"So, you gotta tell me, what was it like?" you ask Jonas with a mischievous grin. "You are the first man to have spent some time as man's best friend."
"Well, as you know, I wasn't a man," he smirked, cheekily referring not just to his temporary species change but also to his temporary sex change since you had made him a copy of your female dog. "But just between you and me, you wanna know a secret?" He asks. You nod. He whispers in your ear, "Dogs have it made."
"Oh?" you raise your eyebrow, hoping he goes on to explain. He seems to be finding the words.
"Even little things are really hard to describe about what it was like," he said. "I can look at you right now, and I can see on your face, part of how you are feeling, and we can talk things out and it might take five or ten minutes to explain the rest, just as much as either of us wants to share. But when I was basically Ginny, I got everything basically at once: your mood, everywhere you've been today, what's going on inside your body. I could smell you, and everything that was on you, even things you can't see. I could hear things going on inside your body that it would probably take a medical degree to describe in words. And it wasn't just you, everyone was like that, especially Zeke."
"Wow, that sounds pretty overwhelming," you say, wondering if you'd done the right thing by putting your best friend on the other end of a dog's nose and ears just for a test, when you could have just made him a natural blonde or something.
"It was, at least at first," Jonas said. "But after a while I started taking it for granted. As well as we know each other already, it felt like I'd only ever known you as an internet avatar and was finally meeting you as a real person. It was that dramatic: it was like seeing you through a whole other dimension."
"Well," you add, "every good owner knows that dogs know us better than we know ourselves."
"Yeah, and I could tell you were worried about me but fascinated with me being your pet for a while. You have no idea how hard it is to resist sniffing things and barking at them, though. People say dogs only live in the present moment, but it's just the opposite: you can smell where all the neighborhood dogs have left their mark over the course of days or weeks, and you can hear things from so far away that you know what's ahead of you before you get there. I knew most of what was going on in the neighborhood at the beginning of our walk, I even heard a storm coming this direction from probably a dozen miles away."
"Hm, I hoped I wouldn't have to water my petunias," you comment. "Yeah, that sounds pretty intense. No wonder dogs seem to bark at nothing. They notice things that aren't even on our radar yet."
"It's like having the past, present, and future all unfolding before you. And, well, I probably shouldn't be admitting this, but dog treats are amazing."
"And you get to go around naked," you winked, "and pee on fire hydrants instead of in the toilet." Instead of answering, he blushed again. It seemed like he wanted to say something about that but didn't know what. He still seemed oddly fidgety in a way you rarely saw him unless he was going through some kind of sudden loss.
"Is that why you were so nervous after you changed back? Trying to figure out what was real and how I felt about you after all that?" you asked, lightbulbs going off in your head. "Because you were back in the present, and you had to figure things out with words, and I was basically just my avatar again?"
Jonas nodded. You'd been worried about leaving a human mind in a dog body for too long. You hadn't considered the mind-shattering potential of the opposite: letting someone experience the unspeakable bond that a dog has with her human end and then instantly swiping it away after 30 minutes. You decide it's time to make the same proposal you've been wanting to make ever since he changed back: "You know, now that we have the technology, you really can try that again any time you want," you say with a smile. He looks you in the eye tentatively.
"Really? I mean, no I couldn't put you through that again. It's too weird. You'd have to clean up after me, and I might have a hard time resisting another mate, and--"
"Jonas, look at my face. Listen to my words. Remember what you just told me about the feelings you picked up from me as a dog. I love dogs, I don't mind taking care of them, and you are my best friend in either form or as anything else you want my machine to turn you into. I enjoyed our little experiment as much as you did, and it wasn't just because I was proud of the tech. If there are more things you would like to try as my dog, you can try them."
"... Even if I wanted to try them right now?"
You smile. He smiles. You whistle. "Time to get back in the chamber, girl."
"I wanna be a BOY dog this time, though. And make me something other than a beagle. Something large, something impressive, something more like Zeke."
"You got it, buddy." You set the settings, excited that you get to try more dog things with your best human friend. And maybe you'll get a chance to introduce him as a dog to Ginny this time. The buzzing starts, the light comes on, and rub your hands together in anticipation.