except Buddy, who barked, wagged his tail frantically, and jumped up on him every time he got home. Buddy hardly ever even seemed to notice when Troy got home, and that was one of the things Parker loved about Buddy. Maybe if Parker was a dog, too, everyone could finally give up the pretense that he would ever meet his parents' ridiculously high expectations. Maybe he could leave behind the constant pressure to simultaneously be as good as Troy, put in all the work to feed the myth that Troy was some sort of golden child, and just butt out and stay out of everyone's way. Maybe Troy would have to take on some of the less glamorous pet care responsibilities for once. And as for his parents, maybe having an unexpected second dog to take care of would be easier and more fun than the unexpected human son Parker had turned out to be. It sound like a win-win for everybody.
And so it was that Parker, so jaded about his life that he was ready to part with his human existence already at the age of 16, edited the transformation gun's data on his species to "Dog, Labrador Retriever" like Buddy. His family's relationship data auto-updated to from genetic relatives to part-owners, which made Parker hesitate for a second. 'Oh well,' he thought, 'they treat me like property anyway, so here goes.' Parker pointed the device at himself, pressed the button for finalizing the transformation, and gasped when a bright light filled his vision and an electric shock went through his body. Dropping the device to the ground, Parker winced and rubbed his eyes while Buddy barked, noticing that something had startled his favorite master. When his vision returned, Parker petted the dog's head reassuringly and scolded himself.
"That was stupid," he said aloud with no one human to hear him, "shocking myself with an unknown device. I didn't have the faintest idea what that thing was, it just said it was a transformation gun and a random delivery dude said it was some kind of problem solve. For all I knew, it was all a trap and that thing would have killed me. You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to your main man Parker, would you Buddy?"
Parker was secretly thrilled with the idea that someone out there would consider him important enough to target in some intricate assassination plot, tricking him into committing suicide. It sounded like a decent plot for a novel. While he was still petting Buddy, he noticed that even though he could see again, everything was blurry and the colors of the room seemed less vivid. He wondered when the rest of his vision would come back after that blinding light. Instead of his eyesight sharpening or his reds and greens reasserting themselves, however, his nose started zeroing in on the smells around him, to a degree he'd never noticed it could. He could smell Buddy's relieved, friendly labrador scent and his own cynical, dejected human odor. It surprised him that he could smell how he and his pet were feeling, and it surprised him even more that he could smell Buddy's dog treats downstairs, as well as other food. He lifted his nose up in the air and sniffed, just to take full inventory of everything he could detect around him. The information he got from doing so would have taken him pages of writing to express in words. It was like having time-lapse sonar in his face, giving him a newfound mental map of his surroundings both in and out of the room: some smells were closer, some were farther away, some were fresh and some were hours, days, or weeks old it seemed.
"Wow, Buddy, I guess it's true what they say about your other senses getting stronger after you're blinded," Parker commented when he felt the need to use words again. He wasn't quite sure how his nose had gotten so effective so quickly, but it helped that he could seemingly fit more air in his nasal cavities and keep it there longer, since his nose was getting bigger and had seemingly even taken his mouth out front with it. Trying to make another comment didn't work, because his tongue didn't respond the way he was used to. He barely managed some slurred gibberish before a longer, floppier tongue spilled out from the front of the broad, vaguely rectangle projection that his mouth and nose had fused into. In some ways, Parker found he had even more control of his tongue from before, but that control was largely concentrated in the lower of half of his tongue, which curled and flapped around curiously before him. Reaching up to touch it revealed just how wide the outwardly hanging part of his tongue was now and how far down it dangled under his shrinking chin.