I think the dog part really suffered from a quite common syndrome, that the sci-fi author gets some really cool idea/concept, and has to explore it in some cont

I think the dog part really suffered from a quite common syndrome, that the sci-fi author gets some really cool idea/concept, and has to explore it in some context / story, but doesn't really deliver on it. For me the idea/concept was great, the story just boring filler needed to explore the idea.