Doctor Dog is the latest short story for young listeners on the Big Red Balloon Podcast. Funny and absurd, it was inspired by recent conversations (and a few statistics) about the booming number of pet owners in Vienna.

One reason often mentioned is that couples are choosing not to have children, opting instead to complete their family circle with a four‑legged friend. Of course, it’s not just Vienna. Around the world, in many developed nations, birth rates have been falling for decades. In Japan, kindergartens from the post‑war years have become nursing homes. In Italy, once‑thriving hilltop villages have turned into ghost towns, with derelict villas sold for as little as one dollar to anyone willing to stay and have children (and not just dogs or cats). That said, I recommend searching for a more reliable source of facts on such matters than this blog post.

Still, dwindling birth rates made me wonder: if no one is having kids, who will look after us when we’re old? The answer came in the form of this story. Dogs, of course!

Dogs will one day bake our bread, mend our roads, style our hair, straighten our teeth, and heal us when we’re ill. And not just dogs—every pet has its talents. One day, stooped with age, we’ll shuffle through art galleries exhibiting famous works: exquisite watercolours (mostly studies of fish) by Tinkerbell the cat, racy photographs by Toby the tortoise, intricate wood carvings gnawed by Barry the dwarf hamster. You get the idea.

Others will say that AI will save us all, implanted in robots, perhaps even in the form of a dog. That may well be inspiration for another story.

But for now, I invite you to pop over to the Big Red Balloon Podcast with your kids (or your very clever cat or dog) and listen to Doctor Dog.

Featured image by Cyril on Pxabay