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I first read Watchers back in the early nineties and last month I re-read it.

The ending differed a lot from my recollection, in the new version they settle down with a baby and the special dog and a tranquil life... the end.

This left me somewhat nonplussed, in my memory of the book there was a chapter featuring a gathering/house party of owners of similar dogs.

The humans all sit and chat, the dogs did the same using modified computers set up for paws, the animals spelled out their problems etc.

Was the book revised at some point or did Dean Koontz perhaps do a short story with the same characters and I've got them mentally merged?.

Update: I've now got a full copy of the book and I've taken a good look at the ending, it matches the details supplied by Fuzzy Boots in the answer.

However I still suffer from a Mandela Effect with the ending - I'm convinced that, at some time, I read where the dog families had gathered around various modified computers and there was like older dogs passing on learning to the pups via the PC screens, then later we had the Einstein final scene

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    Demon Seed and Twilight Eyes are listed as revised and extended editions; Watchers isn't explicitly listed as having an updated version. deankoontz.com/book-series/fiction
    – Michael
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 15:07
  • Do you happen to know what edition you have with this other ending?
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 17:40
  • I know the story but I couldn't identify which version of the story
    – Danny Mc G
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 18:48

1 Answer 1

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Huh. The version I have has the same end you remember, with them having a party with the owners of the offspring of Einstein in the third part of chapter 11.

They threw a party at the bleached-wood house on the forested slopes above the Pacific. Because the Hyatts would soon be moving to a new and larger house a bit farther up the coast, they made it a party to remember, not merely a birthday bash but a goodbye to the house that had first sheltered them as a family.

Jim Keene drove in from Carmel with Pooka and Sadie, his two black labs, and his young golden retriever, Leonardo, who was usually called Leo. A few close friends came in from the real-estate office where Sam—”Travis” to everyone—worked in Carmel Highlands, and from the gallery in Cannel where Nora’s paintings were exhibited and sold. These friends brought their retrievers, too, all of them second-litter offspring of Einstein and his mate, Minnie.

....

At the dark end of that good day, when the guests were gone, when Jimmy was asleep in his room, when Minnie and her first litter were settling down for the night, Einstein and Travis and Nora gathered at the pantry off the kitchen.

The scrabble-tile dispenser was gone. In its place, an IBM computer stood on the floor. Einstein took a stylus in his mouth and tapped the keyboard. The message appeared on the screen:
THEY GROW UP FAST.

They converse a bit more, but that's the last page.

Poking around on the copies available on the Internet Archive Openlibrary lending page, the 2003 version has the party on pages 481-483 and the 1987 edition has it from pages 404-406.

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    I think the ebook copy I had last month was corrupted, I've went back and downloaded it again this afternoon, and this time the final pages are there! Sorry all for the inadvertent time wasting (I really was bewildered by my memory)
    – Danny Mc G
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 20:17

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