‘Who’s a good boy then?’ Michael called out cheerfully, crouching down in the back garden. ‘Come here!’

A light brown hound dog trotted towards his extended hand and placed himself on the ground. Named after the fact that he would sniff the ground on occasions, Smelly looked cautious as he approached his master.

Michael adjusted his glasses and stared at the dog’s tail as he scratched under its collar. His other hand waited to strike. The dog lifted an eyebrow and stared at his owner’s face mournfully, trying as hard as he could not to wag his tail. But his instincts soon took over.

‘Bad dog!’ Michael yelled, delivering a blow to the dog’s head. ‘Bad, bad dog!’ He gave half a grin as he took his notebook from his pocket. ‘Interesting, he chuckled, patting the dog on the head. ‘Come on, Smelly, come inside!’

A professor of philosophy, Michael Verrenkamp had been studying Smelly’s tail-wagging for over a week now and was pleased at the results. The physical act of beating the dog was interrupting its instinctive nature and he couldn’t wait to tell his students of the progress! But for now, it was Saturday night and he was excited. Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show was about to start.

‘I pity the sad fools who are wasting their time with friends!’ he laughed, turning up the volume and waiting in anticipation. He had spent the last year filming his dog on a weekly basis, and yet had only been able to have his footage screened once. The sight of his dog plummeting off a five metre diving board had been sandwiched into a musical collage of the song 'How much is that doggy in the window’, and at any rate it only achieved a slight chuckle for the two seconds it aired.

But tonight’s footage would be hilarious, Michael told himself. Who wouldn’t laugh at the sight of a dog being dragged behind a car by a tangled leash? He was never to know, as yet again, his footage wasn’t aired.

‘Damn you, Smelly!’ Michael cursed, standing up abruptly and pointing a sharp finger. ‘Why don’t you learn to act? I could have one first prize!’ He proceeded to kick the dog in the rib.

Smelly’s eyes looked as though they would soon overflow with tears. He felt terribly guilty about his failings as a pet. His existence seemed to be making his owner more and more upset. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong but he knew one thing. He was a failure. And his owner’s threat to replace him with a robot seemed more and more likely.

‘You see this!’ Michael pointed, opening up a brochure at his pet’s face. ‘The Sony Aibo! This is what I call a REAL dog! Doesn’t smell, doesn’t require me to spend my hard earned cash on food, doesn’t need check-ups! And what’s more, he can do back-flips! And what can you do? Nothing. God, you disgust me!’

After another lonely night at home, Michael sighed, brushing away a tear nostalgically. He placed a photo of an attractive looking woman back on his bedside table. He had never met the woman but he liked to pretend that she was a wife that had, perhaps, passed away.

‘Come on Smelly, time for food!’ he called out, clapping his hands together and moving into the kitchen. The dog waited by his side as he opened up a bag of Pal Meaty-bites. ‘Here you go!’

He put a handful of moist, meaty chunks towards Smelly’s mouth. Just as the dog stuck his tongue out to take them, Michael pulled the chunks away and shoved them into his own mouth.

‘Whoops!’ he laughed, watching the dog’s mouth salivating. ‘Okay, seriously, here you go.’ He repeated the same action, teasingly pulling the dog food away from Smelly and pouring the food into his own laughing mouth. ‘Ha, ha! Sorry boy!’

This continued until there were only a few chunks left. Michael was beginning to feel slightly queasy. Teasing his dog was tough work, but it was worth it. Gone were the lonely nights at home preparing notes for philosophy lectures. Ever since he bought his dog, he had a hobby. ‘Okay boy, you want what’s left? Fine! But first you have to do my tax return. Come on boy! Do my tax, boy!’ he pointed.

After a trip to the toilet, Michael found that his dog had not even picked up the pen.

‘Bad, bad dog!’ Michael scolded yet again. ‘You useless, worthless, smelly mutt! You know what Descartes thinks about you right? You have no soul! You have no mind! You don’t think!’

Smelly lowered his head onto the cold kitchen tiles and whined.

‘Rene Descartes is one of the greatest minds ever, idiot! And if he says that you can’t think, it must be true!’ Michael’s voice became even more viscous. ‘You don’t exist, boy! You are nothing but a worthless, disgusting brute!’ He angrily opened up the back door and kicked him outside.

Smelly had given up howling months ago. Now, as he lay outside in the cold rain, he simply put his head down in the mud and whined. He had stopped trying to jump at the meat that dangled from the rope, held from the second story of the house by his grinning owner. He positioned his body on the western side of the kennel, so as to avoid the diagonal moving rainfall. Unfortunately for Smelly, his owner had not given the kennel an entrance; the hope was that he would lie on the top, similar to Snoopy, as such an action could be filmed and submitted to channel nine.

As the night stretched on, words began to fill Smelly’s head. ‘Why do I exist? What good is my life? My owner doesn’t love me. He hates me! I am worthless! I wish I had never been born!’

The words happened to be coming from a nearby bush. Smelly lifted a saggy eyebrow and saw a vaguely familiar face. It was the vet who, years ago, had sewn four stitches on his neck after Michael decided it would be hilariously ironic to bite him.

