[R. Nemo Hill]

Yet the poem is sardonic above all else, for it casts a sober eye on dog-love, calls the dog "cute and crushed", and is skeptical of the sacrifices made for love. It's that complexity that unsentimentalizes the subject. Yes, the dog is an optimist, but the dog (and the lover) are still in chains. The fact that the dog still believes seems a mixed blessing from the point of view of the narrator; but to readers who love dogs, that belief is a small miracle; and the tension between those two views, belief and critique, faith and doubt, is the exquisite knife-edge the poem is balanced on.

Nemo