Man investigates mind swap, becomes dog [duplicate]

Question

Read this probably in 1980s in a short story anthology.

It starts with a series of catatonic down-and-outs in hospital. The hero is, I think, a reporter who answers an ad from a shady organisation looking for poor, educated young men with no family.

He is taken in by the organisation and realises they are swapping the young people with the consciousnesses of old rich clients, giving them a second life. The catatonics are the leftovers.

Unfortunately he is rumbled and ends up swapped with a big dog.

There's a detective involved and he takes the dog and they make a living on stage as a trick dog act for a while.

After some time the hero begins to have flashes back to his catatonic body in a hospital bed. The suggestion is he might eventually return to his own body.

Would have made a cute film for a good animal actor. Any ideas?

Answer 1

This sounds very much like A Matter of Form by Horace Gold, first published in Astounding in December 1938. It was reprinted in a few anthologies in the 1980s, as you can see in the ISFDB link. A good summary is available here:

A surgeon has discovered that the pineal gland at the brain's base is the source of an animal's identity; surgically extract & transplant it in another animal's brain, & you've put the original in a new body. And he has a rich, old & seriously ill financier who wants a young man's body!

In one of the experiments, the surgeon exchanged the identity of a kidnapped man with a dog. Only the resulting man-in-dog's-body turned out to be more determined & resourceful than either the surgeon or his financier expected...

The surgeon is a traditional type of mad scientist named Dr Moss. The man whose mind is transferred into the dog is a newspaper reporter named Gilroy, who was investigating the case of the catatonic patients, who were the doctor's failed experiments.

The story can be read online at the Luminist archive.