Investigations of a Dog

"Investigations of a Dog" (German: "Forschungen eines Hundes") is a short story by

The unnamed narrator, a dog, recounts a number of episodes from its past, in which it used quasi-scientific and rational methods to resolve basic questions of its existence that most of its peers were content to leave unanswered, such as: "Whence does the Earth procure its food?".[2]

Many of the seemingly absurd descriptions employed by the narrator express its misapprehension or confusion about the world, centering on dogkind's apparent inability to realize (or, some passages suggest, unwillingness to acknowledge) the existence of their human masters: the narrator is shocked into scientific investigation by witnessing seven dogs standing on their hind legs and performing to music (a troupe of circus or performing animals), and spends much time investigating "soaring dogs", tiny dogs lacking legs who silently exist above the heads of normal dogs while sometimes constantly talking nonsense (a reference to His Master's Voice and gramophones of human voices;^[3] cf His Master's Voice), and what actions or rituals summon forth food.

References

German Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Forschungen eines Hundes

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