- Woman: [having arrived in town by pickup truck] Hi. Are you Maggie O'Connell?
- Maggie O'Connell: Yes.
- Woman: Oh, good. I'm looking for my dog.
- Maggie O'Connell: Your dog?
- Woman: I heard a thing on the radio that you found him.
- Maggie O'Connell: Oh. Right.
- Woman: Don't tell me he took off again?
- Maggie O'Connell: No, I don't think so. He was just, um...
- Woman: ["Rick" comes running up to his true owner] There you are. Come here, Butchy. Come here, boy. Butch.
- Maggie O'Connell: [stunned by this revelation] Butch?
- Woman: Butchy. You bad boy. You come to Mama right this minute. Oh, you sweet thing. Mama missed you.
- Maggie O'Connell: Are you sure this is your dog?
- Woman: I never know where I'm gonna find him. I spend half my time chasing after him. He's such a mooch.
- Maggie O'Connell: A mooch?
- Woman: Yeah. But I love him anyway.
- Maggie O'Connell: Well, you can have him.
- Woman: I'd better hit the road. We've got a 400-mile drive back to Soldotna. Thanks a lot. Come on, lover boy. Let's go home. Come on, Butch.
- Maggie O'Connell: [as Butch looks up to Maggie, who no longer views him as "Rick"] Yeah, right.
- Woman: Thanks again for taking care ofhim. Come on.
- [they leave Cicely together]
- [last lines]
- Ed Chigliak: [narrating his film] People come to Cicely, and sometimes they go. Things are always the same in Cicely, but something new is always happening. You want to wake up each morning just to find out what will happen today.
- [first lines]
- Ed Chigliak: [as a stray malamute enters Cicely] Well, hello there, big fella. Well, what is it, boy?
- [the dog barks]
- Ed Chigliak: Oh. Ruff to you too.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: [about the dog Maggie has just met] You asked the dog whether or not he was Rick?
- Maggie O'Connell: Well, yeah. I said, "If you're Rick, bark three times."
- Shelly Marie Tambo: Did he?
- Maggie O'Connell: Mm-hmm.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: This dog is-is not Rick. People do not become dogs when they die. Dogs are dogs. People are people. That's it, end of story.
- Shelly Marie Tambo: He does sort of look like Rick, in a way.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: Why are you people fostering this delusion? It's such a patently obvious pathology. She's displacing the guilt and grief she feels over the death of Rick... by anthropomorphizing a-a mutt.
- Chris Stevens: Well, Joel, you know, certain belief systems... still embrace the concept of reincarnation. Buddhism, Hindu, Chippewa.
- Shelly Marie Tambo: Hey, Ed, you're an Indian. Is this Rick?
- Ed Chigliak: Oh, I don't know, but if Rick was to come back as a dog, I think he'd be a terrier.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: Okay, look. The dog is not Rick. - I'm stating categorically and in no uncertain terms as a scientist... and as a human being, no dog can come back to Earth and be Rick.
- Maggie O'Connell: [as Joel notices the absence of "Rick," or rather, Butch] Oh, Fleischman, you can come out. The pooch is gone.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: Gone? Really? Where'd he go?
- Maggie O'Connell: Well, if you must know, his owner came and got him. And I don't wanna hear any jokes about it.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
- Maggie O'Connell: Too bad you missed her. She was really attractive.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: Well, Rick always did have an eye for the ladies.
- Maggie O'Connell: Okay, Fleischman. Maybe you're right, and I know how important it is for you to be right about everything. Maybe I did have some leftover things to work out about Rick, and maybe I did work them out with a dog, but so what? But, for your information-you skeptical, rational, empirical know-it-all- the dog was Rick.
- Dr. Joel Fleischman: You're right. What do I know?