A selective and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic assay for a novel cognitive enhancer, X9121 (I), and its mono N-oxide metabolite, XG696 (II), in dog plasma has been developed. Compounds I, II and internal standard (I.S.) were first extracted from dog plasma using a solid-phase Bond Elut Certify I 10-ml LRC reservoir extraction cartridge. Chromatographic separation of I, II and I.S. was conducted on a reversed-phase Zorbax Stable Bond cyano column. Ammonium acetate buffer (0.05 M, pH 6)-acetonitrile-triethylamine (75:25:0.1, v/v) was used as the mobile phase. Detection of all three compounds was by UV light absorbance at 313 nm. Using 0.5 ml of dog plasma for extraction, the minimum quantifiable limit was 10 ng/ml and the assay was linear from 10 to 5400 ng/ml. The coefficients of variation for intra-day precision ranged from 2.2 to 8.5% for I and from 2.5 to 9.8% for II. The coefficients of variation for the inter-day precision for these two compounds ranged from 2.6 to 9.0% and from 3.6 to 16.2%, respectively. The absolute percent differences for the accuracy results were within 11.0% of the spiked concentrations. Compounds I and II were stable in frozen plasma at -20 degrees C for at least 67 days.