Fido

A fido (pronounced /ˈfaɪdoʊ/) is a beastly creature of Cocoro that devours almost anything organic, and quite a few things that aren't. It is not above mucking through mud and garbage in search of food, but more often just eats whatever it finds in its path. Fidos' quisquilious diet is, however, precisely what makes them useful; despite their own graveolence and general unpleasantness, their voracious and indiscriminate appetite at least does keep their environments free of refuse, since the fidos eat it all.

A typical fido appears much like a smallish dog, though, like most things of Cocoro, it may be distorted and asymmetrical and look somehow off. Fidos tend to have a foul odor, and often are seen with bits of rotten meat or other ordure around their teeth.

The accepted plural of "fido" is simply fidos, but the irregular plural "fidimus" (pronounced /ˈfaɪdᵻməs/ or /ˈfɪdᵻməs/) is in frequent jocular use.

Etymology

The name of the fido almost certainly comes from the fact that Fido was a common name for pet dogs for a time on prediasporan Earth. The name had fallen out of favor by the late twentieth century, possibly due to oversaturation, but lingered in popular culture as a stereotypical dog name even if by then few dogs actually bore it. Ultimately, the dog name Fido derives mostly from the Latin verb fīdō, meaning roughly "to trust". This is the paronomastic origin of the facetious plural "fidimus"—fīdō is actually the first-person singular present tense form of the verb, and fīdimus is the corresponding first-person plural form. (Unlike English where the infinitive is used as the dictionary form of a verb, in Latin the first-person singular present tense active form fills that role.) However, it is likely that in some cases the name was associated instead with the Italian or Spanish adjective fido, both of which words derive from the Latin fīdus and are of course cognates of the Latin verb. (It is perhaps worth noting, however, that the pronunciation of these words was different from how the name "Fido" is pronounced in English; the Latin fīdō and the Italian and Spanish fido were all pronounced more like /ˈfiːdoʊ/ than /ˈfaɪdoʊ/.)

In its heyday, the Terran popularity of the name "Fido" was given boosts by two famous dogs of that name that lived almost a century apart—one the dog of venerated United States President Abraham Lincoln, the other a dog of mid-twentieth-century Italy that became famous for its fidelity to its master. However, while these exemplars may have played a role in popularizing the name, they did not originate it; at least as back as 1760 a newspaper in London made reference to "a ſmall white Greyhound with a Collar, anſwers to the Name of Fido". Despite some erroneous claims, though, the name cannot be traced all the way back to classical antiquity; there is no record of the name Fido ever having been used for dogs in ancient Rome.

Some linguists believe that the appropriation of the name "Fido" to refer to the Cocoran creature may owe a significant debt to its use in certain computer games.

Origins

The origins of the Fido date back to a conflict called the Cinnamon War, when six major bosses of Cocoro were engaged in a sanguinary struggle, throwing endless waves of their loyalists at each other and resulting in tremendous loss of life. Of course, there may have been no permanent casualties, given the participants' ability to simply spawn more duplicates, but still bodies piled up, and the streets were choked with ket and cruor. One of the warring bosses, Minax, developed the fido for the purpose of cleaning up the carrion. It's frequently told that it was Minax's sharing her creation with the other bosses that brought an end to the dimication, though this is probably an exaggeration if not an outright fabrication.

The fidos did not immediately spread to all parts of Cocoro. However, as other bosses visited areas where they were used, or heard about them from secondhand sources, gradually more and more of them saw the utility of the creatures to keep their territories clean, and spawned fidos of their own. It took perhaps some forty or fifty years after the Cinnamon War until fidos were commonplace over most of Cocoro.

Anatomy

in most respects, the fido's anatomy closely belikes—and is obviously patterned after—that of the dog it (somewhat) resembles. Like dogs, fidos have extremely keen senses of smell, with large olfactory bulbs in their brains, and lamina transversa bones to trap odors in their nasal cavities even after exhalation. They have nictitating membranes on their eyes, though in most fido varieties these are rarely visible. They have circumanal scent glands they may use to mark their territory—although in perhaps intentionally ironic contrast to the fido's usual notorious stench, the secretions of the anal glands of many fido breeds are designed to have pleasant aromas, at least when somehow separated from the fido's familiar fetor. Like dogs, fidos do not rely on sweat for thermoregulation—while they have apocrine sweat glands in each follicle, these serve no defervescent function, and while they do have eccrine sweat glands that may help with cooling, these glands exist only on their noses and paws. However, unlike dogs, fidos eliminate waste heat not primarily by panting but by almost continuously emitting hot air from their anuses, a sort of thermoregulatory flatulence.

