I read these stories a long time ago and have been recently searching for them with no luck. I'm not even sure if they're part of the same story or different stories. I'm sure I got some details wrong; human memories are finicky.
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Story 1.
The story began by saying the US Government (I think specifically the Bush administration?) banned clothing for animals on grounds of animal cruelty. Then for some reason they suspected that some humans only look human but aren't really human, so they came up with a DNA test that looked for certain genetic markers. Someone came up with a drug that would alter those markers in a person so they would fail the test and be considered an animal (therefore not allowed to wear clothes).
A few plot points that I remember:
- The government eventually discovered the drug, but argued that the reason of the change does not negate the nature of the change, and these people are still considered animals.
- Some government agents would bust into a workplace upon discovering a failed test, strip the person naked, (push them down on all fours?), and when questioned by the victim what's going on, they wouldn't answer them (because who talks to animals?).
- Some people, upon learning that they've failed the test, would beg their family / friends to become their owner / handler and promise to be a "good doggy" or something.
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Story 2.
The story is about a government? / non-profit? organization that looks after the welfare of human animals. It's called a Human Animal Rescue Team or something like that.
Plot points I remember:
- We're following the operation of one such team and we discover an abandoned farm? / warehouse? where human animals were kept in poor condition. Maybe the owner has fled?
- We discover all types of human animals (dogs, ponies, maybe cats?) but this was not a surprise to our agents carrying out the operation.
- Some ponies were made to sleep standing up, and the agent comments "since real horses sleep standing up, some owners feel like their human horses should too".
- There was a mention that some of these human animals were new to the scene and didn't know that the arrival of the task force meant help has come.
- However the team was not there to free the human animals from being animals. They rescue them from mistreatment, but still treat them as animals. They mention that sometimes the human animals get abandoned for so long that they start to "backslide" (I think is the word used in the story), i.e. they forget their training and start to do human things (like using speech) and they'd have to retrain them.
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Story 3.
Our protagonist went to a bar one night in a shady alley and racked up some debt (forgot his wallet, maybe?). Henchmen of the bar owner tracked down the protagonist after a few weeks and said, at 100% interest rate per week, now he owes a large sum of money, and he's forced to work off the debt at the bar. Turns out that meant he was to become the owner's pet dog (trussed up in a dog suit and all that).
Plot points I remember:
- Although the bar owner had several obedient servants (maybe all acquired through debt indenture?), only our protagonist was a human animal.
- All servants were extremely submissive and obedient to the bar owner, who I think is called Charlie. Whatever Charlie told them to do, they would say "yes Charlie" and go do it.
- Our protagonist's first encounter with Charlie scared him. While all the servants were saying "yes Charlie", the protagonist was saying "yes Mr. Charlie" to show respect, only to learn Charlie prefers to be called without the "Mr."
- At one point Charlie asked one of his servants to prepare some food for the protagonist. Charlie then asked if the food was good. The servant said "it's okay". Charlie got mad and said "you feed my dog only okay food?" then told the servant to go around the bar asking each customer to spit in the food, then eat it himself. The servant said "yes Charlie" and went on to do that without objection.
- At one point our dog-protagonist had paid down half the debt, but got severely injured and Charlie allowed him to take a week off to recover. However, because the interest rate on the debt was 100% per week, that meant he was back to square one on the debt payment.
- One day Charlie took our dog-protagonist out for a walk and parked the dog somewhere on the street. Some pedestrians were passing by and the protagonist was worried that he'd be arrested for indecent exposure, but the pedestrian didn't even blink an eye, saying something like "old Charlie got himself a new dog again".
- Eventually our protagonist escaped Charlie's control (I don't remember if he was let go or escaped), and immediately went to the police station. Police asked him where this bar was, and he said on XYZ street. Police said there's no such street in this town, and when our protagonist went to see it for himself, the alley had disappeared.
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Thanks a million for any tips.
Topic: Looking for a few human-animal-themed stories (Read 5292 times)