My Dog Did Some Shady Research…🐶🥶
It all started last Tuesday afternoon when I stumbled upon the forbidden stash under Chester’s dog bed—a pile of shredded papers stamped with “Confidential” in crimson ink. My heart raced. Was Chester, my six‑year‑old golden retriever, moonlighting as an espionage operative?
Moments earlier, Chester had been acting peculiarly. He stared at me with those soulful amber eyes, head tilted, as if he knew more than he was letting on. He pawed at the door when I left the room. Now, I realized those weren’t random chews—they were carefully targeted.
I crouched beside the rug, gathering the fragments. At first glance, they looked like harmless memos. But a closer inspection revealed redacted employee-satisfaction surveys from my tech‑startup job, with margins annotated in paw‑prints. Chester had chewed through sections estimating employee comp plans, only leaving clues pointing at executive bonuses.
Alarmed, I tried to confront him. “Chester, why are you stealing secrets?” I asked. He wagged his tail, tongue lolling, oblivious—until he padded to my laptop and gently pressed a paw on the spacebar. The screen lit up: “Login attempt from Unauthorized Device: ChesterD00g.” My jaw dropped.
Had Chester tapped into the company servers? I rang IT, but once I mentioned “pawprints” on my keyboard, they laughed it off. “Maybe you stepped on some encrypted keys,” they joked.
Still, more clues appeared. At breakfast, Chester nudged a USB stick off the counter. It had “Q3 Strategy” scrawled on it. I picked it up and plugged it in—just in time to see a dossier named “Puppy 5-Year Plan—a.k.a. Project Alpha.” It outlined a plan for boosting morale through puppy‑therapy kiosks, disguised as a financial forecast. Was this Chester’s brainchild?
I had no choice but to bring him in. I paused on my way to work, Chester riding shotgun—ears flapping like little flags. At the office, I escorted him to the CEO’s office. My boss, Mr. Nguyen, peered over his glasses. Chester sat patiently, head cocked, as if he’d rehearsed this moment.
“Sir,” I began, “I believe Chester here has been conducting market research…on our own employees.”
Mr. Nguyen raised an eyebrow. “Market…research?” he echoed. Then, he chuckled. “That’s your dog’s initiative?” He downloaded the USB contents. When he saw the proposal, he whistled low.
“We’ve toyed with employee engagement ideas, but a puppy‑therapy pilot? That’s… brilliant.” He stroked Chester’s head. “I think this shady research might be golden.”
The rest of the day blurred. We pitched Chester’s plan—it went live next month in the breakroom. Employees gush about their daily “Chester sessions.” Morale is up, sick days are down. Chester’s become an office legend. PR even wants to make him a mascot.
Reflecting that evening, I realized Chester’s methods may’ve seemed shady—a shredded‑papers scandal, laptop paw‑tampering—but motives were pure. The “dog ate my homework” excuse has always been a comedy cliché—and yes, dogs do eat paper reddit.com+7indiesunlimited.com+7imagineforest.com+7en.wikipedia.org—but Chester flipped it. Instead of derailing work, he engineered a morale revolution.
These days, whenever someone asks how we came up with the idea, we point to Chester and grin: “Let’s just say our dog did some… shady research.”
