(Strip Number 6039, Original Publication Date, 26 November 1986)
Panel 1: At home, we see Panicky Mike ask Elly if whatever's wrong with Farley can be fixed.
Panel 2: She tells him that apparently, he's always had this problem with the way his hips are put together.
Panel 3: She then says that veterinarian says that now that he's older, it's started to actually manifest itself as a problem.
Panel 4: Mike complains that since Farley is five, he's far too young to be old.
Summary: On its own, this looks very much like what I thought it was back when I was twenty-one: a small boy not quite working it out that since Farley grew from puppy to adult dog in a year, it sort of means that he was going to keep on aging faster than a person would. Given who Mike is, though, we're probably going to see moral force ascribed to an impersonal fact of life. Farley dying at fifteen is unfair for the same reason that numbers always adding up to the same thing every time despite the fact that he'd like them to add up to something else for once is unfair.