‘Why, hi there, little fella!’ the old man hissed, stroking his tiny goatee. ‘Why so glum?’ The dog looked at him in sorrow, giving a long, quiet whine. ‘Well, you come with me, boy! I think I can make it all better!’ he sneered and, clutching Smelly’s collar, led him quickly out of the side gate and into a white van.

Dr Harris was no longer the local vet. Although he had loved helping animals in his youthful years, after constantly having to put animals down, it soon became a bad habit. He was addicted. Dogs would be given to him for vaccines, and the look of horror he received from their owners when he returned their pets dead was no deterrent.

An inquest by the RSPCA meant he was forced to leave the surgery, and after growing his grey hair in an eccentric manner, he moved up into the Dandenong Ranges. He was more or less looked at by the locals as 'the mad vet' and spent the majority of his time experimenting with different ways of putting animals to sleep. Although these days, his story was that he wasn’t killing the dogs, so much as assisting with their suicide.

‘I’m doing this for your own good, boy,’ Dr Harris glared. ‘You want to suicide, I can see it in your eyes. Well, I am here to help!’ He began driving to his secret surgery in Dandenong Ranges, aptly named the ‘Put Down Parlour’. The ex-vet could hardly wait.

As Smelly lay on the cold, white floor with a fluorescent light shining down on his body, Dr Harris excitedly whistled to himself. These days nothing gave him greater pleasure than putting down a dog. The days of looking away nervously as he injected a needle were over. It had now become an art. He would prepare for days, thinking of new and exciting ways to put down animals. For a cat it could be as simple as an exploding mouse or as complicated as dropping it from a great height nine times until the lives had expired. For dogs it was even more fun. Indeed, it was a musical occasion!

‘You don’t want to live, boy,’ he grinned. ‘Everyone hates dogs.’ He pressed play on a nearby CD player. ‘You ain’t nothing but a hound dog, boy!’ he laughed, dancing to the Elvis rendition of the tune. ‘You ain’t no friend of mine!’

When the dog began wagging it’s tail he realised the message wasn’t getting through. He changed the CD over to 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'.

'Even the Beatles don't like you, boy!' Dr Harris cackled as he skipped through to the end of the song 'A Day in the Life', to where the five second, high-pitched sound could be heard. Smelly flinched and yelped in pain. 'They put that sound in just to annoy you! Because they hate you!' Smelly put his paws over his ears.

Dr Harris switched off the song and sighed. ‘Listen to me, boy,’ he said calmly. ‘You are going to suicide whether you like it or not! I’d put you down myself but, well, that would be murder, wouldn’t it?’ he chuckled. ‘So it’s all up to you boy! Don’t worry, I have a way you can kill yourself and enjoy it too!’ Dr Harris took from his pocket a bar of dark chocolate. He tore the paper away and took a mouthful. ‘This is really good! Of course, dogs can’t eat chocolate. Especially not dark chocolate, it contains too much theobromine. It kills them!’

Smelly was presented with the dark piece of chocolate. It lay straight in front of his nose.

‘Eat it! Eat it!’ Dr Harris urged, staring ferociously.

The sad hound dog smelt the sweet, shiny chocolate but dared not eat it. Surely there must be a place in the world for a dog. There must be someone that loved him.

‘Don’t forget about Descartes,’ Dr Harris snarled. ‘He hates you. You are a beast with no mind! You have no soul!’

Smelly’s eyes began to water. The viscous sound of the vet’s voice was depressing him.

‘You are nothing, boy! You don’t exist!’

His nose moved towards the chocolate.

‘Descartes, boy,’ Dr Harris whispered viciously. ‘Rene Descartes.’

Smelly closed his eyes and opened his mouth. It was at that moment that his owner, Michael came running into the room in a state of panic.

'What are you doing boy? I looked over at the radar near my bed and it said you were gone! What are you doing boy?'

'If you don't mind, your dog is trying to kill himself,' Dr Harris said impatiently.

'What?' Michael cried. 'No, don't kill yourself boy! I love you! I need you, you're my best friend in the whole world! You're my only friend!'

Smelly looked at his owner and wagged his tail. He never realised that he meant so much to his him.

'Come on, let me take you home.' Smelly leaped into Michael's arms and licked his cheek.

'Wait, you forgot your chocolate boy!' Dr Harris called out as they left the surgery. 'Damn it,' he grimaced, clicking his fingers in disappointment. 'I was so close!'

‘Here, have a Shmacko,’ Michael said, offering a chewy dog treat across to the back seat of the car. Just as Smelly attempted to take it from his hand, Michael pulled it away and put it in his mouth. ‘Whoops, sorry boy!’ he laughed.

Smelly stared at his owner woefully and stopped wagging his tail.

‘No, you wont be getting put down, boy,’ Michael laughed. ‘Unless it’s verbal, that is.’ He turned around and looked at the dog angrily. ‘You stupid, insignificant, beast with no mind!'

And Smelly lived with Michael unhappily for the rest of his life.