There are other differences between fidos and dogs that are less obvious. Fidos lack dogs' red-green colorblindness and in fact most if not all fidos have pentachromatic vision and can see into the ultraviolet and infrared parts of the spectrum. Another significant difference is in the fido's teeth; most fidos have multiple, replenishable rows of teeth, like a shark, and are little hindered by the loss or breakage of a tooth since they have replacements ready to rotate in. Perhaps the most notable anatomical difference, however, is in the fido's digestive system. Rather than the relatively simple, largely linear alimentary canal of a typical canid, the fido has a complex system with no fewer than six stomachs, or stomachlike organs: after passing through the esophagus, the fido's food first enters a toothed proventriculus, then passes into a multivalvular chamber called an aula. From here, the food is directed into one of three interconnected compartments. Plant matter and other food that is more easily broken down with the help of bacteria enters the reticulum. Bones, shells, and other hard matter go to the battuarium. Most other matter, including potentially toxic or corrosive material, enters the mistarius. From any of these compartments, the food finally reaches the abomasum, which is similar to the human stomach, and from there continues to the duodenum. This complex division of the gastrointestinal tract takes up enough space that many types of fido have their other abdominal organs reduced to accomodate it; others actually fit it through some internal fersion.

Behavior

While their temperament varies by breed, fidos are almost universally ill-tempered and snappish, prone to growl and nip at anyone who comes too close. They are not, however, usually aggressive enough to attack conscious creatures near their own size. Unconscious creatures, however, are fair game, and anyone sleeping in a fido's territory might find themselves waking in a brand new duplicate.

Most fidos stick to a defined territory of some few thousand square meters, and do not stray far from it. While fidos may be refractory and all but untrainable in most regards, defining their territory is relatively easy; provide plentiful food for the fido in a specific area for a few days (while making sure there isn't food readily available in a margin around it at least a few meters wide), and the fido will adopt that area as its territory until circumstances change.

Reproduction

Fidos are generally created with duplicators, and have no need for any other means of propagation. If a Cocoran boss or another inhabitant decides they want more fidos around to help reduce the refuse, they will simply use a duplicator to produce as many fidos as they want. As is the case with many cænobiotes, the paradigms used to create fidos usually (but not always) incorporate a certain amount of randomization, such that the fidos generated won't all be exact genetic copies but will exhibit some measure of diversity.

It has happened, however, that some fidos have been created with complete reproductive systems—capable, on coupling with another fido similarly endowed, of sexual procreation. Sometimes this seems to have happened accidentally, the creator of a new fido paradigm having been careless in what parts they copied from existing animals. On at least a few occasions, however, people have apparently intentionally created such self-propagating fidos, either as a labor-saving measure to give an area a large population of fidos or in an attempt to sabotage a rival's domain. Despite their reproductive abilities, such fido "families" tend to be self-limiting; the fidos' competitive and territorial nature, added to the fact that they eat anything remotely edible they come across and hence deplete the resources that would sustain others, usually means that few can coexist too close for long. However, there is one area of Navagova, Pietown, that somehow has sustained a dense population of such fidos for several decades. It isn't clear what these fidos are living on, and no one has made much effort to investigate, in spite of or perhaps largely because of the rumors that the fidos of Pietown are unusually intelligent.

Varieties

Most fidos still follow the same general pattern as the original; a fido of this type is called a "standard fido", or a spot. There are, however, many other kinds of fido that have been designed, some of the most common of which include the following:

Amiak

Amiaks have long fur which, unfortunately, inevitably tends to get matted with dust, filth, and gore. They do groom themselves frequently, but some would argue not frequently enough.

Bingo

The bingo is a fido variety known for its large size and strength, as well as its capacity for brief bursts of high speed.

Bowser

The bowser is most notable for its hard shell—often, though not always, adorned with spikes. It is perhaps the hardiest fido variety, though it tends to be slow-moving.

Chihuado

The chihuado is a small but tenacious fido variety with a shrill yelping cry. Its size lets it enter confined spaces where other fidos can't fit.

Dozer

Dozers have large, rutriform lower jaws, with which they can efficiently scoop up large quantities of matter. They may be pantophagous even by fido standards, feasting on feculence even their confamiliars would shun.

Dureido

In contrast to most fidos' fissiped feet, the dureido is solipedal, bearing hard hooves that enable it to run at great speeds, at the cost of some balance and grip.

Garmer

Also called a hellhound, the garmer is an especially belligerent fido variety that possesses a venomous bite.

