My bad past experiences with regular dogs have led me to purchase one of those robotic ones, and technically, I should’ve been absolutely in love with Robie. His urine was formulated to emit the aroma of springtime flowers, he guarded my house with precise laser eyes, and whenever I told him to sit, he would get into the lotus position, with the option of turning on soothing Buddhist chants.

But something was not quite right. One night, I saw him sitting by the window, his antennae extended, beeping out signals of some sort. Then when I called his name, he hid the antennae and pretended like nothing had happened. I was convinced that he was scheming to kill me and take my place.

Before I pushed him into the bathtub though, I had to make sure. I asked him straight out, and unexpectedly, he broke down. He wasn’t sending out signals, he said. He was crying.

It turned out that night he had just watched Transformers, and he was depressed he could never live up to that kind of expectations. I put my hand on his head and explained that all those robots were digitally enhanced, and that no real ones actually worked that good. With computers these days, Hollywood has created impossible standards of capability. I told him I never once expected him to be able to transform into a truck, and that was the way I liked him.

Robie nodded, understood. And that evening, he made me the best strawberry ice-cream ever.