Dog Boy

Man's Best Friend has always stood by him against threats and danger... especially after being spliced with human DNA.

Basic Information

Anatomy

All dog-boys are upright, bipedal and have human-like hands. They retain most of their canine facial appearance, but their cranium is a bit larger than a full-blooded dog's would be. 15% retain a digitigrade hind leg, with elongated metatarsals and shorter thighs. This also affects the hips and such morphs tend to be faster in straight distances and can leap farther from a standstill, but suffer from decreased side to side agility since they can not splay or rotate their legs as well.
Other than this one minor morph, the dog boy gene is stable and proven.
A hundred different dog breeds have been tried and some proved best adapted to certain roles. For example, Bay Retreivers and Irish Water Spaniels have been proven excellent marines and sailors in the CS Navy. Hounds of all types are sought after as trackers. German Shepherds (alsatians) are the preferred breed for general purpose employment while Terriers are excellent in tunnels and underground. Dobermans make excellent sentries and greyhounds excellent runners, unsurprisingly. Other popular breeds are pit bulls, boxers and elkhounds for their sheer combat effectiveness and Bull dogs are utterly unflappable as prison guards.

Genetics and Reproduction

As with all mutant animals dogboys can only reproduce with other dogboys.

Growth Rate & Stages

Coalition-bred dog boys reach physical maturity in just over two years, with females ready to breed by age three. Mental maturity requires more time and will usually develop by age six. The time between physical and mental maturity is the toughest, since young dog boys typically must be restrained from acting on their emotional impulses until they develop the wisdom and self-discipline necessary to make correct decisions.
Since they enter coalition service at about the age of six (6) they have a much simpler view of the world than a human recruit.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Do not feed chocolate to a dog boy.

Additional Information

Social Structure

One of the benefits of the Dog Boy program is the level of pack loyalty inherent in the dog boys. They are absolutely jingoistic and will defend their human and dogboy packmates alike, to the death if they must. This behavior is exactly what the Coalition Dog Boy Project was hoping for when it considered creating a rapidly replaceable and relatively disposable infantry force to fight against the supernatural hords rampaging across the planet. But far from being taken advantage of, this loyalty has resulted in reciprocal loyalty among their human Coalition comrades who are more likely to defend their dog boy friends and go down with them than they are to let them sacrifice themselves; much to the chagrin of the military upper echelons and the public at large.
The bonds of loyalty between comrades in combat can never be overestimated.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Dog Boys are far more sensitive to psionic and arcane power than any human. As a result, they form the bulk of the Psi Corps, working closely with Monks of St. Jerry to patrol coalition territory for psionic and arcane threats.
Dog boys who fail to qualify for military service are put to other helpful uses, such as janitorial work or manual labor. These dogs are also the most likely to be mistreated and thus the most likely to abandon the coalition.

Facial characteristics

One of the ways in which dog boys differ from their animal dog analogues is their more fully developed philtrum. (that's the cleft between the nose and upper lip). A dog boy's philtrum is just an indent like that of a human, resulting in a uniform upper lip and enabling far more dextrous lip movements and the ability to reproduce bilabial vocalizations of human speech (p, b and m sounds). The elongated jaws of a dog boy and the lengthened canines that prevent complete airlock of the lips still prevent perfect human diction, but this just provides a character accent.
The largest determinator of human speech in mutant dogs is the shape of their tongues. This is not evident by any examination other than dissection, but the tongue of a dog boy extends back into the throat like that of a human, allowing the entire human range of vocalizations pure canines would find impossible.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Nearly all dog-boys are in service to The Coalition States. And most of them serve as soldiers and "Psi Hounds".
There are a number of Mutant Dogs who have run from the Coalition, but this number is surprisingly few since their ingrained loyalty would prevent them from leaving their "pack" unless they were horribly treated or forced out. Even abandoned dog boys have been known to show up to their home bases years after being thought lost.
Dog boys who have left the Coalition have been able to find others like them and breed stable populations. Their offspring are termed "feral" by the Coalition and will be destroyed when encountered.

Average Intelligence

Dog boys have a wide range of intelligence, similar to that of humans. On average, dog boys are less intelligent than humans, but there are exceptionally intelligent mutant dogs who are more intelligent than most humans just as there are exceptionally stupid humans who are less intelligent than most mutant dogs.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Depending on the source breed of the dog, the senses of a dogboy can vary. In general, however, their sense of smell is phenomenal while their sense of hearing is also much improved over human's.

Names

Dogboys often take the names of other animal species

• Tiger
• Monkey
• Ozark
• Ace
• Sparrow
• Bunny
• Fang
• Felix
• Hondo
• Jack
• Lucky
• Rudolph
• Dasher
• Donner
• Blitzen
• Hawking
• Pussycat
• Kitty
• Snail
• Shark
• Mackeral
• Turtle
• Spider
• Crow
• Lassie

Scientific Name

Canis Lupus Sapiens

Origin/Ancestry

The great minds

Average Physique

Dog Boys are generally fitter than their human counterparts. Much of this has to do with their training and exercise regimen. They are less inclined to complain about their personal comfort so long as they are helping their pack, and they don't naturally feel sorry for themselves like humans do. As a result they will tend to push themselves further during training and not despair as much as their human counterparts.