(Found) Short story about humanity being persuaded to abandon earth and become dog-like creatures on Saturn/Jupiter?

[hedgewitch]

I think this was a short story or novella. I probably read it in the late 90's, early 00's but it was almost definitely written way earlier, possibly in the 60's or 70's. Mankind had found life on either Saturn or Jupiter or on one of their moons and it was a race of simple, joyful creatures like dogs or something similar. Meanwhile, back on earth, an offshoot of humanity had emerged, who had a higher IQ than everyone else. They were asked to help communicate the news to the rest of the world but actually invented a telescope that made the viewer sympathetic to the point of view of whatever they looked at through it and so humanity was promptly persuaded to wholesale abandon earth and go and become one of the dog-like creatures instead. The geniuses left behind thought they would get to inherit the earth but unfortunately it turned out that inter-dimensional monsters (might be called creelies or something like that?) were also lurking, waiting to move in (I think?) but only dogs were aware of them before? And so the genius guys also end up deserting the earth by passing to another dimension or something... Sorry, can only remember bits and pieces and I may be combining several stories into one (it also all seems a bit dog-heavy now I come to write it down)... Any help gratefully received! Thanks

 

[Hugh]

I think this was a short story or novella. I probably read it in the late 90's, early 00's but it was almost definitely written way earlier, possibly in the 60's or 70's. Mankind had found life on either Saturn or Jupiter or on one of their moons and it was a race of simple, joyful creatures like dogs or something similar. Meanwhile, back on earth, an offshoot of humanity had emerged, who had a higher IQ than everyone else. They were asked to help communicate the news to the rest of the world but actually invented a telescope that made the viewer sympathetic to the point of view of whatever they looked at through it and so humanity was promptly persuaded to wholesale abandon earth and go and become one of the dog-like creatures instead. The geniuses left behind thought they would get to inherit the earth but unfortunately it turned out that inter-dimensional monsters (might be called creelies or something like that?) were also lurking, waiting to move in (I think?) but only dogs were aware of them before? And so the genius guys also end up deserting the earth by passing to another dimension or something... Sorry, can only remember bits and pieces and I may be combining several stories into one (it also all seems a bit dog-heavy now I come to write it down)... Any help gratefully received! Thanks

I'm sure this is Clifford D. Simak's "City". Although there's been some understandable distortion due to the passage of time, I doubt this could be anything else.

The creelies are "cobblies", so you were very close.

City (novel) - Wikipedia

And here's a list of covers, just 164 of them, (scroll down the middle section):

Clifford D. Simak - The International Bibliography

 

[hedgewitch]

That's it! Fantastic - thank you so much. It looks like I did get quite a few things muddled up but didn't misremember all the dogs...

I did get Simak returned in some of my own search results but obviously hadn't managed to narrow it down to this particular work.

 

[Hugh]

I think one of the short stories in "City", "Desertion", is truly wonderful. It's also one of the most anthologised SF stories ever.

You might enjoy these other Simaks if you haven't already read them:
A Choice of Gods
Way Station

 

[tobl]

there's another book with similar story but unfortunelyi don´t remember the name or author

 

[hedgewitch]

I think one of the short stories in "City", "Desertion", is truly wonderful. It's also one of the most anthologised SF stories ever.

You might enjoy these other Simaks if you haven't already read them:
A Choice of Gods
Way Station

Thanks again - I'll definitely check them out.