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(Note: this is a companion piece to my story series "Woofy and Me," and occurs shortly after the events of that story. This piece contains what could be considered to be major spoilers of certain plot points in that series, and may not make much sense outside of that series' context.)

The following is a selected entry from the personal journal of Dr. Artemis, recovered and published several decades after the incident. This journal entry, while undated, appears to be from roughly two months after the incident in question.

One of the most difficult battles that I must face in writing about the phenomenon of Cano Sapiens is the ongoing conflict between subjective and objective perceptions. I suppose I have the dubious distinction of having experience with both. While my... I hate to use the word subjects, but I can't come up with a better term. While my subjects generally have only the subjective viewpoint, from the time of meeting their partners onward, I was afforded roughly a month of time in which to make a substantial amount of impartial observations of various individuals and couplings, before I myself became involved, and therefore certainly biased towards subjectivity. That assessment, though, is not wholly accurate, as even before that time, I certainly had some emotions towards the various couples, especially in light of what they were forced to endure in the name of conspiracies and xenophobia.

The gulf between subjectivity and objectivity is perhaps most obvious when considering the accounts, and fears, of the soldiers behind the original Operation Basilisk, as contrasted with the many accounts I have received from my subjects, as well as my own experiences. When you consider the situation in light of its surrounding circumstances, the argument can certainly be made, and certainly has been made by some of those responsible, that the project was, at the very least, an auxiliary success. Consider this: roughly 100 Cano Sapiens were released onto the population. In a very brief time, perhaps only a matter of hours, over three-quarters of them had targeted an individual and formed a bond with him. The bonds formed virtually instantaneously, almost on contact, and the people who were bonded were immediately affected by the content - regardless of prior sexuality, according the the accounts I have collected, every single pairing initiated sexual contact within twenty-four hours - in fact, while most meetings happened in the afternoon, every one of them resulted in sex before the sun rose the next morning. By this point, the couples were already basically inseparable, with a zero percent rate of rejection, and within three to four days after that, all couples had formed reciprocal empathic bonds. In addition, these bonds also appeared to enable new chemical pathways in the brain, which allowed chemical secretions from the Cano Sapiens, which apparently have no effect from either acute or prolonged exposure to unattached individuals, to produce intense aphrodisiac and psychotropic reactions in the brains of their partners. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that they could use their bonding abilities to temporarily incapacitate even people who were not bonded to them, as evidenced in the effects they produced on a full platoon of highly-trained special operations troops, rendering them combat-ineffective for a prolonged period. Indeed, their presence seems to have a strong pacifying effect on their partners - while some of the partners that were chosen had a history of violence, either in past relationships or in general, there has not been a single violent confrontation, or even a verbal altercation that went beyond a strongly worded argument, since the community here was established. Certainly, in light of this evidence, a compelling argument can be made that Cano Sapiens could be essentially weaponized, certainly as agents to be used for the co-option of highly-placed enemy operatives, and a similar argument could be made that each and every partner of a Cano Sapiens, at least from the initial batch, was involuntarily coerced into a life of sexual servitude, and kept that way through intense and uninterrupted emotional manipulation and chemical pacification. There is fairly conclusive evidence that if one of their partners appears ready to get out of hand, Cano Sapiens will use their abilities to immediately engage their partners in sexual activity, to which they always acquiesce to momentarily, and the contact continues until both people are effectively pacified and unable to take much of any directed action for a period of hours.

There is a part of me that is intensely troubled when considering this theory, but I am unable to determine a way to evaluate the emotional state of a Cano Sapiens partner in a vacuum, as at this stage, both partners protest vigorously if they are kept apart for any length of time. However, considering the voluble viewpoints that many of the couples have regaled me with, I do find it hard to believe in the bleakness of this theory, at least from my own subjective point of view.

For starters, when one considers emotional manipulation (or brainwashing), the usual technique used is uneven reinforcement. By providing either random reward or punishment, generally regardless of actions, a person can become so confused as to what generates the responses that he can then be manipulated, through additional directed reinforcement, into adopting new sets of behavior, often to the point of even renouncing closely-held beliefs. However, in this case, there is no clear evidence that anything like this is happening. In fact, the only thing that is apparent across all of my interviews is that there appears to be a near-constant stream of positive reinforcement, with the only occasional "negative" reinforcement coming in the sensation of depressed or agitated emotions on the part of the Cano Sapiens if their partners are distant or uninterested for a period of time; and even this behavior essentially disappears once the reciprocal bond is formed. Additionally, any notion that the Canos are consciously controlling their partners does seem unlikely based on the evidence thus far, as apart from encouraging frequent closeness, cuddling, and sexual contact, the Cano Sapiens do not appear to be changing the behavior of their partners significantly at all (the previous curtailment of violent behavior notwithstanding, although I am also not convinced that this is a conscious effect, and rather hypothesize that it has to do with the reciprocal nature of the emotional bond, and the desire of the Cano Sapiens to head off any disturbing emotions before they are forced to experience the brunt of them through their connection). And, in fact, can it really be considered to be controlling if the only command they seem to issue is for their partners to love them, something which they seem all too happy to do on their own? In all of my interviews, I have yet to hear any accounts of partners feeling trapped, oppressed, or uncomfortable - in fact, most of them are unanimous in their claims that being with their Cano partners has been the best experience of their lives, and that, if given the opportunity to return to their previous lives, none of them would choose to do so. Of course, I cannot entirely rule out whether or not those perceptions are the result of emotional or chemical manipulation, but even when some were evaluated via polygraph, we were unable to detect any deception, or even any elevated levels of anxiety when partners were questioned about their relationships. In every way that I can analyze, these relationships appear to be effectively symbiotic, and as loving as I've seen in any traditional couples - in fact, they seem even closer, in general, most likely due to their unique bond with each other. Additionally, there is the fact that, when evaluated separately, the Cano Sapiens express nothing short of undying affection and admiration for their partners; and all of their actions towards their partners, including many actions that can only be described as altruistic, seem geared to make their partners happy, and are rarely selfish or self-directed. In fact, one could argue that due to the reciprocal nature of the bond, altruistic behavior is almost guaranteed in both parties, as eliciting a positive emotional reaction in their partners means that they will also experience that emotion, and so are predisposed to take actions that bring the maximum amount of pleasure for both individuals.

I suppose it is unsurprising that my own subjective experiences trend more towards this latter theory of the bond as symbiosis rather than slavery. I can certainly find plentiful evidence to support such theories in my own relationship, but due to that subjective nature, it is difficult to examine that evidence in an empirical fashion and from an unbiased perspective, despite my previous assumptions of being able to remain objective regardless of the circumstances. I made those assumptions primarily based on the fact that, previous to my involvement, sex had been an almost negligible priority on my part, due certainly in large part to my intense academic studies, followed by my first professional experience performing intensive genetic studies of mutations in the human immunodeficiency virus. Upon concluding that research, and having no desire whatsoever to cultivate such organisms inside my own person, I generally remained celibate from that point onwards, and never really missed the opportunity - as my research resulted almost immediately in a job offer by the CDC, I was far too preoccupied by my positions, first in genetic research and then eventually in epidemic management, to give social considerations much thought. As a result, once I made the decision to attempt bonding with one of the unattached Canos, and when one of them decided to take me up on the offer, the results were quite surprising. Despite its dramatic undertones, the word revelatory springs to mind, and at this point, about one month into our relationship, I can quite emphatically state that I am of the same mind of the other subjects, and would not wish to end the relationship under any circumstances. Even without the bond, being in this relationship has been surprisingly eye-opening, and has provided a fascinating firsthand look at the functioning of Cano Sapiens from an intimate perspective that provides insights not normally attainable through interviews. I suppose that now would be the time to make a joke about my partner withholding sex, due to being incensed by my characterizing our relationship as a science experiment; however, since as far as I'm aware withholding sex is a concept that is completely alien to Canos, I'm not sure such a comment would be particularly relevant.