Heffalump

The heffalump is among the largest breeds of fido, as well as one of the least canine in appearance. It has a long prehensile trunk it can use to manipulate objects in search of food.

Huchax

The huchax is best known for being covered in swollen blisters filled with a caustic liquid olid even compared to the rest of the fido.

Idiado

The idiado is a sharp-featured fido whose most unusual feature is its multiple tongues, which it can extend to surprising lengths.

Poodo

Poodos are distinguished both by their large puffs of curly hair and by their agility and acrobatic abilities.

Qiqirn

Named after a creature from Inuit mythology, the qiqirn is a fido variety adapted to pageric climates. It is hairless except at the tips of its extremities.

Qursh

The qursh is a winged variety of fido, its faculty of flight allowing it to cover a much wider area than most of its kin.

Rex

In stark contrast to most fidos, the rex is designed for attractiveness and æsthetic appeal, though the effect is perhaps somewhat diminished by its usual uncleanliness.

Rover

The rover has large paws and a rolling gait often seen as comical, but is particularly noted for the fact that unlike most fidos it wanders over large distances rather than staying in defined territories.

Ruscatone

The ruscatone has the ability to change its color; more raptorious than most fidos, it often uses this faculty to lay ambushes for unwary prey.

Sinido

The skin of the sinido exudes a glutinous substance that causes objects that come in contact with it to adhere to the sinido and to each other.

Tserber

The tserber is a three-headed fido variety, each head having its own brain and its own consciousness, and controlling the rest of the body jointly with the others.

Xolodo

The xolodo is a depilous variety of fido with an unusually high body temperature. For unclear reasons, the xolodo's feet are reversed, its toes pointing in the caudal direction.

Diseases and disorders

Despite or perhaps because of their habitual immundity, fidos are highly resistant to most diseases. There are, however, a few disorders that occasionally afflict them. Despite their reputation for being able to eat anything, the fido's digestive system does have its limits, and they sometimes suffer from a condition called cacemesis that causes them to constantly vomit—while the fidos themselves seem relatively unbothered by this, the puddles of putrid parbreak a cacemetic fido leaves around its territory are unpleasant at best. Other illnesses of fidos include vilebloat, which causes them to swell up with gas and have difficulty moving; blackpaw, a circulatory disorder that prevents their extremities from receiving sufficient blood; and clutch, a strange condition that causes the creature to undergo frequent bouts of temporary muscle paralysis.

Disease may be infrequent in fidos, but parasites are much less so. Fidos are often beset by common parasites such as fleas, screwworms, and nematodes, especially the dog roundworm Toxocara canis. Specialized parasites also exist that are unique to fidos, though given the fidos' relatively recent artificial origin it's unclear how this came about; the simplest explanation is that someone intentionally created them, though it's not entirely impossible that they arose some other way. In any case, the dogspot is a colorful flatworm that embeds itself in the fido's skin; the bronzeworm is a particularly hardy tapeworm that is able to avoid digestion in the fido's stomachs; the scrupe is a parasitic snail that colonizes the fido's anal region.

Notable fidos

For the most part, fidos are just seen as something in between wildlife and working animals. Fidos are a part of the background of Cocoran life, and individual fidos are not usually given much consideration. However, there are a few fidos that either due to their own characteristics or due to the uses and modifications imposed on them by their masters have attained a recognizable prominence. Some of the most notable fidos include the following:

The Behemoth

Also called the Beast of Bethiam, the Behemoth is a fido of extraordinary size and unclear origins. While some half-hearted attempts have been made to destroy or capture the Behemoth, it has become enough of a tourist attraction that nowadays most inhabitants of its stomping ground don't want it gone.

Bendicò

While he's uncharacteristically jovial and friendly for a fido, the most remarkable thing about Bendicò is his location—not on Cocoro, but on the distant planet of Gialeggio. How he got there remains unknown; it's not clear whether he was generated on that world or generated on Kadis and transported there.

Blip

Blip is an otherwise unremarkable Fido who somehow acquired the ability of teleportation. Some scientists have tried to get their hands on her to discover how it works, but the very capacity they want to study makes her difficult to capture.

Caball

Ithuriel, boss of the region he calls Cuculia, uses the specially designed and trained fido Caball as a guardian and attack beast.

Dodo

Dodo is a pampered pet of the powerful boss Black Annie, who dotes on this malodorous creature and keeps its patchy fur dyed bright pink.

Lord Médor

Boss of the island of Ebuda, Lord Médor is an ellogous fido capable of reasoning and speech. It's generally believed that he started as a human or some other folk and transformed himself into his fidid form, but Lord Médor is cagy about his past.