William J. McClellan 8 min read

On a lazy spring morning at a country farm, the Commissioner pats the head of a pretty one named Daisy, soft hair, deep blue eyes, lithe rounded lines. 'Nice doggie.'

William J. McClellan's 1954 story plays a sly social-SF game with its bucolic opening, where nothing is quite as innocent as it seems. Wry, twisty golden-age SF. Read it for a story whose gentle farmyard scene conceals a sharp reversal about who, exactly, has gone to the dogs.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

8 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry