From Gimlet, this is ReplyAll. I'm PJ Vod.

And this week we're doing a segment we call Super Tech Support.

Super Tech Support happens when someone is having a problem with their internet and we try

to fix it for them. Today we are super tech supporting a woman named Jade Davis. She's

an academic who I follow online. Usually she posts about stuff like the ethical questions

raised by self-driving cars or the importance of carefully understanding all the legal

agreements that you agree to whenever you're updating your iTunes or whatever. That's

actually a huge pet peeve for us, in terms of service ingredients. But the other night

I saw her tweet something very different. She was saying that her dog had been kidnapped

by the internet. How could this be possible? How could the internet steal somebody's dog?

I mentioned Jade and I asked her if we could talk on the phone. Just to find out how this

could have possibly happened. And what emerged was a much larger story about how hopelessly

impossible it can be for people to communicate, particularly when they're using the internet,

the tool that is in theory is supposed to help with communication.

So the story starts with Jade's pug, Schneider. I've seen pictures of him. He's 11 years

old, but he still sort of looks like a puppy. He's small and gray and cute. And Jade of course

loves him. She says that he's more emotionally complex than your typical pug.

The first time I had to leave him out for an extended period of time, I gave him extra

dog treats because I felt so guilty about leaving him alone. And when I came home, he

hadn't eaten any of the dog treats. And he came out of his kennel with a dog treat and

gave it to me. Oh, Schneider can even be mildly psychic. When

Jade and Justin got married and started having kids, Schneider seemed to know that Jade was

...