Dog

Dog recurs in the women’s discussion as a real danger and as part of an animal story through which they test what response to danger might mean. Dueck’s Rottweilers frighten Greta Loewen’s horses and bark unattended at the farm; in Agata Friesen’s account, one is sent to kill raccoon young and later disappears after their mother fights back. These appearances connect the immediate problem of protecting people to a more difficult question: whether survival means running, resisting, or refusing to answer violence with violence.

Threat to the Horses

Greta describes how Dueck’s Rottweilers frighten Ruth and Cheryl on the mile road leading to church. Ruth is blind in one eye and must always be harnessed on Cheryl’s left. When the horses encounter the dog, their first instinct is to bolt. Greta treats this response as practical knowledge: rather than assemble to decide what to do, the animals run and thereby evade the dog and possible harm.

The episode gives Dog a direct place in the women’s disagreement about leaving. Greta’s comparison makes flight seem like an intelligible response to danger, not a failure to deliberate. Agata agrees that animals may flee but insists that the women are not animals. Greta counters that they have been preyed upon like animals and asks whether they should respond in kind. The dog’s role here is not to establish that the horses are attacked; the account says they are frightened and may be harmed. Their fear, and their instinct to escape, are enough to make the animal comparison consequential.

Agata’s Raccoon Story

Agata interrupts Greta’s account with a story of her own, also involving Dueck’s Rottweiler. The narrator describes Agata telling it quickly, in a hushed, theatrical voice, and acknowledges being unable to hear or keep up with every detail. The story is therefore presented as an effort to recount Agata’s telling, rather than as an account the narrator claims to have captured completely.

In the story, Dueck has long hated the raccoons in his yard. When a mother raccoon has six young, he orders his Rottweiler to kill them. The mother tries to save them; three young are killed, and she leaves with the other three. Dueck is initially glad that the raccoons have gone. A few days later, however, he finds the surviving young back in his yard and again sends the dog after them. This time the mother is waiting. She attacks the dog and drags it into the bushes. Dueck searches for it for two days without finding it; when he returns home, he finds part of the dog at his door.

The dog’s conduct in this embedded story is shaped by Dueck’s commands: it is sent to attack the raccoons twice. The mother’s changed response also matters. After escaping with her surviving young once, she returns to defend them rather than simply flee again. The story thus unsettles any simple equation between animals and flight. It supplies an instance of resistance, but the cost and aftermath make that resistance disturbing rather than an uncomplicated model for the women.

Danger at the Farm

Dog appears again in the present-day setting as a practical concern. As the day ends, Dueck is in the city, while his dogs bark for dinner. The narration notes that Dueck is the only person who would care to feed them. Mariche says she will throw them some meat later that evening to prevent them from attacking any of the children.

This moment sets the story told by Agata beside an immediate protective task. The dogs are not only figures in an argument about animals and human behavior; their presence requires attention to the children’s safety. Mariche’s proposed action is specific and preventative: she intends to feed them so they will not attack. The episode does not say whether she does so or what follows, but it makes clear that the threat remains part of the women’s ordinary circumstances even as they consider a decision about staying or leaving.

Function in the Women’s Debate

The dog links distinct forms of danger without making them identical. On the road, Dueck’s Rottweilers frighten horses; in Agata’s story, one is used to pursue raccoons; at the farm, the dogs’ hunger raises concern for children. Across these appearances, the animals’ behavior is entangled with human decisions: Dueck’s commands direct the attack in the raccoon story, while the women must account for the dogs’ presence in deciding how to protect those in their care.

Greta asks what the group should make of Agata’s story, including whether the vulnerable members of the colony should be left exposed in hopes that the men responsible for harm will be killed. Her question shows why the tale is not simply an illustration of animal courage. The raccoon’s defense of her young offers a sharp counterpoint to fleeing, but Greta’s response brings the consequences of retaliatory violence into view. Dog therefore helps frame the women’s central deliberation: the need to protect the vulnerable is urgent, yet the means of doing so remain contested.