Good Boy V Today

The city council wants to remove him (liability, stray laws). The townsfolk are rallying with #FreeGoodBoyV. The question: Can unconditional goodness survive a system designed to regulate it?

Anytown, USA — When a precinct accidentally registered a Labrador retriever named “V” as a voter, no one laughed harder than his owner, retired librarian Margo Hines.

In every teen comedy from the 1980s to today, the “good boy” (sensitive, helpful, loyal) is set against the “V-card holder” (the virgin, marked by the letter V like a scarlet letter). The narrative always demands that the good boy must lose his “V” to become a man—but at what cost?

“He’s more qualified than the other guy,” said one resident. “At least V cleans up his own messes.”

Every morning at 7:15 a.m., a scruffy-eared dog named Vic (but everyone calls him “Good Boy V”) appears at the corner of Maple and 4th. He carries a single tennis ball in his mouth. No leash. No owner in sight. For two years, he has guided distracted children away from traffic, alerted shop owners to fallen elderly customers, and once led police directly to a lost hiker.