A Dog’s Death
Katrina Canter
ENG 125- Introduction to Literature
Dr. Sarah Bowman
July 2, 2012

A Dog’s Death I chose A Dog’s Death to write about because it touched my heart. From the first line, I could tell that it was not going to be a good ending. I have lost animals before and I know what that emptiness feels like. I thought that I could not be whole again without my pet. In the poem, the author takes me through several emotions as well as several images and in the end sadness, sympathy for the owner and then empathy for the actions of the dog before she died (Clugston, 2010). The author uses the reader/response technique so that we can see and feel all the emotions of having a loved one die, whether it is a pet or a human being. The author sets the tone in the first line when he says that the dog must have been kicked or hit by a car (Clugston, 2010). The tone is apprehensive in the beginning because the dog is not acting as rambunctious as a puppy normally would, when the author talks about “her shy malaise” (Clugston, 2010). The tone goes from apprehensive to worry when the owner finds the dog under the bed barely alive. Then when the dog dies in his arms, there is grief and sadness. The last emotion in the poem is sympathy for the dog because even when she was dying, she still tried to please her owner by dragging herself over to the paper because she had diarrhea. When reading this poem, the author uses image to show me how the dog was acting when he says, “We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction” (Clugston, 2010). He also uses image when he says, “we found her twisted and limp but still alive” (Clugston, 2010). I can picture the puppy laying on the floor all twisted up with pain and not being able to do anything about it. I can also feel and see the grief on the woman’s face when he tells her the puppy has died.