Overall:
I'm glad to see some revisions here, and the draft is generally moving in the right direction, but I still feel there are some glaring problems with tone in some places, grammar, and the emotional delivery at the end. The introduction of the messages between the therapist and the site director is meant to preface O'Hara's emotional state and set up the rest of the narrative, but it's too vague for a first time reader to understand. Sure, it can be intuited that O'Hara is distressed because of the loss of Ailey, but that can be difficult to figure out unless you actively question why the author put it there. It also doesn't give us any characterization for O'Hara. What ends up happening is that O'Hara isn't give enough unique lines or moments to be a sympathetic character with how late they are introduced in the story, which causes the emotion punch to fall flat.
On the topic of the conprocs, it feels over explained. A lot of it deals with how to take care of the dogs that are brought back, which should probably go in an addendum or a separate paragraph since it doesn't have anything to do with how to contain the bowl itself.
Specific:
as such, each member of staff will be given ownership of 5 dogs each.
I mean, I can understand allowing staff to resurrect dead dogs, but why does everyone at the site have to have 5 dogs? It would be quite a drain on resources and there doesn't seem to be a point to have everyone own dogs.
being granted ownership of the K9 Unit does not afford staff anything outside of there current duties, personnel with a level 5 clearance level will mediate, walks and any sort of leisure time at their own discretion provided adequate time and activity for the dogs to bond with there owners to ensure the anomalous effects of SCP-XXXX work as is intended, all dietary needs are to be kept the same using Foundation standard equipment for water and food.
This whole part feels far too wordy. A lot of this would just be common sense and doesn't need to be included. The rest can be summed up in less words.
The prospect of duplicating SCP-XXXX the use of SCP-038 for uses at multiple locations is being considered, but research will need to be carried out to see if its effects are subject to the same limitations as SCP-500.
Referencing these scps is technically fine, although referencing series 1 is overdone in general. Aside from that, I don't really see why there's such a big need to clone the bowl. Sure, it brings back dead dogs and that's really nice, but I don't see it being something the Foundation would want to mass produce like SCP-500.
Upon SCP-XXXX being drained, the XXXX-1 instance will say goodbye to its owner.
A few of these points feel out of order, since we don't technically know what -1 instances are yet. Most of them also describe the dogs and not the bowl, so they feel misplaced. I would just move the ones mentioning -1 instances to under XXXX-1.
RECOVERY LOG
This log feels far too long and a little too much time is devoted to learning how the bowl was recovered. I wouldn't get rid of this necessarily, however, I'd add more regarding O'Hara. It's around this point that we should learn a little about them through a few messages or personal logs. Since the recovery isn't part of the main narrative and doesn't play a role later on, it should be cut down.
Two foundation agents of Manx heritage posing as journalists
I can't say I'm well versed in the culture and such of this place, but I don't see the why the Foundation would send in two agents who had heritage here. Sure, they might know the terrain and local culture better, but that doesn't seem necessary for a simple extraction.
MacGilcobraght: What, what are you doing? Get your hands off me!
Agent 1: Anomaly has been secured along with a possible instance, and the subject has been subdued with a class A amnestic.
I don't know why this stands out to me so much, maybe it's just me. It just seems a little too brutal since it's right before a heartwarming story about someone and their dog.
Director Roberts, I hope you're well; Aoibhinn O'Hara has requested time off from experimentations due to emotional stress…
This feels like the therapist is sharing a bit too much. Yes, it's the Foundation, and few things are actually confidential, but it feels like it should be worded so that the therapist recommends O'Hara take off time for x reasons rather than telling the site director their whole emotional state.
…if Miss O'Hara decides after that she doesn't want to run the experiment, I will heed your advice and use someone else.
A bit glaringly uncharacteristic of the Foundation to let a researcher decide for themselves if they wanted to continue working on a anomaly, especially since the site director was just informed that O'Hara was emotionally unstable. I mean, they probably would have let someone else test the scp once they found out it was going to be an emotional experience.
Site Director Roberts has issued me with leave to care for Ailey up until her second passing,
I still have the same issues with this line that I had before. It foreshadows too heavily, and it takes away from the emotional impact since you can see where this is going.
Ailey is getting slower and slower, she's still wagging her tail, but her movements have become sluggish, and she's been sleeping more.
I think it should be about this point where O'Hara actually realizes that she's going to have to watch her dog die for a second time. This is where you could have them become frantic and depressed yet again, really exploring the mindset of someone who knows they are going to have to experience the death of a loved one yet again. But as the unknown day slowly approaches, we are shown that O'Hara has grown and come to terms with what's going to happen. Perhaps as they despair about the future, Ailey comes and licks their cheek, and they realize that they should be grateful for the chance they've had, and that they should enjoy the time they have left.
Advice:
One really distracting thing throughout the article, at least for me, is the egregious use of commas. In the personal notes is one thing, but even most of the conprocs is just a bunch of sentences incorrectly strung together by commas. The last note of O'Hara's log is just one long sentence too. Before working on the narrative anymore, I'd strongly recommend reading over the draft and fixing the improper sentences.
I've already talked about this previously, but one big thing that could improve the draft would be giving us an addendum that shows O'Hara after the loss of Ailey in addition to the message from the therapist. I think a personal log would be the best. Show us how O'Hara has been coping after the loss of Ailey. Perhaps they've been experiencing a lack of appetite, chronic depression, distancing themselves from family and coworkers, heavy drinking, etc. (Maybe you could also subtlety imply that O'Hara really didn't have anyone else in their life besides Ailey) This sets up O'Hara's character arc since it shows us how poorly they handled Ailey's first death. It also provides an opportunity to add some lines that give us a sense of their unique personality outside of how they interact with Ailey.
All of these things would aid in delivering the intended emotional impact.
To also give O'Hara some more lines and make them feel like a constant force in the narrative, perhaps you could also add in a few lines where they describe their reaction seeing the bowl's properties the first time. This is where they decide that they are going to be the next one to test the bowl, against the recommendations of staff who say they should continue testing on D-class. This would involve cutting the message between the therapist and the site director, but it would make it a bit more understandable as to why a researcher is being used for testing so soon after the initial test.