Talking along those lines, though, I would like to take a moment to mention some tangential research I've been recently considering, informal as it may be, into some of the sexual proclivities of Cano Sapiens. One thing I realized early on is that this species has had the truly unique opportunity to create its own sexual culture, without the influence of physical or social imperatives. For whatever reason, despite all of the near-encyclopedic knowledge that Dr. Dubrovnikov implemented using his rather unique developmental indoctrination protocol, one thing that he left out was any information on the practice of sex. As a result, he created a new, sentient species with the biological urge for sex, but without a gendered population to provide an obvious outlet, and without any social instruction on how to proceed in resolving those urges. The results are not perhaps as surprising upon further examination, but are still quite remarkable when measured against the development of practices in human male homosexuality. While many theories have been put forward as to the prevalence of anal sex as the primary sex act of male homosexuality, from direct preference to the specific targeting of anti-AIDS campaigns, there is certainly an argument to be made for heterosexual biology directing the behavior - when the primary sexual act is the insertion of a penis into a vagina, the natural connection of object-in-orifice seems sensical, and so the logical conclusion in the absence of a vagina is to find another orifice to use in the performance of sex. However, in this case, Cano Sapiens had no experience with this, either in practical biology or in any sort of social instruction, and without this implied connection, did not relate those concepts to the performance of sex. In fact, in the absence of the notion of procreation, sex appears to have been simplified to the purpose of fulfilling those urges in whatever way happens to be pleasurable. Given that in their early time in Dubrovnikov's lab, they were generally unclothed, discovering pleasurable sensations was as simple as pressing their bodies together - as I quickly discovered upon embarking on my own relationship, the soft, plush fur on their lower abdomens provides an environment that is remarkably conducive to producing surprisingly erotic sensations. As a result, it appears that this full-body contact provided the necessary sensations, and from that was derived a procedure of pelvic movement that provided the friction and continual stimulation to arrive at orgasm, while simultaneously maintaining the close contact that Cano Sapiens appear to inherently desire. It is true that they did advance from there to experiment with certain other activities such as oral stimulation, and probably other things once they were exposed to humans and their own sexual behaviors, but it is certainly a unique method of deriving a sex act - essentially "making out" to the point of mutual orgasm - and is unlike anything I've seen before. The closest I can think of is the genito-genital rubbing that occurs between females in some primate species, but I have never seen a case of such a sex act being spontaneously chosen as the primary act among male members of a population, who, if they do engage in homosexual acts, seem to generally do so as a way of aping or mimicking heterosexual mounting behavior. Of course, given that they are sentient creatures, mapping their behavior to those of non-sentient may be a futile exercise, but it is nonetheless a fascinating development, and is certainly only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential for anthropological research - while their population is admittedly limited, their relative isolation and subsequent spontaneous generation of their own cultural aspects is a subject that I'm sure would be compelling to explore in depth, especially for someone with the proper background. As my main area of expertise remains the genetics of microorganisms, my own conclusions may admittedly be primarily self-informed, but I am also uniquely positioned to perform many lines of research related to Cano Sapiens.

Which, I suppose, brings me back to the question of ethics and perceptions. I am quite certain that I could critically examine the paragraph I have just written, and fault it for any number of instances of my own subjectivity leading me towards certain conclusions, and certainly the choice to even digress on that topic in this entry speaks of a certain subjective drive, informed as it may be by scientific inquiry. That being said, I intend to continue in both of my roles, as researcher and advocate, and perform both to the best of my abilities, and with the most objectivity I can muster. While I would prefer to keep this journal reasonably impartial, it must by its very nature considerably reflect my own perspectives, and it may also be true that my own experiences can help to inform my conclusions. After all, some of the most influential studies in developmental psychology, for instance, were observations by psychologists of their own families as they developed, so I can't fault this subjective method of observation entirely. I simply wish that I could do so without any lingering doubts in my own mind as to whether my own subjectivity could be leading me astray. It would be more horrible than I could imagine to learn down the road that I had willingly led over a hundred people into some sort of inescapable, brainwashed sexual slavery, perpetuated by my own biased conclusions. While from both an objective and subjective standpoint, I feel quite certain that this is not the case, I also feel that, like it or not, I am now ultimately responsible for the fates of all the people in this facility. As a result, the only responsible conclusion is that I must examine the situation both empirically and objectively, using my own experiences as just another source of experimental data, and to use what evidence I find to inform my decisions going forward.